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 - Kayhan, Ezgi
A1 - Matthes, Daniel
A1 - Marriott Haresign, Ira
A1 - Bánki, Anna
A1 - Michel, Christine
A1 - Langeloh, Miriam
A1 - Wass, Sam
A1 - Hoehl, Stefanie
T1 - DEEP: A dual EEG pipeline for developmental hyperscanning studies
JF - Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience
N2 - Cutting-edge hyperscanning methods led to a paradigm shift in social neuroscience. It allowed researchers to measure dynamic mutual alignment of neural processes between two or more individuals in naturalistic contexts. The ever-growing interest in hyperscanning research calls for the development of transparent and validated data analysis methods to further advance the field. We have developed and tested a dual electroencephalography (EEG) analysis pipeline, namely DEEP. Following the preprocessing of the data, DEEP allows users to calculate Phase Locking Values (PLVs) and cross-frequency PLVs as indices of inter-brain phase alignment of dyads as well as time-frequency responses and EEG power for each participant. The pipeline also includes scripts to control for spurious correlations. Our goal is to contribute to open and reproducible science practices by making DEEP publicly available together with an example mother-infant EEG hyperscanning dataset.
KW - Developmental hyperscanning
KW - Dual EEG analysis
KW - Adult-child interaction
KW - Phase Locking Value
KW - PLV
KW - Cross-frequency PLV
KW - FieldTrip
Y1 - 2022
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcn.2022.101104
SN - 1878-9307
VL - 54
SP - 1
EP - 11
PB - Elsevier
CY - Amsterdam, Niederlande
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Tiedemann, Kim
A1 - Iobbi-Nivol, Chantal
A1 - Leimkühler, Silke
T1 - The Role of the Nucleotides in the Insertion of the bis-Molybdopterin Guanine Dinucleotide Cofactor into apo-Molybdoenzymes
JF - Molecules
N2 - The role of the GMP nucleotides of the bis-molybdopterin guanine dinucleotide (bis-MGD) cofactor of the DMSO reductase family has long been a subject of discussion. The recent characterization of the bis-molybdopterin (bis-Mo-MPT) cofactor present in the E. coli YdhV protein, which differs from bis-MGD solely by the absence of the nucleotides, now enables studying the role of the nucleotides of bis-MGD and bis-MPT cofactors in Moco insertion and the activity of molybdoenzymes in direct comparison. Using the well-known E. coli TMAO reductase TorA as a model enzyme for cofactor insertion, we were able to show that the GMP nucleotides of bis-MGD are crucial for the insertion of the bis-MGD cofactor into apo-TorA.
KW - bis-MGD
KW - chaperone
KW - molybdenum cofactor
KW - TMAO reductase
Y1 - 2022
U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules27092993
SN - 1420-3049
VL - 27
SP - 1
EP - 15
PB - MDPI
CY - Basel, Schweiz
ET - 9
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Weithoff, Guntram
A1 - Bell, Elanor Margaret
T1 - Complex Trophic Interactions in an Acidophilic Microbial Community
JF - Microorganisms
N2 - Extreme habitats often harbor specific communities that differ substantially from non-extreme habitats. In many cases, these communities are characterized by archaea, bacteria and protists, whereas the number of species of metazoa and higher plants is relatively low. In extremely acidic habitats, mostly prokaryotes and protists thrive, and only very few metazoa thrive, for example, rotifers. Since many studies have investigated the physiology and ecology of individual species, there is still a gap in research on direct, trophic interactions among extremophiles. To fill this gap, we experimentally studied the trophic interactions between a predatory protist (Actinophrys sol, Heliozoa) and its prey, the rotifers Elosa woralli and Cephalodella sp., the ciliate Urosomoida sp. and the mixotrophic protist Chlamydomonas acidophila (a green phytoflagellate, Chlorophyta). We found substantial predation pressure on all animal prey. High densities of Chlamydomonas acidophila reduced the predation impact on the rotifers by interfering with the feeding behaviour of A. sol. These trophic relations represent a natural case of intraguild predation, with Chlamydomonas acidophila being the common prey and the rotifers/ciliate and A. sol being the intraguild prey and predator, respectively. We further studied this intraguild predation along a resource gradient using Cephalodella sp. as the intraguild prey. The interactions among the three species led to an increase in relative rotifer abundance with increasing resource (Chlamydomonas) densities. By applying a series of laboratory experiments, we revealed the complexity of trophic interactions within a natural extremophilic community.
