TY - JOUR A1 - Warschburger, Petra A1 - Kamrath, Clemens A1 - Lanzinger, Stefanie A1 - Sengler, Claudia A1 - Wiegand, Susanna A1 - Göldel, Julia Marlen A1 - Weihrauch-Blüher, Susann A1 - Holl, Reinhard A1 - Minden, Kirsten T1 - A prospective analysis of the long-term impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on well-being and health care among children with a chronic condition and their families BT - a study protocol of the KICK-COVID study JF - BMC pediatrics N2 - Background There is consistent evidence that the COVID-19 pandemic is associated with an increased psychosocial burden on children and adolescents and their parents. Relatively little is known about its particular impact on high-risk groups with chronic physical health conditions (CCs). Therefore, the primary aim of the study is to analyze the multiple impacts on health care and psychosocial well-being on these children and adolescents and their parents. Methods We will implement a two-stage approach. In the first step, parents and their underage children from three German patient registries for diabetes, obesity, and rheumatic diseases, are invited to fill out short questionnaires including questions about corona-specific stressors, the health care situation, and psychosocial well-being. In the next step, a more comprehensive, in-depth online survey is carried out in a smaller subsample. Discussion The study will provide insights into the multiple longer-term stressors during the COVID-19 pandemic in families with a child with a CC. The simultaneous consideration of medical and psycho-social endpoints will help to gain a deeper understanding of the complex interactions affecting family functioning, psychological well-being, and health care delivery. KW - Chronic conditions KW - COVID-19 KW - Children and adolescents KW - Parents KW - Risk perception KW - Psychosocial strain KW - Diabetes KW - Rheumatic diseases KW - Obesity Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1186/s12887-023-03912-7 SN - 1471-2431 VL - 23 IS - 1 PB - BioMed Central CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Päßler, Ulrich T1 - A Political Economy of Nature BT - Alexander von Humboldt's Essay on the Fluctuations in the Supplies of Gold JF - HiN : Alexander von Humboldt im Netz ; International Review for Humboldtian Studies N2 - In seinem Aufsatz „Ueber die Schwankungen der Goldproduktion mit Rücksicht auf staatswirthschaftliche Probleme“ (1838) entfaltet Alexander von Humboldt auf wenigen Seiten eine Weltgeschichte des Edelmetallverkehrs von der Antike bis ins 19. Jahrhundert. Der vorliegende Artikel geht Humboldts ökonomischem Denken als Teil seiner Forschungen zur Natur- und Menschheitsgeschichte nach. Er beginnt mit einem kurzen Abriss der von spätmerkantilistischen und frühliberalen Einflüssen geprägten Ausbildung Humboldts. Der Artikel diskutiert anschließend eine von Humboldt angefertigte Weltkarte sowie vier darauf bezogene Schaubilder, die historische und zeitgenössische statistische Daten zur graphischen Vision eines globalen Wirtschaftskreislaufs kombinieren. In einem weiteren Schritt geht der Artikel Humboldts Anwendung historischer und naturgeschichtlicher Forschungsmethoden auf dem Gebiet der politischen Ökonomie am Beispiel des Aufsatzes von 1838 nach. Den Schluss der Untersuchung bildet Humboldts Auseinandersetzung mit dem Edelmetall Platin, dessen begrenzte Verbreitung im Widerspruch zur Idee eines freien weltweiten Austauschs stand. N2 - Dans son mémoire « Sur la production de l’or considérée dans ses fluctuations » (1838), Alexandre de Humboldt développa une histoire universelle de la circulation des métaux précieux de l’antiquité jusqu’au XIXe siècle. Le présent article poursuit la pensée économique de Humboldt en la mettant dans le contexte de ses études physiques, naturelles et historiques. L’article commence par un abrégé de l’éducation professionnelle de Humboldt, qui était marquée par des influences caméralistes et libérales à la fois. Puis l’article commente une mappemonde et quatre diagrammes, dessinés par Humboldt; la combinaison des données statistiques historiques et contemporaines constitue la vision cartographique d’un circuit économique global. Dans un second temps, l’article aborde le mémoire de 1838 et analyse l’emploi des méthodes de recherche des sciences naturelles et historiques dans le domaine de l’économie politique. L’article se conclut par un examen des remarques de Humboldt sur le platine, un métal précieux qui en raison de sa répartition naturelle limitée était en contradiction avec l’idée d’un libre échange mondial. N2 - In his “Essay on the Fluctuations in the Supplies of Gold” (1838) Humboldt presents a global history of the flow of precious metals from antiquity to the 19th century. This paper traces Humboldt’s economic thinking within his natural and historical research, starting with an outline of his educational background which incorporated late mercantilist and early liberal influences. It then discusses a world map and four charts drawn by Humboldt, which combine historical and contemporary statistical data into a cartographical vision of a global economic circuit. In a next step, the article explores Humboldt’s application of natural and historical research methods in the field of political economy, using the example of his 1838 essay. Finally, the article addresses Humboldt’s discussion of platinum, a precious metal whose limited natural distribution contradicted the idea of free global exchange. KW - Wirtschaftgeschichte KW - Wissenschaftsgeschichte KW - Kameralismus KW - Bergbau KW - Edelmetalle KW - Gold KW - Silber KW - Platin Y1 - 2017 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-395781 SN - 1617-5239 SN - 2568-3543 VL - XVIII IS - 34 SP - 80 EP - 91 PB - Universitätsverlag Potsdam CY - Potsdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Hintsche, Marius A1 - Waljor, Veronika A1 - Grossmann, Robert A1 - Kühn, Marco J. A1 - Thormann, Kai M. A1 - Peruani, Fernando A1 - Beta, Carsten T1 - A polar bundle of flagella can drive bacterial swimming by pushing, pulling, or coiling around the cell body JF - Scientific reports N2 - Bacteria swim in sequences of straight runs that are interrupted by turning events. They drive their swimming locomotion with the help of rotating helical flagella. Depending on the number of flagella and their arrangement across the cell body, different run-and-turn patterns can be observed. Here, we present fluorescence microscopy recordings showing that cells of the soil bacterium Pseudomonas putida that are decorated with a polar tuft of helical flagella, can alternate between two distinct swimming patterns. On the one hand, they can undergo a classical push-pull-push cycle that is well known from monopolarly flagellated bacteria but has not been reported for species with a polar bundle of multiple flagella. Alternatively, upon leaving the pulling mode, they can enter a third slow swimming phase, where they propel themselves with their helical bundle wrapped around the cell body. A theoretical estimate based on a random-walk model shows that the spreading of a population of swimmers is strongly enhanced when cycling through a sequence of pushing, pulling, and wrapped flagellar configurations as compared to the simple push-pull-push pattern. Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-16428-9 SN - 2045-2322 VL - 7 PB - Macmillan Publishers Limited, part of Springer Nature CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Spikes, Montrai A1 - Rodríguez-Silva, Rodet A1 - Bennett, Kerri-Ann A1 - Bräger, Stefan A1 - Josaphat, James A1 - Torres-Pineda, Patricia A1 - Ernst, Anja A1 - Havenstein, Katja A1 - Schlupp, Ingo A1 - Tiedemann, Ralph T1 - A phylogeny of the genus Limia (Teleostei: Poeciliidae) suggests a single-lake radiation nested in a Caribbean-wide allopatric speciation scenario JF - BMC Research Notes N2 - Objective The Caribbean is an important global biodiversity hotspot. Adaptive radiations there lead to many speciation events within a limited period and hence are particularly prominent biodiversity generators. A prime example are freshwater fish of the genus Limia, endemic to the Greater Antilles. Within Hispaniola, nine species have been described from a single isolated site, Lake Miragoâne, pointing towards extraordinary sympatric speciation. This study examines the evolutionary history of the Limia species in Lake Miragoâne, relative to their congeners throughout the Caribbean. Results For 12 Limia species, we obtained almost complete sequences of the mitochondrial cytochrome b gene, a well-established marker for lower-level taxonomic relationships. We included sequences of six further Limia species from GenBank (total N  = 18 species). Our phylogenies are in concordance with other published phylogenies of Limia. There is strong support that the species found in Lake Miragoâne in Haiti are monophyletic, confirming a recent local radiation. Within Lake Miragoâne, speciation is likely extremely recent, leading to incomplete lineage sorting in the mtDNA. Future studies using multiple unlinked genetic markers are needed to disentangle the relationships within the Lake Miragoâne clade. KW - Cytochrome b KW - Island biogeography KW - Fresh water fish KW - Phylogeny Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1186/s13104-021-05843-x SN - 1756-0500 VL - 14 SP - 1 EP - 8 PB - BMC Research Notes / Biomed Central CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Malass, Ihsane A1 - Tarkhanov, Nikolaj Nikolaevič T1 - A perturbation of the de Rham complex T1 - Возмущение комплекса де Рама JF - Journal of Siberian Federal University : Mathematics & Physics JF - Žurnal Sibirskogo Federalʹnogo Universiteta : Matematika i fizika N2 - We consider a perturbation of the de Rham complex on a compact manifold with boundary. This perturbation goes beyond the framework of complexes, and so cohomology does not apply to it. On the other hand, its curvature is "small", hence there is a natural way to introduce an Euler characteristic and develop a Lefschetz theory for the perturbation. This work is intended as an attempt to develop a cohomology theory for arbitrary sequences of linear mappings. N2 - Рассмотрим возмущение комплекса де Рама на компактном многообразии с краем. Это возмущение выходит за рамки комплексов, и поэтому когомологии к нему не относятся. С другой стороны, его кривизна "мала", поэтому существует естественный способ ввести характеристику Эйлера и разработать теорию Лефшеца для возмущения. Данная работа предназначена для попытки разработать теорию когомологий для произвольных последовательностей линейных отображений. KW - de Rham complex KW - cohomology KW - Hodge theory KW - Neumann problem KW - комплекс де Рама KW - когомологии KW - теория Ходжа KW - проблема Неймана Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.17516/1997-1397-2020-13-5-519-532 SN - 1997-1397 SN - 2313-6022 VL - 13 IS - 5 SP - 519 EP - 532 PB - Siberian Federal University CY - Krasnojarsk ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Großmann, Robert A1 - Aranson, Igor S. A1 - Peruani, Fernando T1 - A particle-field approach bridges phase separation and collective motion in active matter JF - Nature Communications N2 - Whereas self-propelled hard discs undergo motility-induced phase separation, self-propelled rods exhibit a variety of nonequilibrium phenomena, including clustering, collective motion, and spatio-temporal chaos. In this work, we present a theoretical framework representing active particles by continuum fields. This concept combines the simplicity of alignment-based models, enabling analytical studies, and realistic models that incorporate the shape of self-propelled objects explicitly. By varying particle shape from circular to ellipsoidal, we show how nonequilibrium stresses acting among self-propelled rods destabilize motility-induced phase separation and facilitate orientational ordering, thereby connecting the realms of scalar and vectorial active matter. Though the interaction potential is strictly apolar, both, polar and nematic order may emerge and even coexist. Accordingly, the symmetry of ordered states is a dynamical property in active matter. The presented framework may represent various systems including bacterial colonies, cytoskeletal extracts, or shaken granular media. Interacting self-propelled particles exhibit phase separation or collective motion depending on particle shape. A unified theory connecting these paradigms represents a major challenge in active matter, which the authors address here by modeling active particles as continuum fields. Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-18978-5 SN - 2041-1723 VL - 11 IS - 1 PB - Nature Publishing Group CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Wehrhan, Marc A1 - Sommer, Michael T1 - A parsimonious approach to estimate soil organic carbon applying Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) multispectral imagery and the topographic position index in a heterogeneous soil landscape JF - Remote sensing / Molecular Diversity Preservation International (MDPI) N2 - Remote sensing plays an increasingly key role in the determination of soil organic carbon (SOC) stored in agriculturally managed topsoils at the regional and field scales. Contemporary Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) carrying low-cost and lightweight multispectral sensors provide high spatial resolution imagery (<10 cm). These capabilities allow integrate of UAS-derived soil data and maps into digitalized workflows for sustainable agriculture. However, the common situation of scarce soil data at field scale might be an obstacle for accurate digital soil mapping. In our case study we tested a fixed-wing UAS equipped with visible and near infrared (VIS-NIR) sensors to estimate topsoil SOC distribution at two fields under the constraint of limited sampling points, which were selected by pedological knowledge. They represent all