TY - JOUR A1 - Herold, Fabian A1 - Behrendt, Tom A1 - Meißner, Caroline A1 - Müller, Notger Germar A1 - Schega, Lutz T1 - The Influence of acute sprint interval training on cognitive performance of healthy younger adults JF - International journal of environmental research and public health : IJERPH / Molecular Diversity Preservation International N2 - There is considerable evidence showing that an acute bout of physical exercises can improve cognitive performance, but the optimal exercise characteristics (e.g., exercise type and exercise intensity) remain elusive. In this regard, there is a gap in the literature to which extent sprint interval training (SIT) can enhance cognitive performance. Thus, this study aimed to investigate the effect of a time-efficient SIT, termed as "shortened-sprint reduced-exertion high-intensity interval training" (SSREHIT), on cognitive performance. Nineteen healthy adults aged 20-28 years were enrolled and assessed for attentional performance (via the d2 test), working memory performance (via Digit Span Forward/Backward), and peripheral blood lactate concentration immediately before and 10 min after an SSREHIT and a cognitive engagement control condition (i.e., reading). We observed that SSREHIT can enhance specific aspects of attentional performance, as it improved the percent error rate (F%) in the d-2 test (t (18) = -2.249, p = 0.037, d = -0.516), which constitutes a qualitative measure of precision and thoroughness. However, SSREHIT did not change other measures of attentional or working memory performance. In addition, we observed that the exercise-induced increase in the peripheral blood lactate levels correlated with changes in attentional performance, i.e., the total number of responses (GZ) (r(m) = 0.70, p < 0.001), objective measures of concentration (SKL) (r(m) = 0.73, p < 0.001), and F% (r(m) = -0.54, p = 0.015). The present study provides initial evidence that a single bout of SSREHIT can improve specific aspects of attentional performance and conforming evidence for a positive link between cognitive improvements and changes in peripheral blood lactate levels. KW - sprint interval training KW - acute exercise KW - cognition KW - lactate KW - exercise-cognition Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19010613 SN - 1660-4601 VL - 19 IS - 1 PB - MDPI CY - Basel ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Peppler, Lisa A1 - Feißt, Martin A1 - Schneider, Anna A1 - Apelt, Maja A1 - Schenk, Liane T1 - Beyond one-sided expectations of integration BT - rethinking international nurse migration to Germany T2 - European journal of public health N2 - Background: Like most countries, Germany is currently recruiting international nurses due to staff shortages. While these are mostly academic, the academisation of nursing in Germany has only just begun. This allows for a broader look at the participation of migrant nurses: How do care teams deal with the fact that immigrant colleagues are theoretically more highly qualified than long-established colleagues? Methods: Case studies were conducted in four inpatient care teams of two hospitals in 2022. Qualitative data include 26 observation protocols, 4 group discussions and 17 guided interviews. These were analysed using the documentary method and validated intersubjectively. Results: Due to current academisation efforts in Germany and the immigration of academised nursing staff from abroad, the areas of activity and responsibility of nursing in Germany are under negotiating pressure. This concerns basic care for example, which in Germany is provided by skilled workers, but in other countries is mostly provided by assistants or relatives. The question of who should provide basic care, whether all nurses or only nursing assistants, documents the struggle between an established and a new understanding of care. In this context, the knowledge and skills of migrant and academicised care workers become a crucial aspect in the struggle for a new professional identity for care in Germany. Conclusions: The specific situation in Germany makes it possible to show the potential for change that international care migration can constitute for destination countries. The far-reaching process of change of German nursing is given a further dimension not only by its academization, but by the immigration of international and academically trained nursing staff, where inclusive or exclusive effects can already be observed. Key messages: The increasing proportion of migrant nurses accelerates the current discussion on nursing in Germany. Conflict areas show up in everyday work of care teams and must be addressed there. KW - emigration and immigration KW - Germany KW - inpatients KW - negotiating KW - nurses KW - nursing staff KW - immigrants KW - professional identity Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1093/eurpub/ckad160.1484 SN - 1101-1262 SN - 1464-360X VL - 33 IS - Supplement 2 PB - Oxford University Press CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - González Hauck, Sué A1 - Herrmann, Franziska A1 - Hettihewa, Julian A. A1 - Kraft, Dariush A1 - Milas, Max A1 - Springer, Stephanie A1 - Weckner, Franka T1 - Jurisdiction BT - Who speaks international law? JF - Zeitschrift für ausländisches öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht Y1 - 2022 UR - https://beck-online.beck.de/Bcid/Y-300-Z-ZAOERV-B-2022-S-289-N-1 U6 - https://doi.org/10.17104/0044-2348-2022-2-289 SN - 0044-2348 SN - 2942-3562 VL - 82 IS - 2 SP - 289 EP - 298 PB - C.H. Beck CY - München ER - TY - JOUR A1 - McHuron, Elizabeth A. A1 - Adamczak, Stephanie A1 - Arnould, John P. Y. A1 - Ashe, Erin A1 - Booth, Cormac A1 - Bowen, W. Don A1 - Christiansen, Fredrik A1 - Chudzinska, Magda A1 - Costa, Daniel P. A1 - Fahlman, Andreas A1 - Farmer, Nicholas A. A1 - Fortune, Sarah M. E. A1 - Gallagher, Cara A. A1 - Keen, Kelly A. A1 - Madsen, Peter T. A1 - McMahon, Clive R. A1 - Nabe-Nielsen, Jacob A1 - Noren, Dawn P. A1 - Noren, Shawn R. A1 - Pirotta, Enrico A1 - Rosen, David A. S. A1 - Speakman, Cassie N. A1 - Villegas-Amtmann, Stella A1 - Williams, Rob T1 - Key questions in marine mammal bioenergetics JF - Conservation physiology N2 - Bioenergetic approaches are increasingly used to understand how marine mammal populations could be affected by a changing and disturbed aquatic environment. There remain considerable gaps in our knowledge of marine mammal bioenergetics, which hinder the application of bioenergetic studies to inform policy decisions. We conducted a priority-setting exercise to identify high-priority unanswered questions in marine mammal bioenergetics, with an emphasis on questions relevant to conservation and management. Electronic communication and a virtual workshop were used to solicit and collate potential research questions from the marine mammal bioenergetic community. From a final list of 39 questions, 11 were identified as 'key'questions because they received votes from at least 50% of survey participants. Key questions included those related to energy intake (prey landscapes, exposure to human activities) and expenditure (field metabolic rate, exposure to human activities, lactation, time-activity budgets), energy allocation priorities, metrics of body condition and relationships with survival and reproductive success and extrapolation of data from one species to another. Existing tools to address key questions include labelled water, animal-borne sensors, mark-resight data from long-term research programs, environmental DNA and unmanned vehicles. Further validation of existing approaches and development of new methodologies are needed to comprehensively address some key questions, particularly for cetaceans. The identification of these key questions can provide a guiding framework to set research priorities, which ultimately may yield more accurate information to inform policies and better conserve marine mammal populations. Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1093/conphys/coac055 SN - 2051-1434 VL - 10 IS - 1 PB - Oxford Univ. Press CY - Oxford ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Panzer, Marcel A1 - Bender, Benedict A1 - Gronau, Norbert T1 - Deep reinforcement learning in production planning and control BT - A systematic literature review T2 - Proceedings of the Conference on Production Systems and Logistics N2 - Increasingly fast development cycles and individualized products pose major challenges for today's smart production systems in times of industry 4.0. The systems must be flexible and continuously adapt to changing conditions while still guaranteeing high throughputs and robustness against external disruptions. Deep rein- forcement learning (RL) algorithms, which already reached impressive success with Google DeepMind's AlphaGo, are increasingly transferred to production systems to meet related requirements. Unlike supervised and unsupervised machine learning techniques, deep RL algorithms learn based on recently collected sensor- and process-data in direct interaction with the environment and are able to perform decisions in real-time. As such, deep RL algorithms seem promising given their potential to provide decision support in complex environments, as production systems, and simultaneously adapt to changing circumstances. While different use-cases for deep RL emerged, a structured overview and integration of findings on their application are missing. To address this gap, this contribution provides a systematic literature review of existing deep RL applications in the field of production planning and control as well as production logistics. From a performance perspective, it became evident that deep RL can beat heuristics significantly in their overall performance and provides superior solutions to various industrial use-cases. Nevertheless, safety and reliability concerns must be overcome before the widespread use of deep RL is possible which presumes more intensive testing of deep RL in real world applications besides the already ongoing intensive simulations. KW - deep reinforcement learning KW - machine learning KW - production planning KW - production control KW - systematic literature review Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.15488/11238 SN - 2701-6277 SP - 535 EP - 545 PB - Institutionelles Repositorium der Leibniz Universität Hannover CY - Hannover ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kayler, Zachary E. A1 - Premke, Katrin A1 - Gessler, Arthur A1 - Gessner, Mark O. A1 - Griebler, Christian A1 - Hilt, Sabine A1 - Klemedtsson, Leif A1 - Kuzyakov, Yakov A1 - Reichstein, Markus A1 - Siemens, Jan A1 - Totsche, Kai-Uwe A1 - Tranvik, Lars A1 - Wagner, Annekatrin A1 - Weitere, Markus A1 - Grossart, Hans-Peter T1 - Integrating Aquatic and Terrestrial Perspectives to Improve Insights Into Organic Matter Cycling at the Landscape Scale JF - Frontiers in Earth Science N2 - Across a landscape, aquatic-terrestrial interfaces within and between ecosystems are hotspots of organic matter (OM) mineralization. These interfaces are characterized by sharp spatio-temporal changes in environmental conditions, which affect OM properties and thus control OM mineralization and other transformation processes. Consequently, the extent of OM movement at and across aquatic-terrestrial interfaces is crucial in determining OM turnover and carbon (C) cycling at the landscape scale. Here, we propose expanding current concepts in aquatic and terrestrial ecosystem sciences to comprehensively evaluate OM turnover at the landscape scale. We focus on three main concepts toward explaining OM turnover at the landscape scale: the landscape spatiotemporal context, OM turnover described by priming and ecological stoichiometry, and anthropogenic effects as a disruptor of natural OM transfer magnitudes and pathways. A conceptual framework is introduced that allows for discussing the disparities in spatial and temporal scales of OM transfer, changes in environmental conditions, ecosystem connectivity, and microbial-substrate interactions. The potential relevance of priming effects in both terrestrial and aquatic systems is addressed. For terrestrial systems, we hypothesize that the interplay between the influx of OM, its corresponding elemental composition, and the elemental demand of the microbial communities may alleviate spatial and metabolic thresholds. In comparison, substrate level OM dynamics may be substantially different in aquatic systems due to matrix effects that accentuate the role of abiotic conditions, substrate quality, and microbial community dynamics. We highlight the disproportionate impact anthropogenic activities can have on OM cycling across