KW - acid mine drainage
KW - extremophiles
KW - food web
KW - heliozoa
KW - intraguild predation
KW - mining lakes
KW - Rotifera
Y1 - 2022
U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms10071340
SN - 2076-2607
VL - 10
SP - 1
EP - 10
PB - MDPI
CY - Basel, Schweiz
ET - 7
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Prasse, Paul
A1 - Iversen, Pascal
A1 - Lienhard, Matthias
A1 - Thedinga, Kristina
A1 - Herwig, Ralf
A1 - Scheffer, Tobias
T1 - Pre-Training on In Vitro and Fine-Tuning on Patient-Derived Data Improves Deep Neural Networks for Anti-Cancer Drug-Sensitivity Prediction
JF - MDPI
N2 - Large-scale databases that report the inhibitory capacities of many combinations of candidate drug compounds and cultivated cancer cell lines have driven the development of preclinical drug-sensitivity models based on machine learning. However, cultivated cell lines have devolved from human cancer cells over years or even decades under selective pressure in culture conditions. Moreover, models that have been trained on in vitro data cannot account for interactions with other types of cells. Drug-response data that are based on patient-derived cell cultures, xenografts, and organoids, on the other hand, are not available in the quantities that are needed to train high-capacity machine-learning models. We found that pre-training deep neural network models of drug sensitivity on in vitro drug-sensitivity databases before fine-tuning the model parameters on patient-derived data improves the models’ accuracy and improves the biological plausibility of the features, compared to training only on patient-derived data. From our experiments, we can conclude that pre-trained models outperform models that have been trained on the target domains in the vast majority of cases.
KW - deep neural networks
KW - drug-sensitivity prediction
KW - anti-cancer drugs
Y1 - 2022
U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/cancers14163950
SN - 2072-6694
VL - 14
SP - 1
EP - 14
PB - MDPI
CY - Basel, Schweiz
ET - 16
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Mitic, Kristina
A1 - Grafe, Marianne
A1 - Batsios, Petros
A1 - Meyer, Irene
T1 - Partial Disassembly of the Nuclear Pore Complex Proteins during Semi-Closed Mitosis in Dictyostelium discoideum
JF - Cells
N2 - Dictyostelium cells undergo a semi-closed mitosis, during which the nuclear envelope (NE) persists; however, free diffusion between the cytoplasm and the nucleus takes place. To permit the formation of the mitotic spindle, the nuclear envelope must be permeabilized in order to allow diffusion of tubulin dimers and spindle assembly factors into the nucleus. In Aspergillus, free diffusion of proteins between the cytoplasm and the nucleus is achieved by a partial disassembly of the nuclear pore complexes (NPCs) prior to spindle assembly. In order to determine whether this is also the case in Dictyostelium, we analysed components of the NPC by immunofluorescence microscopy and live cell imaging and studied their behaviour during interphase and mitosis. We observed that the NPCs are absent from the contact area of the nucleoli and that some nucleoporins also localize to the centrosome and the spindle poles. In addition, we could show that, during mitosis, the central FG protein NUP62, two inner ring components and Gle1 depart from the NPCs, while all other tested NUPs remained at the NE. This leads to the conclusion that indeed a partial disassembly of the NPCs takes place, which contributes to permeabilisation of the NE during semi-closed mitosis.
KW - nuclear pore complex
KW - nucleoporins
KW - semi-closed mitosis
KW - centrosome
KW - Dictyostelium
Y1 - 2021
U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/cells11030407
SN - 2073-4409
VL - 11
IS - 3
PB - MDPI
CY - Basel
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Mattis, Toni
A1 - Beckmann, Tom
A1 - Rein, Patrick
A1 - Hirschfeld, Robert
T1 - First-class concepts
BT - Reified architectural knowledge beyond dominant decompositions
JF - Journal of object technology : JOT / ETH Zürich, Department of Computer Science
N2 - Ideally, programs are partitioned into independently maintainable and understandable modules. As a system grows, its architecture gradually loses the capability to accommodate new concepts in a modular way. While refactoring is expensive and not always possible, and the programming language might lack dedicated primary language constructs to express certain cross-cutting concerns, programmers are still able to explain and delineate convoluted concepts through secondary means: code comments, use of whitespace and arrangement of code, documentation, or communicating tacit knowledge.
Secondary constructs are easy to change and provide high flexibility in communicating cross-cutting concerns and other concepts among programmers. However, such secondary constructs usually have no reified representation that can be explored and manipulated as first-class entities through the programming environment.
In this exploratory work, we discuss novel ways to express a wide range of concepts, including cross-cutting concerns, patterns, and lifecycle artifacts independently of the dominant decomposition imposed by an existing architecture. We propose the representation of concepts as first-class objects inside the programming environment that retain the capability to change as easily as code comments. We explore new tools that allow programmers to view, navigate, and change programs based on conceptual perspectives. In a small case study, we demonstrate how such views can be created and how the programming experience changes from draining programmers' attention by stretching it across multiple modules toward focusing it on cohesively presented concepts. Our designs are geared toward facilitating multiple secondary perspectives on a system to co-exist in symbiosis with the original architecture, hence making it easier to explore, understand, and explain complex contexts and narratives that are hard or impossible to express using primary modularity constructs.