releva nt soil types along an erosion-deposition gradient; hence, the full feature space in terms of topsoils' SOC status. We included the Topographic Position Index (TPI) as a co-variate for SOC prediction. Our study was performed in a soil landscape of hummocky ground moraines, which represent a significant of global arable land. Herein, small scale soil variability is mainly driven by tillage erosion which, in turn, is strongly dependent on topography. Relationships between SOC, TPI and spectral information were tested by Multiple Linear Regression (MLR) using: (i) single field data (local approach) and (ii) data from both fields (pooled approach). The highest prediction performance determined by a leave-one-out-cross-validation (LOOCV) was obtained for the models using the reflectance at 570 nm in conjunction with the TPI as explanatory variables for the local approach (coefficient of determination (R-2) = 0.91; root mean square error (RMSE) = 0.11% and R-2 = 0.48; RMSE = 0.33, respectively). The local MLR models developed with both reflectance and TPI using values from all points showed high correlations and low prediction errors for SOC content (R-2 = 0.88, RMSE = 0.07%; R-2 = 0.79, RMSE = 0.06%, respectively). The comparison with an enlarged dataset consisting of all points from both fields (pooled approach) showed no improvement of the prediction accuracy but yielded decreased prediction errors. Lastly, the local MLR models were applied to the data of the respective other field to evaluate the cross-field prediction ability. The spatial SOC pattern generally remains unaffected on both fields; differences, however, occur concerning the predicted SOC level. Our results indicate a high potential of the combination of UAS-based remote sensing and environmental covariates, such as terrain attributes, for the prediction of topsoil SOC content at the field scale. The temporal flexibility of UAS offer the opportunity to optimize flight conditions including weather and soil surface status (plant cover or residuals, moisture and roughness) which, otherwise, might obscure the relationship between spectral data and SOC content. Pedologically targeted selection of soil samples for model development appears to be the key for an efficient and effective prediction even with a small dataset. KW - Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) KW - multispectral KW - Topographic Position Index KW - (TPI) KW - Multiple Linear Regression (MLR) KW - soil organic carbon (SOC) KW - agriculture KW - erosion KW - soil landscape KW - hummocky ground moraine Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/rs13183557 SN - 2072-4292 VL - 13 IS - 18 PB - MDPI CY - Basel ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kagel, Heike A1 - Bier, Frank Fabian A1 - Frohme, Marcus A1 - Glökler, Jörn F. T1 - A Novel Optical Method To Reversibly Control Enzymatic Activity Based On Photoacids JF - Scientific reports N2 - Most biochemical reactions depend on the pH value of the aqueous environment and some are strongly favoured to occur in an acidic environment. A non-invasive control of pH to tightly regulate such reactions with defined start and end points is a highly desirable feature in certain applications, but has proven difficult to achieve so far. We report a novel optical approach to reversibly control a typical biochemical reaction by changing the pH and using acid phosphatase as a model enzyme. The reversible photoacid G-acid functions as a proton donor, changing the pH rapidly and reversibly by using high power UV LEDs as an illumination source in our experimental setup. The reaction can be tightly controlled by simply switching the light on and off and should be applicable to a wide range of other enzymatic reactions, thus enabling miniaturization and parallelization through non-invasive optical means. Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-50867-w SN - 2045-2322 VL - 9 PB - Nature Publishing Group CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Woutersen, Amber A1 - Jardine, Phillip E. A1 - Giovanni Bogota-Angel, Raul A1 - Zhang, Hong-Xiang A1 - Silvestro, Daniele A1 - Antonelli, Alexandre A1 - Gogna, Elena A1 - Erkens, Roy H. J. A1 - Gosling, William D. A1 - Dupont-Nivet, Guillaume A1 - Hoorn, Carina T1 - A novel approach to study the morphology and chemistry of pollen in a phylogenetic context, applied to the halophytic taxon Nitraria L.(Nitrariaceae) JF - PeerJ N2 - Nitraria is a halophytic taxon (i.e., adapted to saline environments) that belongs to the plant family Nitrariaceae and is distributed from the Mediterranean, across Asia into the south-eastern tip of Australia. This taxon is thought to have originated in Asia during the Paleogene (66-23 Ma), alongside the proto-Paratethys epicontinental sea. The evolutionary history of Nitraria might hold important clues on the links between climatic and biotic evolution but limited taxonomic documentation of this taxon has thus far hindered this line of research. Here we investigate if the pollen morphology and the chemical composition of the pollen wall are informative of the evolutionary history of Nitraria and could explain if origination along the proto-Paratethys and dispersal to the Tibetan Plateau was simultaneous or a secondary process. To answer these questions, we applied a novel approach consisting of a combination of Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), to determine the chemical composition of the pollen wall, and pollen morphological analyses using Light Microscopy (LM) and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). We analysed our data using ordinations (principal components analysis and non-metric multidimensional scaling), and directly mapped it on the Nitrariaceae phylogeny to produce a phylomorphospace and a phylochemospace. Our LM, SEM and FTIR analyses show clear morphological and chemical differences between the sister groups Peganum and Nitraria. Differences in the morphological and chemical characteristics of highland species (Nitraria schoberi, N. sphaerocarpa, N. sibirica and N. tangutorum) and lowland species (Nitraria billardierei and N. retusa) are very subtle, with phylogenetic history appearing to be a more important control on Nitraria pollen than local environmental conditions. Our approach shows a compelling consistency between the chemical and morphological characteristics of the eight studied Nitrariaceae species, and these traits are in agreement with the phylogenetic tree. Taken together, this demonstrates how novel methods for studying fossil pollen can facilitate the evolutionary investigation of living and extinct taxa, and the environments they represent. KW - FTIR KW - LM KW - SEM KW - Paratethys KW - Tibet KW - Sporopollenin KW - Mediterranean KW - Steppe-desert KW - Australia KW - Palynology Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.5055 SN - 2167-8359 VL - 6 PB - PeerJ Inc. CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Göthel, Markus A1 - Listek, Martin A1 - Messerschmidt, Katrin A1 - Schlör, Anja A1 - Hönow, Anja A1 - Hanack, Katja T1 - A New Workflow to Generate Monoclonal Antibodies against Microorganisms JF - Applied Sciences N2 - Monoclonal antibodies are used worldwide as highly potent and efficient detection reagents for research and diagnostic applications. Nevertheless, the specific targeting of complex antigens such as whole microorganisms remains a challenge. To provide a comprehensive workflow, we combined bioinformatic analyses with novel immunization and selection tools to design monoclonal antibodies for the detection of whole microorganisms. In our initial study, we used the human pathogenic strain E. coli O157:H7 as a model target and identified 53 potential protein candidates by using reverse vaccinology methodology. Five different peptide epitopes were selected for immunization using epitope-engineered viral proteins. The identification of antibody-producing hybridomas was performed by using a novel screening technology based on transgenic fusion cell lines. Using an artificial cell surface receptor expressed by all hybridomas, the desired antigen-specific cells can be sorted fast and efficiently out of the fusion cell pool. Selected antibody candidates were characterized and showed strong binding to the target strain E. coli O157:H7 with minor or no cross-reactivity to other relevant microorganisms such as Legionella pneumophila and Bacillus ssp. This approach could be useful as a highly efficient workflow for the generation of antibodies against microorganisms. KW - monoclonal antibody KW - antibody producing cell selection KW - hybridoma KW - epitope prediction Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/app11209359 SN - 1454-5101 VL - 11 IS - 20 PB - MDPI CY - Basel ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Sroka, Pavel A1 - Godunko, Roman J. A1 - Rutschmann, Sereina A1 - Angeli, Kamila B. A1 - Salles, Frederico F. A1 - Gattolliat, Jean-Luc T1 - A new species of Bungona in Turkey (Ephemeroptera, Baetidae) BT - an unexpected biogeographic pattern within a pantropical complex of mayflies JF - Zoosytematics and evolution N2 - By using an integrative approach, we describe a new species of mayfly, Bungona (Chopralla) pontica sp. n., from Turkey. The discovery of a representative of the tropical mayfly genus Bungona in the Middle East is rather unexpected. The new species shows all the main morphological characters of the subgenus Chopralla, which has its closest related species occurring in southeastern Asia. Barcoding clearly indicated that the new species represents an independent lineage isolated for a very long time from other members of the complex. The claw is equipped with two rows of three or four flattened denticles. This condition is a unique feature of Bungona (Chopralla) pontica sp. n. among West Palaearctic mayfly species. Within the subgenus Chopralla, the species can be identified by the presence of a simple, not bifid right prostheca (also present only in Bungona (Chopralla) liebenauae (Soldan, Braasch & Muu, 1987)), the shape of the labial palp, and the absence of protuberances on pronotum. KW - Biogeography KW - Cloeodes complex KW - Chopralla KW - integrative taxonomy KW - Middle East KW - new species Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3897/zse.95.29487 SN - 1860-0743 VL - 95 IS - 1 SP - 1 EP - 13 PB - Pensoft Publ. CY - Sofia ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kindermann, Liana A1 - Dobler, Magnus A1 - Niedeggen, Daniela A1 - Linstädter, Anja T1 - A new protocol for estimation of woody aboveground biomass in disturbance-prone ecosystems JF - Ecological indicators : integrating monitoring, assessment and management N2 - Almost one third of global drylands are open forests and savannas, which are typically shaped by frequent natural disturbances such as wildfire and herbivory. Studies on ecosystem functions and services of woody vegetation require robust estimates of aboveground biomass (AGB). However, most methods have been developed for comparatively undisturbed forest ecosystems. As they are not tailored to accurately quantify AGB of small and irregular growth forms, their application on these growth forms may lead to unreliable or even biased AGB estimates in disturbance-prone dryland ecosystems. Moreover, these methods cannot quantify AGB losses caused by disturbance agents. Here we propose a methodology to estimate individual-and stand-level woody AGB in disturbance-prone ecosystems. It consists of flexible field sampling routines and estimation workflows for six growth classes, delineated by size and damage criteria. It also comprises a detailed damage assessment, harnessing the ecological archive of woody growth for past disturbances. Based on large inventories collected along steep gradients of elephant disturbances in African dryland ecosystems, we compared the AGB estimates generated with our proposed method against estimates from a less adapted forest inventory method. We evaluated the necessary stepwise procedures of method adaptation and analyzed each step's effect on stand-level AGB estimation. We further explored additional advantages of our proposed method with regard to disturbance impact quantification. Results indicate that a majority of growth forms and individuals in savanna vegetation could only be assessed if methods of AGB estimation were adapted to the conditions of a disturbance-prone ecosystem. Furthermore, our damage assessment demonstrated that one third to half of all woody AGB was lost to disturbances. Consequently, less adapted methods may be insufficient and are likely to render inaccurate AGB estimations. Our proposed method has the potential to accurately quantify woody AGB in disturbance-prone ecosystems, as well as AGB losses. Our method is more time consuming than conventional allometric approaches, yet it can cover sufficient areas within reasonable timespans, and can also be easily adapted to alternative sampling schemes. KW - Damage assessment KW - Disturbance impacts KW - Tree growth classes KW - Method KW - comparison KW - Flexible sampling strategy KW - Tree allometry KW - Woody KW - aboveground biomass Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2021.108466 SN - 1470-160X SN - 1872-7034 VL - 135 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Obbard, Darren J. A1 - Shi, Mang A1 - Roberts, Katherine E. A1 - Longdon, Ben A1 - Dennis, Alice B. T1 - A new lineage of segmented RNA viruses infecting animals JF - Virus Evolution N2 - Metagenomic sequencing has revolutionised our knowledge of virus diversity, with new virus sequences being reported faster than ever before. However, virus discovery from metagenomic sequencing usually depends on detectable homology: without a sufficiently close relative, so-called ‘dark’ virus sequences remain unrecognisable. An alternative approach is to use virus-identification methods that do not depend on detecting homology, such as virus recognition by