the landscape. This includes reversing natural OM flows through the landscape, disrupting ecosystem connectivity, and nutrient additions that cascade across the landscape. This knowledge is crucial for a better understanding of OM cycling in a landscape context, in particular since terrestrial and aquatic compartments may respond differently to the ongoing changes in climate, land use, and other anthropogenic interferences. KW - landscape connectivity KW - organic matter mineralization KW - priming effects KW - ecological stoichiometry KW - aquatic-terrestrial interfaces KW - anthropogenic interferences Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/feart.2019.00127 SN - 2296-6463 VL - 7 PB - Frontiers Research Foundation CY - Lausanne ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Lundgreen, Regitze B. C. A1 - Jaspers, Cornelia A1 - Traving, Sachia J. A1 - Ayala, Daniel J. A1 - Lombard, Fabien A1 - Grossart, Hans-Peter A1 - Nielsen, Torkel G. A1 - Munk, Peter A1 - Riemann, Lasse T1 - Eukaryotic and cyanobacterial communities associated with marine snow particles in the oligotrophic Sargasso Sea JF - Scientific reports N2 - Marine snow aggregates represent heterogeneous agglomerates of dead and living organic matter. Composition is decisive for their sinking rates, and thereby for carbon flux to the deep sea. For oligotrophic oceans, information on aggregate composition is particularly sparse. To address this, the taxonomic composition of aggregates collected from the subtropical and oligotrophic Sargasso Sea (Atlantic Ocean) was characterized by 16S and 18S rRNA gene sequencing. Taxonomy assignment was aided by a collection of the contemporary plankton community consisting of 75 morphologically and genetically identified plankton specimens. The diverse rRNA gene reads of marine snow aggregates, not considering Trichodesmium puffs, were dominated by copepods (52%), cnidarians (21%), radiolarians (11%), and alveolates (8%), with sporadic contributions by cyanobacteria, suggesting a different aggregate composition than in eutrophic regions. Composition linked significantly with sampling location but not to any measured environmental parameters or plankton biomass composition. Nevertheless, indicator and network analyses identified key roles of a few rare taxa. This points to complex regulation of aggregate composition, conceivably affected by the environment and plankton characteristics. The extent to which this has implications for particle densities, and consequently for sinking rates and carbon sequestration in oligotrophic waters, needs further interrogation. Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-45146-7 SN - 2045-2322 VL - 9 PB - Nature Publ. Group CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Numberger, Daniela A1 - Ganzert, Lars A1 - Zoccarato, Luca A1 - Mühldorfer, Kristin A1 - Sauer, Sascha A1 - Grossart, Hans-Peter A1 - Greenwood, Alex D. T1 - Characterization of bacterial communities in wastewater with enhanced taxonomic resolution by full-length 16S rRNA sequencing JF - Scientific reports N2 - Wastewater treatment is crucial to environmental hygiene in urban environments. However, wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) collect chemicals, organic matter, and microorganisms including pathogens and multi-resistant bacteria from various sources which may be potentially released into the environment via WWTP effluent. To better understand microbial dynamics in WWTPs, we characterized and compared the bacterial community of the inflow and effluent of a WWTP in Berlin, Germany using full-length 16S rRNA gene sequences, which allowed for species level determination in many cases and generally resolved bacterial taxa. Significantly distinct bacterial communities were identified in the wastewater inflow and effluent samples. Dominant operational taxonomic units (OTUs) varied both temporally and spatially. Disease associated bacterial groups were efficiently reduced in their relative abundance from the effluent by the WWTP treatment process, except for Legionella and Leptospira species which demonstrated an increase in relative proportion from inflow to effluent. This indicates that WWTPs, while effective against enteric bacteria, may enrich and release other potentially pathogenic bacteria into the environment. The taxonomic resolution of full-length 16S rRNA genes allows for improved characterization of potential pathogenic taxa and other harmful bacteria which is required to reliably assess health risk. Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-46015-z SN - 2045-2322 VL - 9 PB - Nature Publ. Group CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Numberger, Daniela A1 - Dreier, Carole A1 - Vullioud, Colin A1 - Gabriel, Gülsah A1 - Greenwood, Alex D. A1 - Grossart, Hans-Peter T1 - Recovery of influenza a viruses from lake water and sediments by experimental inoculation JF - PLoS one N2 - Influenza A viruses (IAV) are zoonotic pathogens relevant to human, domestic animal and wildlife health. Many avian IAVs are transmitted among waterfowl via a faecal-oral-route. Therefore, environmental water where waterfowl congregate may play an important role in the ecology and epidemiology of avian IAV. Water and sediment may sustain and transmit virus among individuals or species. It is unclear at what concentrations waterborne viruses are infectious or remain detectable. To address this, we performed lake water and sediment dilution experiments with varying concentrations or infectious doses of four IAV strains from seal, turkey, duck and gull. To test for infectivity of the IAV strains in a concentration dependent manner, we applied cultivation to specific pathogen free (SPF) embryonated chicken eggs and Madin-Darby Canine Kidney (MDCK) cells. IAV recovery was more effective from embryonated chicken eggs than MDCK cells for freshwater lake dilutions, whereas, MDCK cells were more effective for viral recovery from sediment samples. Low infectious dose (1 PFU/200 mu L) was sufficient in most cases to detect and recover IAV from lake water dilutions. Sediment required higher initial infectious doses (>= 100 PFU/200 mu L). Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0216880 SN - 1932-6203 VL - 14 IS - 5 PB - PLoS CY - San Fransisco ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Rojas-Jimenez, Keilor A1 - Grossart, Hans-Peter A1 - Cordes, Erik A1 - Cortés, Jorge T1 - Fungal Communities in Sediments Along a Depth Gradient in the Eastern Tropical Pacific JF - Frontiers in Microbiology N2 - Deep waters represent the largest biome on Earth and the largest ecosystem of Costa Rica. Fungi play a fundamental role in global biogeochemical cycling in marine sediments, yet, they remain little explored. We studied fungal diversity and community composition in several marine sediments from 16 locations sampled along a bathymetric gradient (from a depth of 380 to 3,474 m) in two transects of about 1,500 km length in the Eastern Tropical Pacific (ETP) of Costa Rica. Sequence analysis of the V7-V8 region of the 18S rRNA gene obtained from sediment cores revealed the presence of 787 fungal amplicon sequence variants (ASVs). On average, we detected a richness of 75 fungal ASVs per sample. Ascomycota represented the most abundant phylum with Saccharomycetes constituting the dominant class. Three ASVs accounted for ca. 63% of all fungal sequences: the yeast Metschnikowia (49.4%), Rhizophydium (6.9%), and Cladosporium (6.7%). We distinguished a cluster composed mainly by yeasts, and a second cluster by filamentous fungi, but we were unable to detect a strong effect of depth and the overlying water temperature, salinity, dissolved oxygen (DO), and pH on the composition of fungal communities. We highlight the need to understand further the ecological role of fungi in deep-sea ecosystems. KW - deep-sea KW - aquatic fungi KW - biodiversity KW - Metschnikowia KW - Costa Rica Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2020.575207 SN - 1664-302X VL - 11 PB - Frontiers Media CY - Lausanne ER - TY - GEN A1 - Numberger, Daniela A1 - Dreier, Carola A1 - Vullioud, Colin A1 - Gabriel, Guelsah A1 - Greenwood, Alex D. A1 - Grossart, Hans-Peter T1 - Correction: Recovery of influenza A viruses from lake water and sediments by experimental inoculation (vol 14, e0216880, 2019) T2 - PLoS one Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0218882 SN - 1932-6203 VL - 14 IS - 6 PB - PLoS CY - San Fransisco ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Tiegs, Scott D. A1 - Costello, David M. A1 - Isken, Mark W. A1 - Woodward, Guy A1 - McIntyre, Peter B. A1 - Gessner, Mark O. A1 - Chauvet, Eric A1 - Griffiths, Natalie A. A1 - Flecker, Alex S. A1 - Acuna, Vicenc A1 - Albarino, Ricardo A1 - Allen, Daniel C. A1 - Alonso, Cecilia A1 - Andino, Patricio A1 - Arango, Clay A1 - Aroviita, Jukka A1 - Barbosa, Marcus V. M. A1 - Barmuta, Leon A. A1 - Baxter, Colden V. A1 - Bell, Thomas D. C. A1 - Bellinger, Brent A1 - Boyero, Luz A1 - Brown, Lee E. A1 - Bruder, Andreas A1 - Bruesewitz, Denise A. A1 - Burdon, Francis J. A1 - Callisto, Marcos A1 - Canhoto, Cristina A1 - Capps, Krista A. A1 - Castillo, Maria M. A1 - Clapcott, Joanne A1 - Colas, Fanny A1 - Colon-Gaud, Checo A1 - Cornut, Julien A1 - Crespo-Perez, Veronica A1 - Cross, Wyatt F. A1 - Culp, Joseph M. A1 - Danger, Michael A1 - Dangles, Olivier A1 - de Eyto, Elvira A1 - Derry, Alison M. A1 - Diaz Villanueva, Veronica A1 - Douglas, Michael M. A1 - Elosegi, Arturo A1 - Encalada, Andrea C. A1 - Entrekin, Sally A1 - Espinosa, Rodrigo A1 - Ethaiya, Diana A1 - Ferreira, Veronica A1 - Ferriol, Carmen A1 - Flanagan, Kyla M. A1 - Fleituch, Tadeusz A1 - Shah, Jennifer J. Follstad A1 - Frainer, Andre A1 - Friberg, Nikolai A1 - Frost, Paul C. A1 - Garcia, Erica A. A1 - Lago, Liliana Garcia A1 - Garcia Soto, Pavel Ernesto A1 - Ghate, Sudeep A1 - Giling, Darren P. A1 - Gilmer, Alan A1 - Goncalves, Jose Francisco A1 - Gonzales, Rosario Karina A1 - Graca, Manuel A. S. A1 - Grace, Mike A1 - Grossart, Hans-Peter A1 - Guerold, Francois A1 - Gulis, Vlad A1 - Hepp, Luiz U. A1 - Higgins, Scott A1 - Hishi, Takuo A1 - Huddart, Joseph A1 - Hudson, John A1 - Imberger, Samantha A1 - Iniguez-Armijos, Carlos A1 - Iwata, Tomoya A1 - Janetski, David J. A1 - Jennings, Eleanor A1 - Kirkwood, Andrea E. A1 - Koning, Aaron A. A1 - Kosten, Sarian A1 - Kuehn, Kevin A. A1 - Laudon, Hjalmar A1 - Leavitt, Peter R. A1 - Lemes da Silva, Aurea L. A1 - Leroux, Shawn J. A1 - Leroy, Carri J. A1 - Lisi, Peter J. A1 - MacKenzie, Richard A1 - Marcarelli, Amy M. A1 - Masese, Frank O. A1 - Mckie, Brendan G. A1 - Oliveira Medeiros, Adriana A1 - Meissner, Kristian A1 - Milisa, Marko A1 - Mishra, Shailendra A1 - Miyake, Yo A1 - Moerke, Ashley A1 - Mombrikotb, Shorok A1 - Mooney, Rob A1 - Moulton, Tim A1 - Muotka, Timo A1 - Negishi, Junjiro N. A1 - Neres-Lima, Vinicius A1 - Nieminen, Mika L. A1 - Nimptsch, Jorge A1 - Ondruch, Jakub A1 - Paavola, Riku A1 - Pardo, Isabel A1 - Patrick, Christopher J. A1 - Peeters, Edwin T. H. M. A1 - Pozo, Jesus A1 - Pringle, Catherine A1 - Prussian, Aaron A1 - Quenta, Estefania A1 - Quesada, Antonio A1 - Reid, Brian A1 - Richardson, John S. A1 - Rigosi, Anna A1 - Rincon, Jose A1 - Risnoveanu, Geta A1 - Robinson, Christopher T. A1 - Rodriguez-Gallego, Lorena A1 - Royer, Todd V. A1 - Rusak, James A. A1 - Santamans, Anna C. A1 - Selmeczy, Geza B. A1 - Simiyu, Gelas A1 - Skuja, Agnija A1 - Smykla, Jerzy A1 - Sridhar, Kandikere R. A1 - Sponseller, Ryan A1 - Stoler, Aaron A1 - Swan, Christopher M. A1 - Szlag, David A1 - Teixeira-de Mello, Franco A1 - Tonkin, Jonathan D. A1 - Uusheimo, Sari A1 - Veach, Allison M. A1 - Vilbaste, Sirje A1 - Vought, Lena B. M. A1 - Wang, Chiao-Ping A1 - Webster, Jackson R. A1 - Wilson, Paul B. A1 - Woelfl, Stefan A1 - Xenopoulos, Marguerite A. A1 - Yates, Adam G. A1 - Yoshimura, Chihiro A1 - Yule, Catherine M. A1 - Zhang, Yixin X. A1 - Zwart, Jacob A. T1 - Global patterns and drivers of ecosystem functioning in rivers and riparian zones JF - Science Advances N2 - River ecosystems receive and process vast quantities of terrestrial organic carbon, the fate of which depends strongly on microbial activity. Variation in and controls of processing rates, however, are poorly characterized at the global scale. In response, we used a peer-sourced research network and a highly standardized carbon processing assay to conduct a global-scale field experiment in greater than 1000 river and riparian sites. We found that Earth’s biomes have distinct carbon processing signatures. Slow processing is evident across latitudes, whereas rapid rates are restricted to lower latitudes. Both the mean rate and variability decline with latitude, suggesting temperature constraints toward the poles and greater roles for other environmental drivers (e.g., nutrient loading) toward the equator. These results and data set the stage for unprecedented “next-generation biomonitoring” by establishing baselines to help quantify environmental impacts to the functioning of ecosystems at a global scale. Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aav0486 SN - 2375-2548 VL - 5 IS - 1 PB - American Assoc. for the Advancement of Science CY - Washington ER - TY - GEN A1 - EL Mahmoud, Khaled T1 - Measuring with double legal standards BT - Germany’s intervention in support of Israel before the ICJ T2 - Verfassungsblog : on matters constitutional Y1 - 2024 UR - https://verfassungsblog.de/measuring-with-double-legal-standards-germanys-intervention-in-support-of-israel-before-the-icj/ U6 - https://doi.org/10.59704/1c5ec794a420161f SN - 2366-7044 PB - Max Steinbeis Verfassungsblog gGmbH CY - Berlin ER - TY - GEN A1 - Köhne, Lea T1 - (State) immunity for Palestine? T2 - Verfassungsblog : on matters constitutional Y1 - 2023 UR - https://verfassungsblog.de/state-immunity-for-palestine/ U6 - https://doi.org/10.59704/c6b1bf054163ad38 SN - 2366-7044 PB - Max Steinbeis Verfassungsblog gGmbH CY - Berlin ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Wardelmann, Kristina A1 - Rath, Michaela A1 - Castro, José Pedro A1 - Blümel, Sabine A1 - Schell, Mareike A1 - Hauffe, Robert A1 - Schumacher, Fabian A1 - Flore, Tanina A1 - Ritter, Katrin A1 - Wernitz, Andreas A1 - Hosoi, Toru A1 - Ozawa, Koichiro A1 - Kleuser, Burkhard A1 - Weiß, Jürgen A1 - Schürmann, Annette A1 - Kleinridders, André T1 - Central acting Hsp10 regulates mitochondrial function, fatty acid metabolism and insulin sensitivity in the hypothalamus JF - Antioxidants N2 - Mitochondria are critical for hypothalamic function and regulators of metabolism. Hypothalamic mitochondrial dysfunction with decreased mitochondrial chaperone expression is present in type 2 diabetes (T2D). Recently, we demonstrated that a dysregulated mitochondrial stress response (MSR) with reduced chaperone expression in the hypothalamus is an early event in obesity development due to insufficient insulin signaling. Although insulin activates this response and improves metabolism, the metabolic impact of one of its members, the mitochondrial chaperone heat shock protein 10 (Hsp10), is unknown. Thus, we hypothesized that a reduction of Hsp10 in hypothalamic neurons will impair mitochondrial function and impact brain insulin action. Therefore, we investigated the role of chaperone Hsp10 by introducing a lentiviral-mediated Hsp10 knockdown (KD) in the hypothalamic cell line CLU-183 and in the arcuate nucleus (ARC) of C57BL/6N male mice. We analyzed mitochondrial function and insulin signaling utilizing qPCR, Western blot, XF96 Analyzer, immunohistochemistry, and microscopy techniques. We show that Hsp10 expression is reduced in T2D mice brains and regulated by leptin in vitro. Hsp10 KD in hypothalamic cells induced mitochondrial dysfunction with altered fatty acid metabolism and increased mitochondria-specific oxidative stress resulting in neuronal insulin resistance. Consequently, the reduction of Hsp10 in the ARC of C57BL/6N mice caused hypothalamic insulin resistance with acute liver insulin resistance. KW - brain insulin signaling KW - mitochondria KW - oxidative stress KW - fatty acid metabolism Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/antiox10050711 SN - 2076-3921 VL - 10 IS - 5 PB - MDPI CY - Basel ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Heide, Judith A1 - Netzebandt, Jonka A1 - Ahrens, Stine A1 - Brüsch, Julia A1 - Saalfrank, Teresa A1 - Schmitz-Antonischki, Dorit T1 - Improving lexical retrieval with LingoTalk BT - an app-based, self-administered treatment for clients with aphasia JF - Frontiers in communication N2 - Introduction LingoTalk is a German speech-language app designed to enhance lexical retrieval in individuals with aphasia. It incorporates automatic speech recognition (ASR) to provide therapist-independent feedback. The execution and effectiveness of a self-administered intervention with LingoTalk was explored in a case series study. Methods Three individuals with chronic aphasia participated in a highly individualized, supervised self-administered intervention lasting 3 weeks. The LingoTalk app closely monitored the frequency, intensity and progress of the intervention. Treatment efficacy was assessed using a multiple baseline design, examining both item-specific treatment effects and generalization to untreated items, an untreated task, and spontaneous speech. Results All participants successfully completed the intervention with LingoTalk, although one participant was not able to use the ASR feature. None of the participants fully adhered to the treatment protocol. All participants demonstrated significant and sustained improvement in the naming of practiced items, although there was limited evidence of generalization. Additionally, there was a slight reduction in word-finding difficulties during spontaneous speech. Discussion This small-scale study indicates that self-administered intervention with LingoTalk can improve oral naming of treated items. Thus, it has the potential to complement face-to-face speech-language therapy, such as within in a “flipped speech room” approach. The choice of feedback mode is discussed. Transparent progress monitoring of the intervention appears to positively influence patients' motivation. KW - aphasi KW - anomia KW - lexical retrieva KW - oral naming KW - app-based intervention KW - self-training KW - automatic speech recognition (ASR) KW - LingoTalk Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomm.2023.1210193 SN - 2297-900X VL - 8 PB - Frontiers Media CY - Lausanne ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Uth, Melanie A1 - Gutiérrez-Bravo, Rodrigo A1 - Fliessbach, Jan T1 - On the incompatibility of object fronting and progressive aspect in Yucatec Maya JF - Frontiers in language sciences N2 - In this paper, we present data from an elicitation study and a corpus study that support the observation that the Yucatec Maya progressive aspect auxiliary táan is replaced by the habitual auxiliary k in sentences with contrastively focused fronted objects. Focus has been extensively studied in Yucatec, yet the incompatibility of object fronting and progressive aspect in Yucatec Maya remains understudied. Both our experimental results and our corpus study point in the direction that this incompatibility may very well be categorical. Theoretically, we take a progressive reading to be derived from an imperfectivity operator in combination with a singular operator, and we propose that this singular operator implicates the negation of event plurality, leading to an exhaustive interpretation which ranks below corrective focus on a contrastive focus scale. This means that, in a sentence with object focus fronting, the use of the marked auxiliary táan (as opposed to the more general k) would trigger two contrastive foci, which would be an unlikely and probably dispreferred speech act. KW - fronting KW - progressive KW - Yucatec Maya KW - habitual KW - focus Y1 - 2024 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/flang.2023.1286520 SN - 2813-4605 VL - 2 PB - Frontiers Media S.A. CY - Lausanne, Switzerland ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Blaser, Berenike Lisa A1 - Weymar, Mathias A1 - Wendt, Julia T1 - The effect of a single-session heart rate variability biofeedback on attentional control BT - does stress matter? JF - Frontiers in psychology N2 - Introduction Vagally mediated heart rate variability is an index of autonomic nervous system activity that is associated with a large variety of outcome variables including psychopathology and self-regulation. While practicing heart rate variability biofeedback over several weeks has been reliably associated with a number of positive outcomes, its acute effects are not well known. As the strongest association with vagally mediated heart rate variability has been found particularly within the attention-related subdomain of self-regulation, we investigated the acute effect of heart rate variability biofeedback on attentional control using the revised Attention Network Test. Methods Fifty-six participants were tested in two sessions. In one session each participant received a heart rate variability biofeedback intervention, and in the other session a control intervention of paced breathing at a normal ventilation rate. After the biofeedback or control intervention, participants completed the Attention Network Test using the Orienting Score as a measure of attentional control. Results Mixed models revealed that higher resting baseline vagally mediated heart rate variability was associated with better performance in attentional control, which suggests more efficient direction of attention to target stimuli. There was no significant main effect of the intervention on attentional control. However, an interaction effect indicated better performance in attentional control after biofeedback in individuals who reported higher current stress levels. Discussion The results point to acute beneficial effects of heart rate variability biofeedback on cognitive performance in highly stressed individuals. Although promising, the results need to be replicated in larger or more targeted samples in order to reach stronger conclusions about the effects. KW - attention KW - self-regulation KW - heart rate variability KW - biofeedback KW - cognitive control KW - stress KW - vagal tone KW - slow-paced breathing Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1292983 SN - 1664-1078 VL - 14 PB - Frontiers Research Foundation CY - Lausanne ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Bürger, Gerd A1 - Heistermann, Maik T1 - Shallow and deep learning of extreme rainfall events from convective atmospheres JF - Natural hazards and earth system sciences : NHESS N2 - Our subject is a new catalogue of radar-based heavy rainfall events (CatRaRE) over Germany and how it relates to the concurrent atmospheric circulation. We classify daily ERA5 fields of convective indices according to CatRaRE, using an array of 13 statistical methods, consisting of 4 conventional (“shallow”) and 9 more recent deep machine learning (DL) algorithms; the classifiers are then applied to corresponding fields of simulated present and future atmospheres from the Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX) project. The inherent uncertainty of the DL results from the stochastic nature of their optimization is addressed by employing an ensemble approach using 20 runs for each network. The shallow random forest method performs best with an equitable threat score (ETS) around 0.52, followed by the DL networks ALL-CNN and ResNet with an ETS near 0.48. Their success can be understood as a result of conceptual simplicity and parametric parsimony, which obviously best fits the relatively simple classification task. It is found that, on summer days, CatRaRE convective atmospheres over Germany occur with a probability of about 0.5. This probability is projected to increase, regardless of method, both in ERA5-reanalyzed and CORDEX-simulated atmospheres: for the historical period we find a centennial increase of about 0.2 and for the future period one of slightly below 0.1. Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-23-3065-2023 SN - 1684-9981 VL - 23 IS - 9 SP - 3065 EP - 3077 PB - European Geophysical Society CY - Katlenburg-Lindau ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Schell, Mareike A1 - Wardelmann, Kristina A1 - Hauffe, Robert A1 - Rath, Michaela A1 - Chopra, Simran A1 - Kleinridders, André T1 - Lactobacillus rhamnosus sex-specifically attenuates depressive-like behavior and mitigates metabolic consequences in obesity JF - Biological psychiatry: global open science N2 - BACKGROUND: Patients with diabetes exhibit an increased prevalence for emotional disorders compared with healthy humans, partially due to a shared pathogenesis including hormone resistance and inflammation, which is also linked to intestinal dysbiosis. The preventive intake of probiotic lactobacilli has been shown to improve dysbiosis along with mood and metabolism. Yet, a potential role of Lactobacillus rhamnosus (Lacticaseibacillus rhamnosus 0030) (LR) in improving emotional behavior in established obesity and the underlying mechanisms are unknown. METHODS: Female and male C57BL/6N mice were fed a low-fat diet (10% kcal from fat) or high-fat diet (HFD) (45% kcal from fat) for 6 weeks, followed by daily oral gavage of vehicle or 1 3 10 8 colony-forming units of LR, and assessment of anxiety- and depressive-like behavior. Cecal microbiota composition was analyzed using 16S ribosomal RNA sequencing, plasma and cerebrospinal fluid were collected for metabolomic analysis, and gene expression of different brain areas was assessed using reverse transcriptase quantitative polymerase chain reaction. RESULTS: We observed that 12 weeks of HFD feeding induced hyperinsulinemia, which was attenuated by LR application only in female mice. On the contrary, HFD-fed male mice exhibited increased anxiety- and depressive-like behavior, where the latter was specifically attenuated by LR application, which was independent of metabolic changes. Furthermore, LR application restored the HFD-induced decrease of tyrosine hydroxylase, along with normalizing cholecystokinin gene expression in dopaminergic brain regions; both tyrosine hydroxylase and cholecystokinin are involved in signaling pathways impacting emotional disorders. CONCLUSIONS: Our data show that LR attenuates depressive-like behavior after established obesity, with changes in the dopaminergic system in male mice, and mitigates hyperinsulinemia in obese female mice. Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bpsgos.2023.02.011 SN - 2667-1743 VL - 3 IS - 4 SP - 651 EP - 662 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ziubanova, Anastasia A. A1 - Laurinavichyute, Anna A1 - Parshina, Olga T1 - Does early exposure to spoken and sign language affect reading fluency in deaf and hard-of-hearing adult signers? JF - Frontiers in psychology N2 - Introduction Early linguistic background, and in particular, access to language, lays the foundation of future reading skills in deaf and hard-of-hearing signers. The current study aims to estimate the impact of two factors – early access to sign and/or spoken language – on reading fluency in deaf and hard-of-hearing adult Russian Sign Language speakers. Methods In the eye-tracking experiment, 26 deaf and 14 hard-of-hearing native Russian Sign Language speakers read 144 sentences from the Russian Sentence Corpus. Analysis of global eye-movement trajectories (scanpaths) was used to identify clusters of typical reading trajectories. The role of early access to sign and spoken language as well as vocabulary size as predictors of the more fluent reading pattern was tested. Results Hard-of-hearing signers with early access to sign language read more fluently than those who were exposed to sign language later in life or deaf signers without access to speech sounds. No association between early access to spoken language and reading fluency was found. Discussion Our results suggest a unique advantage for the hard-of-hearing individuals from having early access to both sign and spoken language and support the existing claims that early exposure to sign language is beneficial not only for deaf but also for hard-of-hearing children. KW - reading fluency KW - deaf KW - hard-of-hearing KW - sign language KW - multimodal bilingualism KW - scanpaths KW - eye movements Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1145638 SN - 1664-1078 VL - 14 PB - Frontiers Research Foundation CY - Lausanne ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Rosenblum, Michael A1 - Pikovsky, Arkady T1 - Inferring connectivity of an oscillatory network via the phase dynamics reconstruction JF - Frontiers in network physiology N2 - We review an approach for reconstructing oscillatory networks’ undirected and directed connectivity from data. The technique relies on inferring the phase dynamics model. The central assumption is that we observe the outputs of all network nodes. We distinguish between two cases. In the first one, the observed signals represent smooth oscillations, while in the second one, the data are pulse-like and can be viewed as point processes. For the first case, we discuss estimating the true phase from a scalar signal, exploiting the protophase-to-phase transformation. With the phases at hand, pairwise and triplet synchronization indices can characterize the undirected connectivity. Next, we demonstrate how to infer the general form of the coupling functions for two or three oscillators and how to use these functions to quantify the directional links. We proceed with a different treatment of networks with more than three nodes. We discuss the difference between the structural and effective phase connectivity that emerges due to high-order terms in the coupling functions. For the second case of point-process data, we use the instants of spikes to infer the phase dynamics model in the Winfree form directly. This way, we obtain the network’s coupling matrix in the first approximation in the coupling strength. KW - oscillations KW - network KW - connectivity KW - data analysis KW - phase reduction Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fnetp.2023.1298228 SN - 2674-0109 VL - 3 PB - Frontiers Media CY - Lausanne ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Sammoud, Senda A1 - Bouguezzi, Raja A1 - Uthoff, Aaron A1 - Ramirez-Campillo, Rodrigo A1 - Moran, Jason A1 - Negra, Yassine A1 - Hachana, Younes A1 - Chaabene, Helmi T1 - The effects of backward vs. forward running training on measures of physical fitness in young female handball players JF - Frontiers in sports and active living N2 - Introduction This study examined the effects of an 8-week backward running (BR) vs. forward running (FR) training programmes on measures of physical fitness in young female handball players. Methods Twenty-nine players participated in this study. Participants were randomly assigned to a FR training group, BR training group, and a control group. Results and discussion Within-group analysis indicated significant, small-to-large improvements in all performance tests (effect size [g] = 0.36 to 1.80), except 5-m forward sprint-time in the BR group and 5- and 10-m forward sprint-time in the FR group. However, the CG significantly decreased forward sprint performance over 10-m and 20-m (g = 0.28 to 0.50) with no changes in the other fitness parameters. No significant differences in the amount of change scores between the BR and FR groups were noted. Both training interventions have led to similar improvements in measures of muscle power, change of direction (CoD) speed, sprint speed either forward or backward, and repeated sprint ability (RSA) in young female handball players, though BR training may have a small advantage over FR training for 10-m forward sprint time and CoD speed, while FR training may provide small improvements over BR training for RSAbest. Practitioners are advised to consider either FR or BR training to improve various measures of physical fitness in young female handball players. KW - team sports KW - athletic performance KW - motor activity KW - youth sports KW - sports medicine Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fspor.2023.1244369 SN - 2624-9367 VL - 5 PB - Frontiers Media CY - Lausanne ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Blasimann, Angela A1 - Busch, Aglaja A1 - Henle, Philipp A1 - Bruhn, Sven A1 - Vissers, Dirk A1 - Baur, Heiner T1 - Neuromuscular control during stair descent and artificial tibial translation after acute ACL rupture JF - Orthopaedic journal of sports medicine N2 - Background: Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) rupture has direct effect on passive and active knee stability and, specifically, stretch-reflex excitability. Purpose/Hypothesis: The purpose of this study was to investigate neuromuscular activity in patients with an acute ACL deficit (ACL-D group) compared with a matched control group with an intact ACL (ACL-I group) during stair descent and artificially induced anterior tibial translation. It was hypothesized that neuromuscular control would be impaired in the ACL-D group. Study Design: Cross-sectional study; Level of evidence, 3. Methods: Surface electromyographic (EMG) activity of the vastus medialis (VM), vastus lateralis (VL), biceps femoris (BF), and semitendinosus (ST) muscles was recorded bilaterally in 15 patients with ACL-D (mean, 13.8 days [range, 7-21 days] since injury) and 15 controls with ACL-I during stair descent and artificially induced anterior tibial translation. The movements of stair descent were divided into preactivity, weight acceptance, and push-off phases. Reflex activity during anterior tibial translation was split into preactivity and short, medium, and late latency responses. Walking on a treadmill was used for submaximal EMG normalization. Kruskal-Wallis test and post hoc analyses with Dunn-Bonferroni correction were used to compare normalized root mean square values for each muscle, limb, movement, and reflex phase between the ACL-D and ACL-I groups. Results: During the preactivity phase of stair descent, the hamstrings of the involved leg of the ACL-D group showed 33% to 51% less activity compared with the matched leg and contralateral leg of the ACL-I group (P <.05). During the weight acceptance and push-off phases, the VL revealed a significant reduction (approximately 40%) in the involved leg of the ACL-D group compared with the ACL-I group. At short latency, the BF and ST of the involved leg of the ACL-D group showed a significant increase in EMG activity compared with the uninvolved leg of the ACL-I group, by a factor of 2.2 to 4.6. Conclusion: In the acute phase after an ACL rupture, neuromuscular alterations were found mainly in the hamstrings of both limbs during stair descent and reflex activity. The potential role of prehabilitation needs to be further studied. KW - acute KW - anterior cruciate ligament KW - neuromuscular control KW - rupture KW - stairs KW - tibial translation Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1177/23259671221123299 SN - 2325-9671 VL - 10 IS - 10 PB - Sage ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Hauffe, Robert A1 - Rath, Michaela A1 - Schell, Mareike A1 - Ritter, Katrin A1 - Kappert, Kai A1 - Deubel, Stefanie A1 - Ott, Christiane A1 - Jähnert, Markus A1 - Jonas, Wenke A1 - Schürmann, Annette A1 - Kleinridders, André T1 - HSP60 reduction protects against diet-induced obesity by modulating energy metabolism in adipose tissue JF - Molecular Metabolism N2 - Objective Insulin regulates mitochondrial function, thereby propagating an efficient metabolism. Conversely, diabetes and insulin resistance are linked to mitochondrial dysfunction with a decreased expression of the mitochondrial chaperone HSP60. The aim of this investigation was to determine the effect of a reduced HSP60 expression on the development of obesity and insulin resistance. Methods Control and heterozygous whole-body HSP60 knockout (Hsp60+/−) mice were fed a high-fat diet (HFD, 60% calories from fat) for 16 weeks and subjected to extensive metabolic phenotyping. To understand the effect of HSP60 on white adipose tissue, microarray analysis of gonadal WAT was performed, ex vivo experiments were performed, and a lentiviral knockdown of HSP60 in 3T3-L1 cells was conducted to gain detailed insights into the effect of reduced HSP60 levels on adipocyte homeostasis. Results Male Hsp60+/− mice exhibited lower body weight with lower fat mass. These mice exhibited improved insulin sensitivity compared to control, as assessed by Matsuda Index and HOMA-IR. Accordingly, insulin levels were significantly reduced in Hsp60+/− mice in a glucose tolerance test. However, Hsp60+/− mice exhibited an altered adipose tissue metabolism with elevated insulin-independent glucose uptake, adipocyte hyperplasia in the presence of mitochondrial dysfunction, altered autophagy, and local insulin resistance. Conclusions We discovered that the reduction of HSP60 in mice predominantly affects adipose tissue homeostasis, leading to beneficial alterations in body weight, body composition, and adipocyte morphology, albeit exhibiting local insulin resistance. KW - Mitochondria KW - Stress response KW - Obesity KW - Glucose homeostasis KW - Insulin resistance KW - Adipose tissue Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.molmet.2021.101276 SN - 2212-8778 VL - 53 SP - 1 EP - 14 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam, Niederlande 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 - Zhou, Lin A1 - Fischer, Eric A1 - Brahms, Clemens Markus A1 - Granacher, Urs A1 - Arnrich, Bert T1 - DUO-GAIT BT - a gait dataset for walking under dual-task and fatigue conditions with inertial measurement units JF - Scientific data N2 - In recent years, there has been a growing interest in developing and evaluating gait analysis algorithms based on inertial measurement unit (IMU) data, which has important implications, including sports, assessment of diseases, and rehabilitation. Multi-tasking and physical fatigue are two relevant aspects of daily life gait monitoring, but there is a lack of publicly available datasets to support the development and testing of methods using a mobile IMU setup. We present a dataset consisting of 6-minute walks under single- (only walking) and dual-task (walking while performing a cognitive task) conditions in unfatigued and fatigued states from sixteen healthy adults. Especially, nine IMUs were placed on the head, chest, lower back, wrists, legs, and feet to record under each of the above-mentioned conditions. The dataset also includes a rich set of spatio-temporal gait parameters that capture the aspects of pace, symmetry, and variability, as well as additional study-related information to support further analysis. This dataset can serve as a foundation for future research on gait monitoring in free-living environments. Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-023-02391-w SN - 2052-4463 VL - 10 IS - 1 PB - Nature Publ. Group CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Tjaden, Jasper A1 - Seuthe, Miriam A1 - Weinert, Sebastian T1 - Recruiting refugees to reduce labour shortages in health care professions BT - experimental evidence on the potential of foreign-language outreach on social media JF - Human resources for health N2 - Background Many high-income countries are grappling with severe labour shortages in the healthcare sector. Refugees and recent migrants present a potential pool for staff recruitment due to their higher unemployment rates, younger age, and lower average educational attainment compared to the host society's labour force. Despite this, refugees and recent migrants, often possessing limited language skills in the destination country, are frequently excluded from traditional recruitment campaigns conducted solely in the host country’s language. Even those with intermediate language skills may feel excluded, as destination-country language advertisements are perceived as targeting only native speakers. This study experimentally assesses the effectiveness of a recruitment campaign for nursing positions in a German care facility, specifically targeting Arabic and Ukrainian speakers through Facebook advertisements. Methods We employ an experimental design (AB test) approximating a randomized controlled trial, utilizing Facebook as the delivery platform. We compare job advertisements for nursing positions in the native languages of Arabic and Ukrainian speakers (treatment) with the same advertisements displayed in German (control) for the same target group in the context of a real recruitment campaign for nursing jobs in Berlin, Germany. Our evaluation includes comparing link click rates, visits to the recruitment website, initiated applications, and completed applications, along with the unit cost of these indicators. We assess statistical significance in group differences using the Chi-squared test. Results We find that recruitment efforts in the origin language were 5.6 times (Arabic speakers) and 1.9 times (Ukrainian speakers) more effective in initiating nursing job applications compared to the standard model of German-only advertisements among recent migrants and refugees. Overall, targeting refugees and recent migrants was 2.4 (Ukrainians) and 10.8 (Arabic) times cheaper than targeting the reference group of German speakers indicating higher interest among these groups. Conclusions The results underscore the substantial benefits for employers in utilizing targeted recruitment via social media aimed at foreign-language communities within the country. This strategy, which is low-cost and low effort compared to recruiting abroad or investing in digitalization, has the potential for broad applicability in numerous high-income countries with sizable migrant communities. Increased employment rates among underemployed refugee and migrant communities, in turn, contribute to reducing poverty, social exclusion, public expenditure, and foster greater acceptance of newcomers within the receiving society. KW - social media KW - Facebook KW - nursing KW - refugee KW - migrant KW - recruitment Y1 - 2024 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1186/s12960-024-00933-w SN - 1478-4491 VL - 22 SP - 1 EP - 9 PB - Biomed Central CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Tjaden, Jasper A1 - Haarmann, Esther A1 - Savaskan, Nicolai T1 - Experimental evidence on improving COVID-19 vaccine outreach among migrant communities on social media JF - Scientific reports N2 - Studies from several countries suggest that COVID-19 vaccination rates are lower among migrants compared to the general population. Urgent calls have been made to improve vaccine outreach to migrants, however, there is limited evidence on effective approaches, especially using social media. We assessed a targeted, low-cost, Facebook campaign disseminating COVID-19 vaccine information among Arabic, Turkish and Russian speakers in Germany (N = 888,994). As part of the campaign, we conducted two randomized, online experiments to assess the impact of the advertisement (1) language and (2) depicted messenger (government authority, religious leader, doctor or family). Key outcomes included reach, click-through rates, conversion rates and cost-effectiveness. Within 29 days, the campaign reached 890 thousand Facebook users. On average, 2.3 individuals accessed the advertised COVID-19 vaccination appointment tool for every euro spent on the campaign. Migrants were 2.4 (Arabic), 1.8 (Russian) and 1.2 (Turkish) times more likely to click on advertisements translated to their native language compared to German-language advertisements. Furthermore, findings showed that government representatives can be more successful in engaging migrants online compared to other messengers, despite common claims of lower trust in government institutions among migrants. This study highlights the potential of tailored, and translated, vaccination campaigns on social media for reaching migrants who may be left out by traditional media campaigns. Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-20340-2 SN - 2045-2322 VL - 12 PB - Springer Nature CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Fischer, Martin H. 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 / Frontiers Research Foundation 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 Research Foundation CY - Lausanne, Schweiz 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 - König, Christian A1 - Weigelt, Patrick A1 - Taylor, Amanda A1 - Stein, Anke A1 - Dawson, Wayne A1 - Essl, Franz A1 - Pergl, Jan A1 - Pyšek, Petr A1 - Kleunen, Mark van A1 - Winter, Marten A1 - Chatelain, Cyrille A1 - Wieringa, Jan J. A1 - Krestov, Pavel A1 - Kreft, Holger T1 - Source pools and disharmony of the world’s island floras JF - Ecography N2 - Island disharmony refers to the biased representation of higher taxa on islands compared to their mainland source regions and represents a central concept in island biology. Here, we develop a generalizable framework for approximating these source regions and conduct the first global assessment of island disharmony and its underlying drivers. We compiled vascular plant species lists for 178 oceanic islands and 735 mainland regions. Using mainland data only, we modelled species turnover as a function of environmental and geographic distance and predicted the proportion of shared species between each island and mainland region. We then quantified the over- or under-representation of families on individual islands (representational disharmony) by contrasting the observed number of species against a null model of random colonization from the mainland source pool, and analysed the effects of six family-level functional traits on the resulting measure. Furthermore, we aggregated the values of representational disharmony per island to characterize overall taxonomic bias of a given flora (compositional disharmony), and analysed this second measure as a function of four island biogeographical variables. Our results indicate considerable variation in representational disharmony both within and among plant families. Examples of generally over-represented families include Urticaceae, Convolvulaceae and almost all pteridophyte families. Other families such as Asteraceae and Orchidaceae were generally under-represented, with local peaks of over-representation in known radiation hotspots. Abiotic pollination and a lack of dispersal specialization were most strongly associated with an insular over-representation of families, whereas other family-level traits showed minor effects. With respect to compositional disharmony, large, high-elevation islands tended to have the most disharmonic floras. Our results provide important insights into the taxon- and island-specific drivers of disharmony. The proposed framework allows overcoming the limitations of previous approaches and provides a quantitative basis for incorporating functional and phylogenetic approaches into future studies of island disharmony. KW - assembly processes KW - biotic filtering KW - dispersal filtering KW - environmental filtering KW - generalized dissimilarity modelling KW - island disharmony KW - island syndromes KW - source regions KW - vascular plants Y1 - 2020 VL - 44 IS - 1 PB - Wiley-Blackwell CY - Oxford ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Müller, Marik A1 - Nedielkov, Ruslan A1 - Arndt, Katja M. T1 - Strategies for Enzymatic Inactivation of the Veterinary Antibiotic Florfenicol JF - Antibiotics N2 - Large quantities of the antibiotic florfenicol are used in animal farming and aquaculture, contaminating the ecosystem with antibiotic residues and promoting antimicrobial resistance, ultimately leading to untreatable multidrug-resistant pathogens. Florfenicol-resistant bacteria often activate export mechanisms that result in resistance to various structurally unrelated antibiotics. We devised novel strategies for the enzymatic inactivation of florfenicol in different media, such as saltwater or milk. Using a combinatorial approach and selection, we optimized a hydrolase (EstDL136) for florfenicol cleavage. Reaction kinetics were followed by time-resolved NMR spectroscopy. Importantly, the hydrolase remained active in different media, such as saltwater or cow milk. Various environmentally-friendly application strategies for florfenicol inactivation were developed using the optimized hydrolase. As a potential filter device for cost-effective treatment of waste milk or aquacultural wastewater, the hydrolase was immobilized on Ni-NTA agarose or silica as carrier materials. In two further application examples, the hydrolase was used as cell extract or encapsulated with a semi-permeable membrane. This facilitated, for example, florfenicol inactivation in whole milk, which can help to treat waste milk from medicated cows, to be fed to calves without the risk of inducing antibiotic resistance. Enzymatic inactivation of antibiotics, in general, enables therapeutic intervention without promoting antibiotic resistance. KW - aquaculture KW - antibiotic inactivation KW - enzyme optimization KW - enzymatic inactivation KW - florfenicol KW - immobilization KW - industrial farming Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/antibiotics11040443 SN - 2079-6382 VL - 11 IS - 4 SP - 1 EP - 18 PB - MDPI CY - Basel, Schweiz ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Taleb, Aiham A1 - Rohrer, Csaba A1 - Bergner, Benjamin A1 - De Leon, Guilherme A1 - Rodrigues, Jonas Almeida A1 - Schwendicke, Falk A1 - Lippert, Christoph A1 - Krois, Joachim T1 - Self-supervised learning methods for label-efficient dental caries classification JF - Diagnostics : open access journal N2 - High annotation costs are a substantial bottleneck in applying deep learning architectures to clinically relevant use cases, substantiating the need for algorithms to learn from unlabeled data. In this work, we propose employing self-supervised methods. To that end, we trained with three self-supervised algorithms on a large corpus of unlabeled dental images, which contained 38K bitewing radiographs (BWRs). We then applied the learned neural network representations on tooth-level dental caries classification, for which we utilized labels extracted from electronic health records (EHRs). Finally, a holdout test-set was established, which consisted of 343 BWRs and was annotated by three dental professionals and approved by a senior dentist. This test-set was used to evaluate the fine-tuned caries classification models. Our experimental results