KW - software engineering
KW - modularity
KW - exploratory programming
KW - program
KW - comprehension
KW - remodularization
KW - architecture recovery
Y1 - 2022
U6 - https://doi.org/10.5381/jot.2022.21.2.a6
SN - 1660-1769
VL - 21
IS - 2
SP - 1
EP - 15
PB - ETH Zürich, Department of Computer Science
CY - Zürich
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Dordevic, Milos
A1 - Hölzer, Sonja
A1 - Russo, Augusta
A1 - García Alanis, José Carlos
A1 - Müller, Notger Germar
T1 - The Role of the Precuneus in Human Spatial Updating in a Real Environment Setting—A cTBS Study
JF - Life
N2 - As we move through an environment, we update positions of our body relative to other objects, even when some objects temporarily or permanently leave our field of view—this ability is termed egocentric spatial updating and plays an important role in everyday life. Still, our knowledge about its representation in the brain is still scarce, with previous studies using virtual movements in virtual environments or patients with brain lesions suggesting that the precuneus might play an important role. However, whether this assumption is also true when healthy humans move in real environments where full body-based cues are available in addition to the visual cues typically used in many VR studies is unclear. Therefore, in this study we investigated the role of the precuneus in egocentric spatial updating in a real environment setting in 20 healthy young participants who underwent two conditions in a cross-over design: (a) stimulation, achieved through applying continuous theta-burst stimulation (cTBS) to inhibit the precuneus and (b) sham condition (activated coil turned upside down). In both conditions, participants had to walk back with blindfolded eyes to objects they had previously memorized while walking with open eyes. Simplified trials (without spatial updating) were used as control condition, to make sure the participants were not affected by factors such as walking blindfolded, vestibular or working memory deficits. A significant interaction was found, with participants performing better in the sham condition compared to real stimulation, showing smaller errors both in distance and angle. The results of our study reveal evidence of an important role of the precuneus in a real-environment egocentric spatial updating; studies on larger samples are necessary to confirm and further investigate this finding.
KW - precuneus
KW - spatial updating
KW - TMS
KW - cTBS
Y1 - 2022
U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/life12081239
SN - 2075-1729
VL - 12
SP - 1
EP - 13
PB - MDPI
CY - Basel, Schweiz
ET - 8
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - 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 - Miklashevsky, Alex
T1 - Catch the star! Spatial information activates the manual motor system
JF - PLoS ONE
N2 - Previous research demonstrated a close bidirectional relationship between spatial attention and the manual motor system. However, it is unclear whether an explicit hand movement is necessary for this relationship to appear. A novel method with high temporal resolution–bimanual grip force registration–sheds light on this issue. Participants held two grip force sensors while being presented with lateralized stimuli (exogenous attentional shifts, Experiment 1), left- or right-pointing central arrows (endogenous attentional shifts, Experiment 2), or the words "left" or "right" (endogenous attentional shifts, Experiment 3). There was an early interaction between the presentation side or arrow direction and grip force: lateralized objects and central arrows led to a larger increase of the ipsilateral force and a smaller increase of the contralateral force. Surprisingly, words led to the opposite pattern: larger force increase in the contralateral hand and smaller force increase in the ipsilateral hand. The effect was stronger and appeared earlier for lateralized objects (60 ms after stimulus presentation) than for arrows (100 ms) or words (250 ms). Thus, processing visuospatial information automatically activates the manual motor system, but the timing and direction of this effect vary depending on the type of stimulus.
Y1 - 2022
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262510
SN - 1932-6203
SP - 1
EP - 30
PB - PLOS
CY - San Francisco, California, US
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Westphal, Andrea
A1 - Kalinowski, Eva
A1 - Hoferichter, Clara Josepha
A1 - Vock, Miriam
T1 - K−12 teachers' stress and burnout during the COVID-19 pandemic: A systematic review
JF - Frontiers in Psychology
N2 - We present the first systematic literature review on stress and burnout in K−12 teachers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on a systematic literature search, we identified 17 studies that included 9,874 K−12 teachers from around the world. These studies showed some indication that burnout did increase during the COVID-19 pandemic. There were, however, almost no differences in the levels of stress and burnout experienced by K−12 teachers compared to individuals employed in other occupational fields. School principals' leadership styles emerged as an organizational characteristic that is highly relevant for K−12 teachers' levels of stress and burnout. Individual teacher characteristics associated with burnout were K−12 teachers' personality, self-efficacy in online teaching, and perceived vulnerability to COVID-19. In order to reduce stress, there was an indication that stress-management training in combination with training in technology use for teaching may be superior to stress-management training alone. Future research needs to adopt more longitudinal designs and examine the interplay between individual and organizational characteristics in the development of teacher stress and burnout during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.