host antiviral immunity. For example, virus-derived small RNAs have previously been used to propose ‘dark’ virus sequences associated with the Drosophilidae (Diptera). Here, we combine published Drosophila data with a comprehensive search of transcriptomic sequences and selected meta-transcriptomic datasets to identify a completely new lineage of segmented positive-sense single-stranded RNA viruses that we provisionally refer to as the Quenyaviruses. Each of the five segments contains a single open reading frame, with most encoding proteins showing no detectable similarity to characterised viruses, and one sharing a small number of residues with the RNA-dependent RNA polymerases of single- and double-stranded RNA viruses. Using these sequences, we identify close relatives in approximately 20 arthropods, including insects, crustaceans, spiders, and a myriapod. Using a more conserved sequence from the putative polymerase, we further identify relatives in meta-transcriptomic datasets from gut, gill, and lung tissues of vertebrates, reflecting infections of vertebrates or of their associated parasites. Our data illustrate the utility of small RNAs to detect viruses with limited sequence conservation, and provide robust evidence for a new deeply divergent and phylogenetically distinct RNA virus lineage. KW - metagenome KW - RNA virus KW - dark virus KW - arthropod KW - RNA interference Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1093/ve/vez061 SN - 2057-1577 VL - 6 IS - 1 SP - 1 EP - 10 PB - Oxford Univ. Press CY - Oxford ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Voit, Paul A1 - Heistermann, Maik T1 - A new index to quantify the extremeness of precipitation across scales JF - NHESS - Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences N2 - Quantifying the extremeness of heavy precipitation allows for the comparison of events. Conventional quantitative indices, however, typically neglect the spatial extent or the duration, while both are important to understand potential impacts. In 2014, the weather extremity index (WEI) was suggested to quantify the extremeness of an event and to identify the spatial and temporal scale at which the event was most extreme. However, the WEI does not account for the fact that one event can be extreme at various spatial and temporal scales. To better understand and detect the compound nature of precipitation events, we suggest complementing the original WEI with a “cross-scale weather extremity index” (xWEI), which integrates extremeness over relevant scales instead of determining its maximum. Based on a set of 101 extreme precipitation events in Germany, we outline and demonstrate the computation of both WEI and xWEI. We find that the choice of the index can lead to considerable differences in the assessment of past events but that the most extreme events are ranked consistently, independently of the index. Even then, the xWEI can reveal cross-scale properties which would otherwise remain hidden. This also applies to the disastrous event from July 2021, which clearly outranks all other analyzed events with regard to both WEI and xWEI. While demonstrating the added value of xWEI, we also identify various methodological challenges along the required computational workflow: these include the parameter estimation for the extreme value distributions, the definition of maximum spatial extent and temporal duration, and the weighting of extremeness at different scales. These challenges, however, also represent opportunities to adjust the retrieval of WEI and xWEI to specific user requirements and application scenarios. Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-22-2791-2022 SN - 1684-9981 VL - 22 SP - 2791 EP - 2805 PB - Copernicus CY - Katlenburg-Lindau ET - 8 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Cheng, Feng A1 - Dennis, Alice B. A1 - Osuoha, Josephine Ijeoma A1 - Canitz, Julia A1 - Kirschbaum, Frank A1 - Tiedemann, Ralph T1 - A new genome assembly of an African weakly electric fish (Campylomormyrus compressirostris, Mormyridae) indicates rapid gene family evolution in Osteoglossomorpha JF - BMC genomics N2 - Background Teleost fishes comprise more than half of the vertebrate species. Within teleosts, most phylogenies consider the split between Osteoglossomorpha and Euteleosteomorpha/Otomorpha as basal, preceded only by the derivation of the most primitive group of teleosts, the Elopomorpha. While Osteoglossomorpha are generally species poor, the taxon contains the African weakly electric fish (Mormyroidei), which have radiated into numerous species. Within the mormyrids, the genus Campylomormyrus is mostly endemic to the Congo Basin. Campylomormyrus serves as a model to understand mechanisms of adaptive radiation and ecological speciation, especially with regard to its highly diverse species-specific electric organ discharges (EOD). Currently, there are few well-annotated genomes available for electric fish in general and mormyrids in particular. Our study aims at producing a high-quality genome assembly and to use this to examine genome evolution in relation to other teleosts. This will facilitate further understanding of the evolution of the osteoglossomorpha fish in general and of electric fish in particular. Results A high-quality weakly electric fish (C. compressirostris) genome was produced from a single individual with a genome size of 862 Mb, consisting of 1,497 contigs with an N50 of 1,399 kb and a GC-content of 43.69%. Gene predictions identified 34,492 protein-coding genes, which is a higher number than in the two other available Osteoglossomorpha genomes of Paramormyrops kingsleyae and Scleropages formosus. A Computational Analysis of gene Family Evolution (CAFE5) comparing 33 teleost fish genomes suggests an overall faster gene family turnover rate in Osteoglossomorpha than in Otomorpha and Euteleosteomorpha. Moreover, the ratios of expanded/contracted gene family numbers in Osteoglossomorpha are significantly higher than in the other two taxa, except for species that had undergone an additional genome duplication (Cyprinus carpio and Oncorhynchus mykiss). As potassium channel proteins are hypothesized to play a key role in EOD diversity among species, we put a special focus on them, and manually curated 16 Kv1 genes. We identified a tandem duplication in the KCNA7a gene in the genome of C. compressirostris. Conclusions We present the fourth genome of an electric fish and the third well-annotated genome for Osteoglossomorpha, enabling us to compare gene family evolution among major teleost lineages. Osteoglossomorpha appear to exhibit rapid gene family evolution, with more gene family expansions than contractions. The curated Kv1 gene family showed seven gene clusters, which is more than in other analyzed fish genomes outside Osteoglossomorpha. The KCNA7a, encoding for a potassium channel central for EOD production and modulation, is tandemly duplicated which may related to the diverse EOD observed among Campylomormyrus