demonstrate the obtained gains by pretraining models using self-supervised algorithms. These include improved caries classification performance (6 p.p. increase in sensitivity) and, most importantly, improved label-efficiency. In other words, the resulting models can be fine-tuned using few labels (annotations). Our results show that using as few as 18 annotations can produce >= 45% sensitivity, which is comparable to human-level diagnostic performance. This study shows that self-supervision can provide gains in medical image analysis, particularly when obtaining labels is costly and expensive. KW - unsupervised methods KW - self-supervised learning KW - representation learning KW - dental caries classification KW - data driven approaches KW - annotation KW - efficient deep learning Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/diagnostics12051237 SN - 2075-4418 VL - 12 IS - 5 PB - MDPI CY - Basel ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kindermann, Liana A1 - Dobler, Magnus A1 - Niedeggen, Daniela A1 - Chimbioputo Fabiano, Ezequiel A1 - Linstädter, Anja T1 - Dataset on woody aboveground biomass, disturbance losses, and wood density from an African savanna ecosystem JF - Data in Brief N2 - This dataset comprises tree inventories and damage assessments performed in Namibia's semi-arid Zambezi Region. Data were sampled in savannas and savanna woodlands along steep gradients of elephant population densities to capture the effects of those (and other) disturbances on individual-level and stand-level aboveground woody biomass (AGB). The dataset contains raw data on dendrometric measures and processed data on specific wood density (SWD), woody aboveground biomass, and biomass losses through disturbance impacts. Allometric proxies (height, canopy diameters, and in adult trees also stem circumferences) were recorded for n = 6,179 tree and shrub individuals. Wood samples were taken for each encountered species to measure specific wood density. These measurements have been used to estimate woody aboveground biomass via established allometric models, advanced through our improved methodologies and workflows that accounted for tree and shrub architecture shaped by disturbance impacts. To this end, we performed a detailed damage assessment on each woody individual in the field. In addition to estimations of standing biomass, our new method also delivered data on biomass losses to different disturbance agents (elephants, fire, and others) on the level of plant individuals and stands. The data presented here have been used within a study published with Ecological Indicators (Kindermann et al., 2022) to evaluate the benefits of our improved methodology in comparison to a standard reference method of aboveground biomass estimations. Additionally, it has been employed in a study on carbon storage and sequestration in vegetation and soils (Sandhage-Hofmann et al., 2021). The raw data of dendrometric measurements can be subjected to other available allometric models for biomass estimation. The processed data can be used to analyze disturbance impacts on woody aboveground biomass, or for regional carbon storage estimates. The data on species-specific wood density can be used for application to other dendrometric datasets to (re-) estimate biomass through allometric models requiring wood density. It can further be used for plant functional trait analyses. KW - Damage assessment KW - Disturbance impacts KW - Disturbance indicator KW - Elephant disturbance KW - Tree allometry KW - Specific wood density KW - Woody aboveground biomass KW - Wood specific gravity Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dib.2022.108155 SN - 2352-3409 VL - 42 SP - 1 EP - 16 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam, Niederlande ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ruszkiewicz, Joanna A1 - Endig, Lisa A1 - Güver, Ebru A1 - Bürkle, Alexander A1 - Mangerich, Aswin T1 - Life-cycle-dependent toxicities of mono- and bifunctional alkylating agents in the 3R-compliant model organism C. elegans JF - Cells : open access journal N2 - Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) is gaining recognition and importance as an organismic model for toxicity testing in line with the 3Rs principle (replace, reduce, refine). In this study, we explored the use of C. elegans to examine the toxicities of alkylating sulphur mustard analogues, specifically the monofunctional agent 2-chloroethyl-ethyl sulphide (CEES) and the bifunctional, crosslinking agent mechlorethamine (HN2). We exposed wild-type worms at different life cycle stages (from larvae L1 to adulthood day 10) to CEES or HN2 and scored their viability 24 h later. The susceptibility of C. elegans to CEES and HN2 paralleled that of human cells, with HN2 exhibiting higher toxicity than CEES, reflected in LC50 values in the high µM to low mM range. Importantly, the effects were dependent on the worms’ developmental stage as well as organismic age: the highest susceptibility was observed in L1, whereas the lowest was observed in L4 worms. In adult worms, susceptibility to alkylating agents increased with advanced age, especially to HN2. To examine reproductive effects, L4 worms were exposed to CEES and HN2, and both the offspring and the percentage of unhatched eggs were assessed. Moreover, germline apoptosis was assessed by using ced-1p::GFP (MD701) worms. In contrast to concentrations that elicited low toxicities to L4 worms, CEES and HN2 were highly toxic to germline cells, manifesting as increased germline apoptosis as well as reduced offspring number and percentage of eggs hatched. Again, HN2 exhibited stronger effects than CEES. Compound specificity was also evident in toxicities to dopaminergic neurons–HN2 exposure affected expression of dopamine transporter DAT-1 (strain BY200) at lower concentrations than CEES, suggesting a higher neurotoxic effect. Mechanistically, nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+) has been linked to mustard agent toxicities. Therefore, the NAD+-dependent system was investigated in the response to CEES and HN2 treatment. Overall NAD+ levels in worm extracts were revealed to be largely resistant to mustard exposure except for high concentrations, which lowered the NAD+ levels in L4 worms 24 h post-treatment. Interestingly, however, mutant worms lacking components of NAD+-dependent pathways involved in genome maintenance, namely pme-2, parg-2, and sirt-2.1 showed a higher and compound-specific susceptibility, indicating an active role of NAD+ in genotoxic stress response. In conclusion, the present results demonstrate that C. elegans represents an attractive model to study the toxicology of alkylating agents, which supports its use in mechanistic as well as intervention studies with major strength in the possibility to analyze toxicities at different life cycle stages. KW - C. elegans KW - alkylating agents KW - mustards KW - life cycle toxicities KW - neurotoxicity KW - NAD+ Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/cells12232728 SN - 2073-4409 VL - 12 IS - 23 PB - MDPI CY - Basel ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Quarmby, Andrew A1 - Zhang, Martin A1 - Geisler, Moritz A1 - Javorsky, Tomas A1 - Mugele, Hendrik A1 - Cassel, Michael A1 - Lawley, Justin T1 - Risk factors and injury prevention strategies for overuse injuries in adult climbers BT - a systematic review JF - Frontiers in sports and active living N2 - Introduction Climbing is an increasingly popular activity and imposes specific physiological demands on the human body, which results in unique injury presentations. Of particular concern are overuse injuries (non-traumatic injuries). These injuries tend to present in the upper body and might be preventable with adequate knowledge of risk factors which could inform about injury prevention strategies. Research in this area has recently emerged but has yet to be synthesized comprehensively. Therefore, the aim of this study was to conduct a systematic review of the potential risk factors and injury prevention strategies for overuse injuries in adult climbers. Methods This systematic review was conducted in accordance with the PRISMA guidelines. Databases were searched systematically, and articles were deemed eligible based upon specific criteria. Research included was original and peer-reviewed, involving climbers, and published in English, German or Czech. Outcomes included overuse injury, and at least one or more variable indicating potential risk factors or injury prevention strategies. The methodological quality of the included studies was assessed with the Downs and Black Quality Index. Data were extracted from included studies and reported descriptively for population, climbing sport type, study design, injury definition and incidence/prevalence, risk factors, and injury prevention strategies. Results Out of 1,183 records, a total of 34 studies were included in the final analysis. Higher climbing intensity, bouldering, reduced grip/finger strength, use of a “crimp” grip, and previous injury were associated with an increased risk of overuse injury. Additionally, a strength training intervention prevented shoulder and elbow injuries. BMI/body weight, warm up/cool downs, stretching, taping and hydration were not associated with risk of overuse injury. The evidence for the risk factors of training volume, age/years of climbing experience, and sex was conflicting. Discussion This review presents several risk factors which appear to increase the risk of overuse injury in climbers. Strength and conditioning, load management, and climbing technique could be targeted in injury prevention programs, to enhance the health and wellbeing of climbing athletes. Further research is required to investigate the conflicting findings reported across included studies, and to investigate the effectiveness of injury prevention programs. Systematic Review Registrationhttps://www.crd.york.ac.uk/, PROSPERO (CRD42023404031). KW - climbing KW - bouldering KW - overuse injuries KW - risk factors KW - injury prevention KW - systematic reveiw KW - climbing injuries Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fspor.2023.1269870 SN - 2624-9367 VL - 5 PB - Frontiers Media CY - Lausanne ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Puchkov, Dmytro A1 - Müller, Paul Markus A1 - Lehmann, Martin A1 - Matthäus, Claudia T1 - Analyzing the cellular plasma membrane by fast and efficient correlative STED and platinum replica EM JF - Frontiers in cell and developmental biology N2 - The plasma membrane of mammalian cells links transmembrane receptors, various structural components, and membrane-binding proteins to subcellular processes, allowing inter- and intracellular communication. Therefore, membrane-binding proteins, together with structural components such as actin filaments, modulate the cell membrane in their flexibility, stiffness, and curvature. Investigating membrane components and curvature in cells remains challenging due to the diffraction limit in light microscopy. Preparation of 5–15-nm-thin plasma membrane sheets and subsequent inspection by metal replica transmission electron microscopy (TEM) reveal detailed information about the cellular membrane topology, including the structure and curvature. However, electron microscopy cannot identify proteins associated with specific plasma membrane domains. Here, we describe a novel adaptation of correlative super-resolution light microscopy and platinum replica TEM (CLEM-PREM), allowing the analysis of plasma membrane sheets with respect to their structural details, curvature, and associated protein composition. We suggest a number of shortcuts and troubleshooting solutions to contemporary PREM protocols. Thus, implementation of super-resolution stimulated emission depletion (STED) microscopy offers significant reduction in sample preparation time and reduced technical challenges for imaging and analysis. Additionally, highly technical challenges associated with replica preparation and transfer on a TEM grid can be overcome by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) imaging. The combination of STED microscopy and platinum replica SEM or TEM provides the highest spatial resolution of plasma membrane proteins and their underlying membrane and is, therefore, a suitable method to study cellular events like endocytosis, membrane trafficking, or membrane tension adaptations. KW - plasma membrane KW - endocytosis KW - CLEM KW - STED KW - TEM KW - SEM KW - electron microscopy Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fcell.2023.1305680 SN - 2296-634X VL - 11 PB - Frontiers Media CY - Lausanne ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Küken, Anika A1 - Treves, Haim A1 - Nikoloski, Zoran T1 - A simulation-free constrained regression approach for flux estimation in isotopically nonstationary metabolic flux analysis with applications in microalgae JF - Frontiers in plant science : FPLS N2 - Introduction Flux phenotypes from different organisms and growth conditions allow better understanding of differential metabolic networks functions. Fluxes of metabolic reactions represent the integrated outcome of transcription, translation, and post-translational modifications, and directly affect growth and fitness. However, fluxes of intracellular metabolic reactions cannot be directly measured, but are estimated via metabolic flux analysis (MFA) that integrates data on isotope labeling patterns of metabolites with metabolic models. While the application of metabolomics technologies in photosynthetic organisms have resulted in unprecedented data from 13CO2-labeling experiments, the bottleneck in flux estimation remains the application of isotopically nonstationary MFA (INST-MFA). INST-MFA entails fitting a (large) system of coupled ordinary differential equations, with metabolite pools and reaction fluxes as parameters. Here, we focus on the Calvin-Benson cycle (CBC) as a key pathway for carbon fixation in photosynthesizing organisms and ask if approaches other than classical INST-MFA can provide reliable estimation of fluxes for reactions comprising this pathway. Methods First, we show that flux estimation with the labeling patterns of all CBC intermediates can be formulated as a single constrained regression problem, avoiding the need for repeated simulation of time-resolved labeling patterns. Results We then compare the flux estimates of the simulation-free constrained regression approach with those obtained from the classical INST-MFA based on labeling patterns of metabolites from the microalgae Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, Chlorella sorokiniana and Chlorella ohadii under different growth conditions. Discussion Our findings indicate that, in data-rich scenarios, simulation-free regression-based approaches provide a suitable alternative for flux estimation from classical INST-MFA since we observe a high qualitative agreement (rs=0.89) to predictions obtained from INCA, a state-of-the-art tool for INST-MFA. KW - metabolic flux analysis KW - INST-MFA KW - regression KW - 13C labeling KW - algae Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2023.1140829 SN - 1664-462X VL - 14 PB - Frontiers Media CY - Lausanne ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Langary, Damoun A1 - Küken, Anika A1 - Nikoloski, Zoran T1 - The effective deficiency of biochemical networks JF - Scientific reports N2 - The deficiency of a (bio)chemical reaction network can be conceptually interpreted as a measure of its ability to support exotic dynamical behavior and/or multistationarity. The classical definition of deficiency relates to the capacity of a network to permit variations of the complex formation rate vector at steady state, irrespective of the network kinetics. However, the deficiency is by definition completely insensitive to the fine details of the directionality of reactions as well as bounds on reaction fluxes. While the classical definition of deficiency can be readily applied in the analysis of unconstrained, weakly reversible networks, it only provides an upper bound in the cases where relevant constraints on reaction fluxes are imposed. Here we propose the concept of effective deficiency, which provides a more accurate assessment of the network’s capacity to permit steady state variations at the complex level for constrained networks of any reversibility patterns. The effective deficiency relies on the concept of nonstoichiometric balanced complexes, which we have already shown to be present in real-world biochemical networks operating under flux constraints. Our results demonstrate that the effective deficiency of real-world biochemical networks is smaller than the classical deficiency, indicating the effects of reaction directionality and flux bounds on the variation of the complex formation rate vector at steady state. Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-41767-1 SN - 2045-2322 VL - 13 PB - Springer Nature CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Heinze, Peter Eric A1 - Weck, Florian A1 - Kühne, Franziska T1 - Assessing Patient Preferences BT - Examination of the German Cooper-Norcross Inventory of Preferences JF - Frontiers in Psychology N2 - Despite the positive effects of including patients’ preferences into therapy on psychotherapy outcomes, there are still few thoroughly validated assessment tools at hand. We translated the 18-item Cooper-Norcross Inventory of Preferences (C-NIP) into German and aimed at replicating its factor structure. Further, we investigated the reliability of the questionnaire and its convergence with trait measures. A heterogeneous sample of N = 969 participants took part in our online survey. Performing ESEM models, we found acceptable model fit for a four-factor structure similar to the original factor structure. Furthermore, we propose an alternative model following the adjustment of single items. The German C-NIP showed acceptable to good reliability, as well as small correlations with Big-Five personality traits, trait and attachment anxiety, locus of control, and temporal focus. However, we recommend further replication of the factor structure and further validation of the C-NIP. KW - psychotherapy KW - preference KW - activity preference KW - preference assessment KW - validation study Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.795776 SN - 1664-1078 VL - 12 PB - Frontiers Research Foundation CY - Lausanne ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Konak, Orhan A1 - van de Water, Robin A1 - Döring, Valentin A1 - Fiedler, Tobias A1 - Liebe, Lucas A1 - Masopust, Leander A1 - Postnov, Kirill A1 - Sauerwald, Franz A1 - Treykorn, Felix A1 - Wischmann, Alexander A1 - Gjoreski, Hristijan A1 - Luštrek, Mitja A1 - Arnrich, Bert T1 - HARE BT - unifying the human activity recognition engineering workflow JF - Sensors N2 - Sensor-based human activity recognition is becoming ever more prevalent. The increasing importance of distinguishing human movements, particularly in healthcare, coincides with the advent of increasingly compact sensors. A complex sequence of individual steps currently characterizes the activity recognition pipeline. It involves separate data collection, preparation, and processing steps, resulting in a heterogeneous and fragmented process. To address these challenges, we present a comprehensive framework, HARE, which seamlessly integrates all necessary steps. HARE offers synchronized data collection and labeling, integrated pose estimation for data anonymization, a multimodal classification approach, and a novel method for determining optimal sensor placement to enhance classification results. Additionally, our framework incorporates real-time activity recognition with on-device model adaptation capabilities. To validate the effectiveness of our framework, we conducted extensive evaluations using diverse datasets, including our own collected dataset focusing on nursing activities. Our results show that HARE’s multimodal and on-device trained model outperforms conventional single-modal and offline variants. Furthermore, our vision-based approach for optimal sensor placement yields comparable results to the trained model. Our work advances the field of sensor-based human activity recognition by introducing a comprehensive framework that streamlines data collection and classification while offering a novel method for determining optimal sensor placement. KW - human activity recognition KW - multimodal classification KW - privacy preservation KW - real-time classification KW - sensor placement Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/s23239571 SN - 1424-8220 VL - 23 IS - 23 PB - MDPI CY - Basel ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Sixtus, Elena A1 - Lindner, Nadja A1 - Lohse, Karoline A1 - Lonnemann, Jan T1 - Investigating the influence of body movements on children's mental arithmetic performance JF - Acta psychologica : international journal of psychonomics N2 - Several lines of research have demonstrated spatial-numerical associations in both adults and children, which are thought to be based on a spatial representation of numerical information in the form of a mental number line. The acquisition of increasingly precise mental number line representations is assumed to support arithmetic learning in children. It is further suggested that sensorimotor experiences shape the development of number concepts and arithmetic learning, and that mental arithmetic can be characterized as “motion along a path” and might constitute shifts in attention along the mental number line. The present study investigated whether movements in physical space influence mental arithmetic in primary school children, and whether the expected effect depends on concurrency of body movements and mental arithmetic. After turning their body towards the left or right, 48 children aged 8 to 10 years solved simple subtraction and addition problems. Meanwhile, they either walked or stood still and looked towards the respective direction. We report a congruency effect between body orientation and operation type, i.e., higher performance for the combinations leftward orientation and subtraction and rightward orientation and addition. We found no significant difference between walking and looking conditions. The present results suggest that mental arithmetic in children is influenced by preceding sensorimotor cues and not necessarily by concurrent body movements. KW - Mental number line KW - Horizontal space KW - Embodied cognition KW - Arithmetic skills Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2023.104003 SN - 0001-6918 SN - 1873-6297 VL - 239 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Moreno Curtidor, Catalina A1 - Annunziata, Maria Grazia A1 - Gupta, Saurabh A1 - Apelt, Federico A1 - Richard, Sarah Isabel A1 - Kragler, Friedrich A1 - Müller-Röber, Bernd A1 - Olas, Justyna Jadwiga T1 - Physiological profiling of embryos and dormant seeds in two Arabidopsis accessions reveals a metabolic switch in carbon reserve accumulation JF - Frontiers in plant science N2 - In flowering plants, sugars act as carbon sources providing energy for developing embryos and seeds. Although most studies focus on carbon metabolism in whole seeds, knowledge about how particular sugars contribute to the developmental transitions during embryogenesis is scarce. To develop a quantitative understanding of how carbon composition changes during embryo development, and to determine how sugar status contributes to final seed or embryo size, we performed metabolic profiling of hand-dissected embryos at late torpedo and mature stages, and dormant seeds, in two Arabidopsis thaliana accessions with medium [Columbia-0 (Col-0)] and large [Burren-0 (Bur-0)] seed sizes, respectively. Our results show that, in both accessions, metabolite profiles of embryos largely differ from those of dormant seeds. We found that developmental transitions from torpedo to mature embryos, and further to dormant seeds, are associated with major metabolic switches in carbon reserve accumulation. While glucose, sucrose, and starch predominantly accumulated during seed dormancy, fructose levels were strongly elevated in mature embryos. Interestingly, Bur-0 seeds contain larger mature embryos than Col-0 seeds. Fructose and starch were accumulated to significantly higher levels in mature Bur-0 than Col-0 embryos, suggesting that they contribute to the enlarged mature Bur-0 embryos. Furthermore, we found that Bur-0 embryos accumulated a higher level of sucrose compared to hexose sugars and that changes in sucrose metabolism are mediated by sucrose synthase (SUS), with SUS genes acting non-redundantly, and in a tissue-specific manner to utilize sucrose during late embryogenesis. KW - carbon KW - embryo development KW - hexoses KW - metabolites KW - sucrose KW - synthase Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2020.588433 SN - 1664-462X VL - 11 PB - Frontiers Media CY - Lausanne ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Heinze, Peter Eric A1 - Weck, Florian A1 - Kühne, Franziska T1 - Assessing patient preferences BT - examination of the german cooper-norcross inventory of preferences JF - Frontiers in psychology N2 - Despite the positive effects of including patients' preferences into therapy on psychotherapy