KW - burnout
KW - stress
KW - COVID-19
KW - pandemic
KW - K−12 teachers
KW - remote teaching
Y1 - 2022
U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.920326
SN - 1664-1078
SP - 1
EP - 29
PB - Frontiers
CY - Lausanne, Schweiz
ER -
TY - CHAP
A1 - Krah, Markus
T1 - Ein transnationaler jüdischer Kanon als Verlagsprogramm
BT - Salman Schockens Verlage in Berlin und New York
T2 - Juden und ihre Nachbarn : die Wissenschaft des Judentums im Kontext von Diaspora und Migration
N2 - Der Verleger, Kaufhausunternehmer und Mäzen Salman Schocken (1877– 1959)neigte nicht zu übertriebener Bescheidenheit. Als er 1945 in New York seinen amerikanischen Verlag ins Leben rief, kündigte er ihn mit folgenden Worten an:
Schocken ignorierte damit die Arbeit der zahlreichen bestehenden amerikanisch-jüdischen Verlagshäuser, da diese seiner Meinung nach nicht die Aufgabe erfüllten, die ihm vorschwebte: die Rückführung traditionsferner und damit in ihrer Identität unsicherer Juden durch Auseinandersetzung mit ihrem kulturellen Erbe. Dieses Ziel hatte bereits das Programm des Berliner Schocken Verlags (1931– 1938) bestimmt, der die vom Gründer genannten „repräsentative[n] Kostproben des Judentums“ veröffentlicht und damit zur „jüdischen Kulturrenaissance“ der 1930er Jahre beigetragen hatte.² Auch nach seiner Emigration nach Palästina 1934 blieb Schocken einer deutsch-jüdischen Wissenskultur zeitlebens verhaftet. Mit seiner verlegerischen Arbeit in den USA wollte Schocken das Programm seines Berliner Verlags für das amerikanische Nachkriegsjudentum neu auflegen, da sich dieses – seiner Meinung nach – in einer ähnlichen geistigen Situation befand wie das deutsche Judentum der Weimarer Republik. Entsprechend verkündete er 1945 in einer Rede in Jerusalem: „Sie wissen, dass ich jetzt daran arbeite, den Schockenverlag in Amerika zu machen. Das ist eine Imitation des deutschen Verlages. [...] Entfernungen existieren nicht mehr und Einfluss von hier nach dort und dort nach hier ist nicht mehr zu übersehen.“³ In diesen Aussagen klingen bereits verschiedene Schlüsselthemen der Rolle von Schocken Books New York an, dessen Geschichte bisher nur ansatzweise erforscht ist: Der Bezug auf Schockens Erfahrungen in Deutschland und das davon geprägte kulturpolitische Programm, das Kontinuitäten zwischen zwei räumlich und zeitlich fundamental getrennten jüdischen Gemeinschaften postulierte und auf einen transnationalen Kanon jüdischen Wissens zielte. Schocken wirkte mit seinen Verlagen, die er in Deutschland, Palästina/Israel und den USA gründete, nicht nur an drei Schlüsselorten der jüdischen Moderne. Sein Verlagsprogramm stand zudem im Kontext eines Schlüsselprozesses jüdischer Modernisierung: der Transformation traditionell-religiösen Wissens in posttraditionell-kulturelle Formen. Dieser Beitrag stellt anhand von Quellen aus dem Verlagsarchiv, der Nachlässe von Schockens Lektoren in den USA und der Rezeption von Schocken Books in den USA den Verlagsgründer Salman Schocken und die beiden Verlage in Berlin und New York vor. Im Zentrum der Analyse stehen die transnationale Verflechtung der Verlagshäuser und die Frage nach dem in den Publikationsprogrammen angestrebten transnationalen Kanon jüdischen Wissens in der Moderne.
N2 - Salman Schocken (1877– 1959), department store magnate, cultural Zionist, and philanthropist, founded book publishing companies in Germany, Palestine/Israel, and the US. The Schocken Verlag in Berlin (1931– 1938) and Schocken Books in New York (founded in 1945) shared a mission: to culturally and spiritually fortify beleaguered Jewish communities, who were no longer anchored in the religious tradition. Despite the dramatic changes in the Jewish world, Schocken found that both German and American Jewry needed to be grounded in a positive sense of Jewishness. He sought to shape this new identity by offering texts from the religious tradition and the Jewish cultural heritage – and to make them relevant to post-traditional Jews by packaging them in new forms: Anthologies and (cultural) translations presented texts like prayers and mystical texts as cultural expressions; series of small, affordable, and attractive books – the Schocken Bücherei in Germany and the Schocken Library in the US – were meant as a new transnational canon of Jewish cultural knowledge. In reality, however, Schocken Books mostly imported and translated texts, which the Verlag had selected according to German-Jewish ideals of Bildung. The American company almost went bankrupt in the 1950s, before it connected with the specifically American cultural needs of its audience. While this experience calls into question the Schocken mission of a transnational Jewish cultural canon, it suggests that the formation of a new Jewish epistemology was a crucial process of Jewish modernization.
Y1 - 2022
SN - 978-3-11-077070-4
SN - 978-3-11-077249-4
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110772388-011
SP - 193
EP - 212
PB - de Gruyter
CY - Berlin
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Hipp, Lena
A1 - Konrad, Markus
T1 - Has Covid-19 increased gender inequalities in professional advancement?