species. KW - Campylomormyrus KW - Pacbio sequencing KW - Gene family KW - Osteoglossomorpha KW - Kv1 Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1186/s12864-023-09196-6 SN - 1471-2164 VL - 24 IS - 1 PB - BMC CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Jannasch, Franziska A1 - Nickel, Daniela V. A1 - Bergmann, Manuela M. A1 - Schulze, Matthias Bernd T1 - A new evidence-based diet score to capture associations of food consumption and chronic disease risk JF - Nutrients / Molecular Diversity Preservation International (MDPI) N2 - Previously, the attempt to compile German dietary guidelines into a diet score was predominantly not successful with regards to preventing chronic diseases in the EPIC-Potsdam study. Current guidelines were supplemented by the latest evidence from systematic reviews and expert papers published between 2010 and 2020 on the prevention potential of food groups on chronic diseases such as type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and cancer. A diet score was developed by scoring the food groups according to a recommended low, moderate or high intake. The relative validity and reliability of the diet score, assessed by a food frequency questionnaire, was investigated. The consideration of current evidence resulted in 10 key food groups being preventive of the chronic diseases of interest. They served as components in the diet score and were scored from 0 to 1 point, depending on their recommended intake, resulting in a maximum of 10 points. Both the reliability (r = 0.53) and relative validity (r = 0.43) were deemed sufficient to consider the diet score as a stable construct in future investigations. This new diet score can be a promising tool to investigate dietary intake in etiological research by concentrating on 10 key dietary determinants with evidence-based prevention potential for chronic diseases. KW - diet score KW - dietary guidelines KW - food groups KW - chronic disease KW - type 2 KW - diabetes KW - cardiovascular disease KW - cancer KW - prevention KW - reliability; KW - validity Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/nu14112359 SN - 2072-6643 VL - 14 IS - 11 PB - MDPI CY - Basel ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Schittko, Conrad A1 - Bernard-Verdier, Maud A1 - Heger, Tina A1 - Buchholz, Sascha A1 - Kowarik, Ingo A1 - von der Lippe, Moritz A1 - Seitz, Birgit A1 - Joshi, Jasmin Radha A1 - Jeschke, Jonathan M. T1 - A multidimensional framework for measuring biotic novelty: How novel is a community? JF - Global Change Biology N2 - Anthropogenic changes in climate, land use, and disturbance regimes, as well as introductions of non-native species can lead to the transformation of many ecosystems. The resulting novel ecosystems are usually characterized by species assemblages that have not occurred previously in a given area. Quantifying the ecological novelty of communities (i.e., biotic novelty) would enhance the understanding of environmental change. However, quantification remains challenging since current novelty metrics, such as the number and/or proportion of non-native species in a community, fall short of considering both functional and evolutionary aspects of biotic novelty. Here, we propose the Biotic Novelty Index (BNI), an intuitive and flexible multidimensional measure that combines (a) functional differences between native and non-native introduced species with (b) temporal dynamics of species introductions. We show that the BNI is an additive partition of Rao's quadratic entropy, capturing the novel interaction component of the community's functional diversity. Simulations show that the index varies predictably with the relative amount of functional novelty added by recently arrived species, and they illustrate the need to provide an additional standardized version of the index. We present a detailed R code and two applications of the BNI by (a) measuring changes of biotic novelty of dry grassland plant communities along an urbanization gradient in a metropolitan region and (b) determining the biotic novelty of plant species assemblages at a national scale. The results illustrate the applicability of the index across scales and its flexibility in the use of data of different quality. Both case studies revealed strong connections between biotic novelty and increasing urbanization, a measure of abiotic novelty. We conclude that the BNI framework may help building a basis for better understanding the ecological and evolutionary consequences of global change. KW - alien species KW - biological invasions KW - coexistence KW - ecological novelty KW - functional diversity KW - novel ecosystems KW - novel species KW - standard metrics Y1 - 2019 VL - 26 IS - 8 PB - John Wiley & Sons, Inc. CY - New Jersey ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Brandenburger, Bonny T1 - A multidimensional and analytical perspective on Open Educational Practices in the 21st century JF - Frontiers in education N2 - Participatory approaches to teaching and learning are experiencing a new lease on life in the 21st century as a result of the rapid technology development. Knowledge, practices, and tools can be shared across spatial and temporal boundaries in higher education by means of Open Educational Resources, Massive Open Online Courses, and open-source technologies. In this context, the Open Education Movement calls for new didactic approaches that encourage greater learner participation in formal higher education. Based on a representative literature review and focus group research, in this study an analytical framework was developed that enables researchers and practitioners to assess the form of participation in formal, collaborative teaching and learning practices. The analytical framework is focused on the micro-level of higher education, in particular on the interaction between students and lecturers when organizing the curriculum. For this purpose, the research reflects anew on the concept of participation, taking into account existing stage models for participation in the educational context. These are then brought together with the dimensions of teaching and learning processes, such as methods, objectives and content, etc. This paper aims to make a valuable contribution to the opening up of learning and teaching, and expands the discourse around possibilities for interpreting Open Educational Practices. KW - open education KW - Open Educational Practices KW - participation KW - focus group research KW - analytical framework for Participatory Educational Practices KW - teaching and learning process Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2022.990675 SN - 2504-284X VL - 7 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 - Perach, Shai A1 - Alexandron, Giora T1 - A MOOC-Based Computer Science Program for Middle School BT - Results, Challenges, and the Covid-19 Effect JF - EMOOCs 2021 N2 - In an attempt to pave the way for more extensive Computer Science Education (CSE) coverage