outcomes, there are still few thoroughly validated assessment tools at hand. We translated the 18-item Cooper-Norcross Inventory of Preferences (C-NIP) into German and aimed at replicating its factor structure. Further, we investigated the reliability of the questionnaire and its convergence with trait measures. A heterogeneous sample of N = 969 participants took part in our online survey. Performing ESEM models, we found acceptable model fit for a four-factor structure similar to the original factor structure. Furthermore, we propose an alternative model following the adjustment of single items. The German C-NIP showed acceptable to good reliability, as well as small correlations with Big-Five personality traits, trait and attachment anxiety, locus of control, and temporal focus. However, we recommend further replication of the factor structure and further validation of the C-NIP. KW - psychotherapy KW - preference KW - activity preference KW - preference assessment KW - validation study Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.795776 SN - 1664-1078 VL - 12 PB - Frontiers Media CY - Lausanne ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Winkelbeiner, Nicola Lisa A1 - Wandt, Viktoria Klara Veronika A1 - Ebert, Franziska A1 - Lossow, Kristina A1 - Bankoglu, Ezgi E. A1 - Martin, Maximilian A1 - Mangerich, Aswin A1 - Stopper, Helga A1 - Bornhorst, Julia A1 - Kipp, Anna Patricia A1 - Schwerdtle, Tanja T1 - A Multi-Endpoint Approach to Base Excision Repair Incision Activity Augmented by PARylation and DNA Damage Levels in Mice BT - Impact of Sex and Age JF - International Journal of Molecular Sciences N2 - Investigation of processes that contribute to the maintenance of genomic stability is one crucial factor in the attempt to understand mechanisms that facilitate ageing. The DNA damage response (DDR) and DNA repair mechanisms are crucial to safeguard the integrity of DNA and to prevent accumulation of persistent DNA damage. Among them, base excision repair (BER) plays a decisive role. BER is the major repair pathway for small oxidative base modifications and apurinic/apyrimidinic (AP) sites. We established a highly sensitive non-radioactive assay to measure BER incision activity in murine liver samples. Incision activity can be assessed towards the three DNA lesions 8-oxo-2’-deoxyguanosine (8-oxodG), 5-hydroxy-2’-deoxyuracil (5-OHdU), and an AP site analogue. We applied the established assay to murine livers of adult and old mice of both sexes. Furthermore, poly(ADP-ribosyl)ation (PARylation) was assessed, which is an important determinant in DDR and BER. Additionally, DNA damage levels were measured to examine the overall damage levels. No impact of ageing on the investigated endpoints in liver tissue were found. However, animal sex seems to be a significant impact factor, as evident by sex-dependent alterations in all endpoints investigated. Moreover, our results revealed interrelationships between the investigated endpoints indicative for the synergetic mode of action of the cellular DNA integrity maintaining machinery. KW - maintenance of genomic integrity KW - ageing KW - sex KW - DNA damage KW - base excision repair (incision activity) KW - DNA damage response KW - poly(ADP-ribosyl)ation KW - liver Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms21186600 SN - 1422-0067 VL - 21 IS - 18 PB - Molecular Diversity Preservation International CY - Basel ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Schmidt, Hendrikje A1 - Felisatti, Arianna A1 - Aster, Michael von A1 - Wilbert, Jürgen A1 - Moers, Arpad von A1 - Fischer, Martin H. T1 - Neuromuscular diseases affect number representation and processing BT - An exploratory study JF - Frontiers in psychology / Frontiers Research Foundation N2 - Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) and Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) both are rare genetic neuromuscular diseases with progressive loss of motor ability. The neuromotor developmental course of those diseases is well documented. In contrast, there is only little evidence about characteristics of general and specific cognitive development. In both conditions the final motor outcome is characterized by an inability to move autonomously: children with SMA never accomplish independent motoric exploration of their environment, while children with DMD do but later lose this ability again. These profound differences in developmental pathways might affect cognitive development of SMA vs. DMD children, as cognition is shaped by individual motor experiences. DMD patients show impaired executive functions, working memory, and verbal IQ, whereas only motor ability seems to be impaired in SMA. Advanced cognitive capacity in SMA may serve as a compensatory mechanism for achieving in education, career progression, and social satisfaction. This study aimed to relate differences in basic numerical concepts and arithmetic achievement in SMA and DMD patients to differences in their motor development and resulting sensorimotor and environmental experiences. Horizontal and vertical spatial-numerical associations were explored in SMA/DMD children ranging between 6 and 12 years through the random number generation task. Furthermore, arithmetic skills as well as general cognitive ability were assessed. Groups differed in spatial number processing as well as in arithmetic and domain-general cognitive functions. Children with SMA showed no horizontal and even reversed vertical spatial-numerical associations. Children with DMD on the other hand revealed patterns in spatial numerical associations comparable to healthy developing children. From the embodied Cognition perspective, early sensorimotor experience does play a role in development of mental number representations. However, it remains open whether and how this becomes relevant for the acquisition of higher order cognitive and arithmetic skills. KW - spatial-numerical associations KW - numerical processing KW - mathematics KW - child development KW - embodied cognition KW - neuromuscular disease KW - spinal muscular atrophy KW - Duchenne muscular dystrophy Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.697881 SN - 1664-1078 VL - 12 PB - Frontiers Research Foundation CY - Lausanne ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Richly, Keven A1 - Brauer, Janos A1 - Schlosser, Rainer T1 - Predicting location probabilities of drivers to improved dispatch decisions of transportation network companies based on trajectory data JF - Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Operations Research and Enterprise Systems - ICORES N2 - The demand for peer-to-peer ridesharing services increased over the last years rapidly. To cost-efficiently dispatch orders and communicate accurate pick-up times is challenging as the current location of each available driver is not exactly known since observed locations can be outdated for several seconds. The developed trajectory visualization tool enables transportation network companies to analyze dispatch processes and determine the causes of unexpected delays. As dispatching algorithms are based on the accuracy of arrival time predictions, we account for factors like noise, sample rate, technical and economic limitations as well as the duration of the entire process as they have an impact on the accuracy of spatio-temporal data. To improve dispatching strategies, we propose a prediction approach that provides a probability distribution for a driver’s future locations based on patterns observed in past trajectories. We demonstrate the capabilities of our prediction results to ( i) avoid critical delays, (ii) to estimate waiting times with higher confidence, and (iii) to enable risk considerations in dispatching strategies. KW - trajectory data KW - location prediction algorithm KW - Peer-to-Peer ridesharing KW - transport network companies KW - risk-aware dispatching Y1 - 2020 PB - Springer CY - Berlin ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Wagner, Birgit A1 - Rosenberg, Nicole A1 - Hofmann, Laura A1 - Maaß, Ulrike T1 - Web-based bereavement care BT - a systematic review and meta-analysis JF - Frontiers in psychiatry N2 - Background: Web-based interventions have been introduced as novel and effective treatments for mental disorders and, in recent years, specifically for the bereaved. However, a systematic summary of the effectiveness of online interventions for people experiencing bereavement is still missing. Objective: A systematic literature search was conducted by four reviewers who reviewed and meta-analytically summarized the evidence for web-based interventions for bereaved people. Methods: Systematic searches (PubMed, Web of Science, PsycInfo, PsycArticles, Medline, and CINAHL) resulted in seven randomized controlled trials (N= 1,257) that addressed adults having experienced bereavement using internet-based interventions. We used random effects models to summarize treatment effects for between-group comparisons (treatmentvs.control at post) and stability over time (postvs.follow-up). Results: All web-based interventions were based on cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). In comparison with control groups, the interventions showed moderate (g= .54) to large effects (g= .86) for symptoms of grief and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), respectively. The effect for depression was small (g= .44). All effects were stable over time. A higher number of treatment sessions achieved higher effects for grief symptoms and more individual feedback increased effects for depression. Other moderators (i.e.dropout rate, time since loss, exposure) did not significantly reduce moderate degrees of heterogeneity between the studies. Limitations: The number of includable studies was low in this review resulting to lower power for moderator analyses in particular. Conclusions: Overall, the results of web-based bereavement interventions are promising, and its low-threshold approach might reduce barriers to bereavement care. Nonetheless, future research should further examine potential moderators and specific treatment components (e.g.exposure, feedback) and compare interventions with active controls. KW - grief KW - bereavement KW - depression KW - post-traumatic stress disorder KW - internet KW - e-health KW - intervention KW - psychotherapy Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2020.00525 SN - 1664-0640 VL - 11 PB - Frontiers Media CY - Lausanne ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Wagner, Birgit A1 - Hofmann, Laura A1 - Maaß, Ulrike T1 - Online-group intervention after suicide bereavement through the use of webinars BT - study protocol for a randomized controlled trial JF - Trials N2 - Introduction: The death of a significant person through suicide is a very difficult experience and can have long-term impact on an individual's psychosocial and physical functioning. However, there are only few studies that have examined the effects of interventions in suicide survivors. In the present study, we examine an online-group intervention for people bereaved by suicide using a group-webinar. Methods: The intervention was developed based on focus groups with the target group. The cognitive-behavioral 12-module webinar-based group intervention focuses on suicide bereavement-related themes such as feelings of guilt, stigmatization, meaning reconstruction and the relationship to the deceased. Further, the webinar includes testimonial videos and psychoeducation. The suicide survivors are randomized to the intervention or the waiting list in a group-cluster randomized controlled trial. Primary outcomes are suicidality (Beck Scale for Suicide Ideation) and depression (Beck Depression Inventory-II) and secondary outcomes are symptoms of prolonged grief disorder (Inventory of Complicated Grief-German Version ), posttraumatic stress disorder ( Revised Impact of Event Scale ), stigmatization (Stigma of Suicide and Suicide Survivor ) and posttraumatic cognitions (Posttraumatic Cognitions Inventory). Discussion: Previous studies of Internet-based interventions for the bereaved were based on writing interventions showing large treatment effects. Little is known about the use of webinars as group interventions. Advantages and challenges of this novel approach of psychological interventions will be discussed. KW - Suicide bereavement KW - grief KW - group intervention KW - webinar KW - suicidality KW - prolonged grief disorder KW - randomized controlled trial Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1186/s13063-019-3891-5 SN - 1468-6694 SN - 1745-6215 VL - 21 IS - 1 PB - BioMed Central CY - London ER -