BT - cross-country evidence on productivity differences between male and female software developers
JF - Journal of family research
N2 - Objective: This article analyzed gender differences in professional advancement following the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic based on data from open-source software developers in 37 countries. Background: Men and women may have been affected differently from the social distancing measures implemented to contain the Covid-19 pandemic. Given that men and women tend to work in different jobs and that they have been unequally involved in childcare duties, school and workplace closings may have impacted men's and women's professional lives unequally. Method: We analyzed original data from the world's largest social coding community, GitHub. We first estimated a Holt-Winters forecast model to compare the predicted and the observed average weekly productivity of a random sample of male and female developers (N=177,480) during the first lockdown period in 2020. To explain the crosscountry variation in the gendered effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on software developers' productivity, we estimated two-way fixed effects models with different lockdown measures as predictors - school and workplace closures, in particular. Results: In most countries, both male and female developers were, on average, more productive than predicted, and productivity increased for both genders with increasing lockdown stringency. When examining the effects of the most relevant types of lockdown measures separately, we found that stay-at-home restrictions increased both men's and women's productivity and that workplace closures also increased the number of weekly contributions on average - but for women, only when schools were open. Conclusion: Having found gender differences in the effect of workplace closures contingent on school and daycare closures within a population that is relatively young and unlikely to have children (software developers), we conclude that the Covid-19 pandemic may indeed have contributed to increased gender inequalities in professional advancement.
KW - gender
KW - Covid-19
KW - inequality
KW - productivity
KW - international comparison;
KW - GitHub
Y1 - 2022
U6 - https://doi.org/10.20377/jfr-697
SN - 2699-2337
VL - 34
IS - 1
SP - 134
EP - 160
PB - University of Bamberg Press
CY - Bamberg
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Malabarba, Taiane
A1 - Oliveira Mendes, Anna Carolina
A1 - de Souza, Joseane
T1 - Multimodal resolution of overlapping talk in video-mediated L2 instruction
JF - Languages : open access journal
N2 - This paper investigates a pervasive phenomenon in video-mediated interaction (VMI), namely, simultaneous start-ups, which happen when two speakers produce a turn beginning in overlap. Based on the theoretical and methodological tenets of conversation analysis and interactional linguistics, the present study offers a multimodal and sequential account of how simultaneous start-ups are oriented to and solved in the context of English as an additional language (L2) tutoring. The micro- and sequential analysis of ten hours of screen-recorded video-mediated data from tutoring sessions between an experienced tutor and an advanced-level tutee reveals that the typical overlap resolution trajectory results in the tutor withdrawing from the interactional floor. The same analysis uncovered a range of resources, such as lip pressing and the verbal utterance 'go ahead', employed in what we call enhanced explicitness, through which the withdrawal is done. The orchestration of these resources allows the tutor to exploit the specific features of the medium to resolve simultaneous start-ups while also supporting the continuation of student talk. We maintain that this practice is used in the service of securing the learner's interactional space, and consequently in fostering the use of the language being learned. The results of the study help advance current understandings of L2 instructors' specialized work of managing participation and creating learning opportunities. Being one of the first studies to detail the practices involved in overlap resolution in the micro-context of simultaneous talk on Zoom-based L2 instruction, this study also makes a significant contribution to research on video-mediated instruction and video-mediated interaction more generally.
KW - video-mediated interaction (VMI)
KW - English as an additional language
KW - (L2)
KW - teaching
KW - turn-taking
KW - overlap resolution
KW - 'go ahead';
KW - multimodality
KW - conversation analysis
KW - interactional linguistics
Y1 - 2022
U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/languages7020154
SN - 2226-471X
VL - 7
IS - 2
PB - MDPI
CY - Basel
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Heisig, Jan Paul
A1 - Matthewes, Sönke Hendrik
T1 - No evidence that strict educational tracking improves student performance through classroom homogeneity
BT - a critical reanalysis of Esser and Seuring (2020)
BT - eine kritische Reanalyse von Esser und Seuring (2020)
JF - Zeitschrift für Soziologie
N2 - In a recent contribution to this journal, Esser and Seuring (2020) draw on data from the National Educational Panel Study to attack the widespread view that tracking in lower secondary education exacerbates inequalities in student outcomes without improving average student performance. Exploiting variation in the strictness of tracking across 13 of the 16 German federal states (e. g., whether teacher recommendations are binding), Esser and Seuring claim to demonstrate that stricter tracking after grade 4 results in better performance in grade 7 and that this can be attributed to the greater homogeneity of classrooms under strict tracking. We show these conclusions to be untenable: Esser and Seuring's measures of classroom composition are highly dubious because the number of observed students is very small for many classrooms. Even when we adopt their classroom composition measures, simple corrections and extensions of their analysis reveal that there is no meaningful evidence for a positive relationship between classroom homogeneity and student achievement - the channel supposed to mediate the alleged positive effect of strict tracking. We go on to show that students from more strictly tracking states perform better already at the start of tracking (grade 5), which casts further doubt on the alleged positive effect of strict tracking on learning progress and leaves selection or anticipation effects as more plausible explanations. On a conceptual level, we emphasize that Esser and Seuring's analysis is limited to states that implement different forms of early tracking and cannot inform us about the relative performance of comprehensive and tracked systems that is the focus of most prior research.