in K-12, this research developed and made a preliminary evaluation of a blended-learning Introduction to CS program based on an academic MOOC. Using an academic MOOC that is pedagogically effective and engaging, such a program may provide teachers with disciplinary scaffolds and allow them to focus their attention on enhancing students’ learning experience and nurturing critical 21st-century skills such as self-regulated learning. As we demonstrate, this enabled us to introduce an academic level course to middle-school students. In this research, we developed the principals and initial version of such a program, targeting ninth-graders in science-track classes who learn CS as part of their standard curriculum. We found that the middle-schoolers who participated in the program achieved academic results on par with undergraduate students taking this MOOC for academic credit. Participating students also developed a more accurate perception of the essence of CS as a scientific discipline. The unplanned school closure due to the COVID19 pandemic outbreak challenged the research but underlined the advantages of such a MOOCbased blended learning program above classic pedagogy in times of global or local crises that lead to school closure. While most of the science track classes seem to stop learning CS almost entirely, and the end-of-year MoE exam was discarded, the program’s classes smoothly moved to remote learning mode, and students continued to study at a pace similar to that experienced before the school shut down. Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-517133 SN - 978-3-86956-512-5 VL - 2021 SP - 111 EP - 127 PB - Universitätsverlag Potsdam CY - Potsdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Grebenkov, Denis S. A1 - Metzler, Ralf A1 - Oshanin, Gleb T1 - A molecular relay race: sequential first-passage events to the terminal reaction centre in a cascade of diffusion controlled processes JF - New Journal of Physics (NJP) N2 - We consider a sequential cascade of molecular first-reaction events towards a terminal reaction centre in which each reaction step is controlled by diffusive motion of the particles. The model studied here represents a typical reaction setting encountered in diverse molecular biology systems, in which, e.g. a signal transduction proceeds via a series of consecutive 'messengers': the first messenger has to find its respective immobile target site triggering a launch of the second messenger, the second messenger seeks its own target site and provokes a launch of the third messenger and so on, resembling a relay race in human competitions. For such a molecular relay race taking place in infinite one-, two- and three-dimensional systems, we find exact expressions for the probability density function of the time instant of the terminal reaction event, conditioned on preceding successful reaction events on an ordered array of target sites. The obtained expressions pertain to the most general conditions: number of intermediate stages and the corresponding diffusion coefficients, the sizes of the target sites, the distances between them, as well as their reactivities are arbitrary. KW - diffusion KW - reaction cascade KW - first passage time Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1088/1367-2630/ac1e42 SN - 1367-2630 VL - 23 PB - IOP - Institute of Physics Publishing CY - Bristol ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Pornsawad, Pornsarp A1 - Sapsakul, Nantawan A1 - Böckmann, Christine T1 - A modified asymptotical regularization of nonlinear ill-posed problems JF - Mathematics N2 - In this paper, we investigate the continuous version of modified iterative Runge–Kutta-type methods for nonlinear inverse ill-posed problems proposed in a previous work. The convergence analysis is proved under the tangential cone condition, a modified discrepancy principle, i.e., the stopping time T is a solution of ∥𝐹(𝑥𝛿(𝑇))−𝑦𝛿∥=𝜏𝛿+ for some 𝛿+>𝛿, and an appropriate source condition. We yield the optimal rate of convergence. KW - nonlinear operator KW - regularization KW - discrepancy principle KW - asymptotic method KW - optimal rate Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/math7050419 SN - 2227-7390 VL - 7 PB - MDPI CY - Basel, Schweiz ET - 5 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Hassanin, Alshaimaa A1 - Kliem, Bernhard A1 - Seehafer, Norbert A1 - Török, Tibor T1 - A model of homologous confined and ejective eruptions involving kink instability and flux cancellation JF - The astrophysical journal : an international review of spectroscopy and astronomical physics N2 - In this study, we model a sequence of a confined and a full eruption, employing the relaxed end state of the confined eruption of a kink-unstable flux rope as the initial condition for the ejective one. The full eruption, a model of a coronal mass ejection, develops as a result of converging motions imposed at the photospheric boundary, which drive flux cancellation. In this process, parts of the positive and negative external flux converge toward the polarity inversion line, reconnect, and cancel each other. Flux of the same amount as the canceled flux transfers to a flux rope, increasing the free magnetic energy of the coronal field. With sustained flux cancellation and the associated progressive weakening of the magnetic tension of the overlying flux, we find that a flux reduction of approximate to 11% initiates the torus instability of the flux rope, which leads to a full eruption. These results demonstrate that a homologous full eruption, following a confined one, can be driven by flux cancellation. Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/ac64a9 SN - 2041-8205 SN - 2041-8213 VL - 929 IS - 2 PB - IOP Publ. Ltd. CY - Bristol ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ramezani Ziarani, Maryam A1 - Bookhagen, Bodo A1 - Schmidt, Torsten A1 - Wickert, Jens A1 - de la Torre, Alejandro A1 - Deng, Zhiguo A1 - Calori, Andrea T1 - A model for the relationship between rainfall, GNSS-derived integrated water vapour, and CAPE in the eastern central Andes JF - Remote Sensing N2 - Atmospheric water vapour content is a key variable that controls the development of deep convective storms and rainfall extremes over the central Andes. Direct measurements of water vapour are challenging; however, recent developments in microwave processing allow the use of phase delays from L-band radar to measure the water vapour content throughout the atmosphere: Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS)-based integrated water vapour (IWV) monitoring shows promising results to measure vertically integrated water vapour at high temporal resolutions. Previous works also identified convective available potential energy (CAPE) as a key climatic variable for the formation of deep convective storms and rainfall in the central Andes. Our analysis relies on GNSS data from the Argentine Continuous Satellite Monitoring Network, Red Argentina de Monitoreo Satelital