N2 - In einem kürzlich in dieser Zeitschrift veröffentlichten Artikel attackieren Esser und Seuring (2020) die verbreitete Auffassung, dass eine frühe Leistungsdifferenzierung in den ersten Jahren der Sekundarstufe Ungleichheiten zwischen Schüler*innen verstärkt, ohne sich positiv auf das durchschnittliche Leistungsniveau auszuwirken. Auf Basis einer Analyse von Daten des Nationalen Bildungspanels für 13 Bundesländer kommen die Autoren zu dem Ergebnis, dass sich eine strenge Leistungsdifferenzierung (z. B. durch bindende Grundschulempfehlungen) positiv auf das Leistungsniveau in Klasse 7 auswirkt und dass dies auf die homogenere Klassenzusammensetzung in strikt differenzierenden Ländern zurückgeführt werden kann. Der vorliegende Beitrag zeigt, dass diese Schlussfolgerungen nicht haltbar sind: Esser und Seurings Indikatoren für die Klassenzusammensetzung sind qualitativ fragwürdig, da die Anzahl gültiger Beobachtungen für viele Klassen sehr klein ist. Selbst bei Verwendung ihrer Indikatoren wird durch einfache Korrekturen und Ergänzungen ihrer Analyse schnell deutlich, dass es keine belastbaren empirischen Belege für den theoretisch zentralen positiven Zusammenhang zwischen homogener Klassenzusammensetzung und Leistungsniveau gibt. Zudem können wir zeigen, dass Schüler*innen in streng differenzierenden Ländern bereits zu Beginn der Sekundarstufe bessere Leistungen erzielen, ein weiteres Ergebnis, das gegen einen (kausalen) positiven Zusammenhang zwischen strenger Differenzierung und Lernfortschritt und für Alternativerklärungen wie Selektions- oder Antizipationseffekte spricht. In konzeptioneller Hinsicht heben wir hervor, dass sich die Analyse von Esser und Seuring auf verschiedene leistungsdifferenzierende Systeme beschränkt und insofern keine unmittelbaren Implikationen für den in der Literatur zentralen Vergleich zwischen differenzierenden und Gesamtschulsystemen (comprehensive systems) haben kann.
T2 - Keine Belege für leistungsfördernde Effekte von strikter Leistungsdifferenzierung durch kognitive Homogenisierung
KW - Ability Tracking
KW - Secondary Education Systems
KW - Peer Effects
KW - Classroom
KW - Composition
KW - Mediation Analysis
KW - Replication
KW - Leistungsdifferenzierung
KW - Sekundarbildungssysteme
KW - Peer-Effekte
KW - Klassenzusammensetzung
KW - Mediationsanalyse
KW - Replikation
Y1 - 2022
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1515/zfsoz-2022-0001
SN - 0340-1804
SN - 2366-0325
VL - 51
IS - 1
SP - 99
EP - 111
PB - de Gruyter Oldenbourg
CY - Berlin
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Wiebking, Christine
A1 - Lin, Chiao-I
A1 - Wippert, Pia-Maria
T1 - Training intervention effects on cognitive performance and neuronal plasticity — A pilot study
JF - Frontiers in Neurology, section Neurorehabilitation
N2 - Studies suggest that people suffering from chronic pain may have altered brain plasticity, along with altered functional connectivity between pain-processing brain regions. These may be related to decreased mood and cognitive performance. There is some debate as to whether physical activity combined with behavioral therapy (e.g. cognitive distraction, body scan) may counteract these changes. However, underlying neuronal mechanisms are unclear. The aim of the current pilot study with a 3-armed randomized controlled trial design was to examine the effects of sensorimotor training for nonspecific chronic low back pain on (1) cognitive performance; (2) fMRI activity co-fluctuations (functional connectivity) between pain-related brain regions; and (3) the relationship between functional connectivity and subjective variables (pain and depression). Six hundred and sixty two volunteers with non-specific chronic low back pain were randomly allocated to a unimodal (sensorimotor training), multidisciplinary (sensorimotor training and behavioral therapy) intervention, or to a control group within a multicenter study. A subsample of patients (n = 21) from one study center participated in the pilot study presented here. Measurements were at baseline, during (3 weeks, M2) and after intervention (12 weeks, M4 and 24 weeks, M5). Cognitive performance was measured by the Trail Making Test and functional connectivity by MRI. Pain perception and depression were assessed by the Von Korff questionnaire and the Hospital and Anxiety. Group differences were calculated by univariate and repeated ANOVA measures and Bayesian statistics; correlations by Pearson's r. Change and correlation of functional connection were analyzed within a pooled intervention group (uni-, multidisciplinary group). Results revealed that participants with increased pain intensity at baseline showed higher functional connectivity between pain-related brain areas used as ROIs in this study. Though small sample sizes limit generalization, cognitive performance increased in the multimodal group. Increased functional connectivity was observed in participants with increased pain ratings. Pain ratings and connectivity in pain-related brain regions decreased after the intervention. The results provide preliminary indication that intervention effects can potentially be achieved on the cognitive and neuronal level. The intervention may be suitable for therapy and prevention of non-specific chronic low back pain.
KW - chronic back pain
KW - sensorimotor training intervention
KW - multimodal intervention
KW - MRI
KW - neuroplasticity
Y1 - 2022
U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fneur.2022.773813
SN - 1664-2295
VL - 13
PB - Frontiers
CY - Lausanne, Schweiz
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Block, Andrea
A1 - Bonaventura, Klaus
A1 - Grahn, Patricia
A1 - Bestgen, Felix
A1 - Wippert, Pia-Maria
T1 - Stress management in pre-and postoperative care amongst practitioners and patients in cardiac catheterization laboratory: a study protocol
JF - Frontiers in Cardiovascular Medicine
N2 - Background: As the number of cardiac diseases continuously increases within the last years in modern society, so does cardiac treatment, especially cardiac catheterization. The procedure of a cardiac catheterization is challenging for both patients and practitioners. Several potential stressors of psychological or physical nature can occur during the procedure. The objective of the study is to develop and implement a stress management intervention for both practitioners and patients that aims to reduce the psychological and physical strain of a cardiac catheterization.
Methods: The clinical study (DRKS00026624) includes two randomized controlled intervention trials with parallel groups, for patients with elective cardiac catheterization and practitioners at the catheterization lab, in two clinic sites of the Ernst-von-Bergmann clinic network in Brandenburg, Germany. Both groups received different interventions for stress management. The intervention for patients comprises a psychoeducational video with different stress management technics and additional a standardized medical information about the cardiac catheterization examination. The control condition includes the in hospitals practiced medical patient education before the examination (usual care). Primary and secondary outcomes are measured by physiological parameters and validated questionnaires, the day before (M1) and after (M2) the cardiac catheterization and at a postal follow-up 6 months later (M3). It is expected that people with standardized information and psychoeducation show reduced complications during cardiac catheterization procedures, better pre- and post-operative wellbeing, regeneration, mood and lower stress levels over time. The intervention for practitioners includes a Mindfulness-based stress reduction program (MBSR) over 8 weeks supervised by an experienced MBSR practitioner directly at the clinic site and an operative guideline. It is expected that practitioners with intervention show improved perceived and chronic stress, occupational health, physical and mental function, higher effort-reward balance, regeneration and quality of life. Primary and secondary outcomes are measured by physiological parameters (heart rate variability, saliva cortisol) and validated questionnaires and will be assessed before (M1) and after (M2) the MBSR intervention and at a postal follow-up 6 months later (M3). Physiological biomarkers in practitioners will be assessed before (M1) and after intervention (M2) on two work days and a two days off. Intervention effects in both groups (practitioners and patients) will be evaluated separately using multivariate variance analysis.
Discussion: This study evaluates the effectiveness of two stress management intervention programs for patients and practitioners within cardiac catheter laboratory. Study will disclose strains during a cardiac catheterization affecting both patients and practitioners. For practitioners it may contribute to improved working conditions and occupational safety, preservation of earning capacity, avoidance of participation restrictions and loss of performance. In both groups less anxiety, stress and complications before and during the procedures can be expected. The study may add knowledge how to eliminate stressful exposures and to contribute to more (psychological) security, less output losses and exhaustion during work. The evolved stress management guidelines, training manuals and the standardized patient education should be transferred into clinical routines
KW - stress management
KW - mindfulness-based stress reduction
KW - psychoeducation
KW - standardized patient information
KW - stress intervention
KW - distress
KW - study protocol
KW - cardiac catheterization (CC)
Y1 - 2022
U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fcvm.2022.830256
SN - 2297-055X
VL - 9
SP - 1
EP - 10
PB - Frontiers
CY - Lausanne, Schweiz
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Ellermann, Christin
A1 - McDowell, Michelle
A1 - Schirren, Clara O.
A1 - Lindemann, Ann-Kathrin
A1 - Koch, Severine
A1 - Lohmann, Mark
A1 - Jenny, Mirjam Annina
T1 - Identifying content to improve risk assessment communications within the Risk Profile: Literature reviews and focus groups with expert and non-expert stakeholders
JF - PLoS ONE
N2 - Objective
To improve consumer decision making, the results of risk assessments on food, feed, consumer products or chemicals need to be communicated not only to experts but also to non-expert audiences. The present study draws on evidence from literature reviews and focus groups with diverse stakeholders to identify content to integrate into an existing risk assessment communication (Risk Profile).
Methods
A combination of rapid literature reviews and focus groups with experts (risk assessors (n = 15), risk managers (n = 8)), and non-experts (general public (n = 18)) were used to identify content and strategies for including information about risk assessment results in the “Risk Profile” from the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment. Feedback from initial focus groups was used to develop communication prototypes that informed subsequent feedback rounds in an iterative process. A final prototype was validated in usability tests with experts.
Results
Focus group feedback and suggestions from risk assessors were largely in line with findings from the literature. Risk managers and lay persons offered similar suggestions on how to improve the existing communication of risk assessment results (e.g., including more explanatory detail, reporting probabilities for individual health impairments, and specifying risks for subgroups in additional sections). Risk managers found information about quality of evidence important to communicate, whereas people from the general public found this information less relevant. Participants from lower educational backgrounds had difficulties understanding the purpose of risk assessments. User tests found that the final prototype was appropriate and feasible to implement by risk assessors.
Conclusion
An iterative and evidence-based process was used to develop content to improve the communication of risk assessments to the general public while being feasible to use by risk assessors. Remaining challenges include how to communicate dose-response relationships and standardise quality of evidence ratings across disciplines.
Y1 - 2022
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0266800
SN - 1553-7358
VL - 17
PB - Public Library of Science (PLOS)
CY - San Francisco, California, USA
ET - 4
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Osei, Francis
A1 - Block, Andrea
A1 - Wippert, Pia-Maria
T1 - Association of primary allostatic load mediators and metabolic syndrome (MetS): A systematic review
JF - Frontiers in Endocrinology
N2 - Allostatic load (AL) exposure may cause detrimental effects on the neuroendocrine system, leading to metabolic syndrome (MetS). The primary mediators of AL involve serum dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate (DHEAS; a functional HPA axis antagonist); further, cortisol, urinary norepinephrine (NE), and epinephrine (EPI) excretion levels (assessed within 12-h urine as a golden standard for the evaluation of the HPA axis activity and sympathetic nervous system activity). However, the evidence of an association between the primary mediators of AL and MetS is limited. This systematic review aimed to critically examine the association between the primary mediators of AL and MetS. PubMed and Web of Science were searched for articles from January 2010 to December 2021, published in English. The search strategy focused on cross-sectional and case–control studies comprising adult participants with MetS, obesity, overweight, and without chronic diseases. The STROBE checklist was used to assess study quality control. Of 770 studies, twenty-one studies with a total sample size (n = 10,666) met the eligibility criteria. Eighteen studies were cross-sectional, and three were case–control studies. The included studies had a completeness of reporting score of COR % = 87.0 ± 6.4%. It is to be noted, that cortisol as a primary mediator of AL showed an association with MetS in 50% (urinary cortisol), 40% (serum cortisol), 60% (salivary cortisol), and 100% (hair cortisol) of the studies. For DHEAS, it is to conclude that 60% of the studies showed an association with MetS. In contrast, urinary EPI and urinary NE had 100% no association with MetS. In summary, there is a tendency for the association between higher serum cortisol, salivary cortisol, urinary cortisol, hair cortisol, and lower levels of DHEAS with MetS. Future studies focusing on longitudinal data are warranted for clarification and understanding of the association between the primary mediators of AL and MetS.
KW - allostatic load
KW - cortisol
KW - dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate
KW - epinephrine
KW - norepinephrine
KW - metabolic syndrome
KW - primary marker
Y1 - 2022
U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fendo.2022.946740
SN - 1664-2392
VL - 13
PB - Frontiers
CY - Lausanne, Schweiz
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Seržant, Ilja A.
A1 - Moroz, George A.
T1 - Universal attractors in language evolution provide evidence for the kinds of efficiency pressures involved
JF - Humanities & Social Sciences Communications
N2 - Efficiency is central to understanding the communicative and cognitive underpinnings of language. However, efficiency management is a complex mechanism in which different efficiency effects-such as articulatory, processing and planning ease, mental accessibility, and informativity, online and offline efficiency effects-conspire to yield the coding of linguistic signs. While we do not yet exactly understand the interactional mechanism of these different effects, we argue that universal attractors are an important component of any dynamic theory of efficiency that would be aimed at predicting efficiency effects across languages. Attractors are defined as universal states around which language evolution revolves. Methodologically, we approach efficiency from a cross-linguistic perspective on the basis of a world-wide sample of 383 languages from 53 families, balancing all six macro-areas (Eurasia, North and South America, Australia, Africa, and Oceania). We explore the grammatical domain of verbal person-number subject indexes. We claim that there is an attractor state in this domain to which languages tend to develop and tend not to leave if they happen to comply with the attractor in their earlier stages of evolution. The attractor is characterized by different lengths for each person and number combination, structured along Zipf's predictions. Moreover, the attractor strongly prefers non-compositional, cumulative coding of person and number. On the basis of these and other properties of the attractor, we conclude that there are two domains in which efficiency pressures are most powerful: strive towards less processing and articulatory effort. The latter, however, is overridden by constant information flow. Strive towards lower lexicon complexity and memory costs are weaker efficiency pressures for this grammatical category due to its order of frequency.
KW - Duration
KW - Explanations
KW - Redundancy
KW - Pronouns
KW - Usage
Y1 - 2022
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01072-0
SN - 2662-9992
VL - 9
IS - 1
PB - Springer Nature
CY - London
ER -