Continuo (RAMSAC) network from 1999 to 2013. CAPE is derived from version 2.0 of the ECMWF’s (European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts) Re-Analysis (ERA-interim) and rainfall from the TRMM (Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission) product. In this study, we first analyse the rainfall characteristics of two GNSS-IWV stations by comparing their complementary cumulative distribution function (CCDF). Second, we separately derive the relation between rainfall vs. CAPE and GNSS-IWV. Based on our distribution fitting analysis, we observe an exponential relation of rainfall to GNSS-IWV. In contrast, we report a power-law relationship between the daily mean value of rainfall and CAPE at the GNSS-IWV station locations in the eastern central Andes that is close to the theoretical relationship based on parcel theory. Third, we generate a joint regression model through a multivariable regression analysis using CAPE and GNSS-IWV to explain the contribution of both variables in the presence of each other to extreme rainfall during the austral summer season. We found that rainfall can be characterised with a higher statistical significance for higher rainfall quantiles, e.g., the 0.9 quantile based on goodness-of-fit criterion for quantile regression. We observed different contributions of CAPE and GNSS-IWV to rainfall for each station for the 0.9 quantile. Fourth, we identify the temporal relation between extreme rainfall (the 90th, 95th, and 99th percentiles) and both GNSS-IWV and CAPE at 6 h time steps. We observed an increase before the rainfall event and at the time of peak rainfall—both for GNSS-integrated water vapour and CAPE. We show higher values of CAPE and GNSS-IWV for higher rainfall percentiles (99th and 95th percentiles) compared to the 90th percentile at a 6-h temporal scale. Based on our correlation analyses and the dynamics of the time series, we show that both GNSS-IWV and CAPE had comparable magnitudes, and we argue to consider both climatic variables when investigating their effect on rainfall extremes. KW - Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) KW - GNSS-integrated water vapour KW - convective available potential energy (CAPE) KW - extreme rainfall KW - TRMM Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/rs13183788 SN - 2072-4292 VL - 13 IS - 18 PB - MDPI CY - Basel ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Staubitz, Thomas A1 - Serth, Sebastian A1 - Thomas, Max A1 - Ebner, Martin A1 - Koschutnig-Ebner, Markus A1 - Rampelt, Florian A1 - von Stetten, Alexander A1 - Wittke, Andreas ED - Meinel, Christoph ED - Schweiger, Stefanie ED - Staubitz, Thomas ED - Conrad, Robert ED - Alario Hoyos, Carlos ED - Ebner, Martin ED - Sancassani, Susanna ED - Żur, Agnieszka ED - Friedl, Christian ED - Halawa, Sherif ED - Gamage, Dilrukshi ED - Scott, Jeffrey ED - Kristine Jonson Carlon, May ED - Deville, Yves ED - Gaebel, Michael ED - Delgado Kloos, Carlos ED - von Schmieden, Karen T1 - A metastandard for the international exchange of MOOCs BT - the MOOChub as first prototype JF - EMOOCs 2023 : Post-Covid Prospects for Massive Open Online Courses - Boost or Backlash? N2 - The MOOChub is a joined web-based catalog of all relevant German and Austrian MOOC platforms that lists well over 750 Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). Automatically building such a catalog requires that all partners describe and publicly offer the metadata of their courses in the same way. The paper at hand presents the genesis of the idea to establish a common metadata standard and the story of its subsequent development. The result of this effort is, first, an open-licensed de-facto-standard, which is based on existing commonly used standards and second, a first prototypical platform that is using this standard: the MOOChub, which lists all courses of the involved partners. This catalog is searchable and provides a more comprehensive overview of basically all MOOCs that are offered by German and Austrian MOOC platforms. Finally, the upcoming developments to further optimize the catalog and the metadata standard are reported. KW - Digitale Bildung KW - Kursdesign KW - MOOC KW - Micro Degree KW - Online-Lehre KW - Onlinekurs KW - Onlinekurs-Produktion KW - digital education KW - e-learning KW - micro degree KW - micro-credential KW - online course creation KW - online course design KW - online teaching Y1 - 2023 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-624154 SP - 147 EP - 161 PB - Universitätsverlag Potsdam CY - Potsdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Schiro, Gabriele A1 - Colangeli, Pierluigi A1 - Müller, Marina E. H. T1 - A Metabarcoding Analysis of the Mycobiome of Wheat Ears Across a Topographically Heterogeneous Field JF - Frontiers in microbiology KW - Fusarium KW - microclimate KW - canopy KW - fungal community KW - Alternaria KW - spatially induced variance Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2019.02095 SN - 1664-302X VL - 10 PB - Frontiers Research Foundation CY - Lausanne ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Hartung, Niklas A1 - Borghardt, Jens Markus T1 - A mechanistic framework for a priori pharmacokinetic predictions of orally inhaled drugs JF - PLoS Computational Biology : a new community journal N2 - Author summary
The use of orally inhaled drugs for treating lung diseases is appealing since they have the potential for lung selectivity, i.e. high exposure at the site of action -the lung- without excessive side effects. However, the degree of lung selectivity depends on a large number of factors, including physiochemical properties of drug molecules, patient disease state, and inhalation devices. To predict the impact of these factors on drug exposure and thereby to understand the characteristics of an optimal drug for inhalation, we develop a predictive mathematical framework (a "pharmacokinetic model"). In contrast to previous approaches, our model allows combining knowledge from different sources appropriately and its predictions were able to adequately predict different sets of clinical data. Finally, we compare the impact of different factors and find that the most important factors are the size of the inhaled particles, the affinity of the drug to the lung tissue, as well as the rate of drug dissolution in the lung. In contrast to the common belief, the solubility of a drug in the lining fluids is not found to be relevant. These findings are important to understand how inhaled drugs should be designed to achieve best treatment results in patients.
The fate of orally inhaled drugs is determined by pulmonary pharmacokinetic processes such as particle deposition, pulmonary drug dissolution, and mucociliary clearance. Even though each single process has been systematically investigated, a quantitative understanding on the interaction of processes remains limited and therefore identifying optimal drug and formulation characteristics for orally inhaled drugs is still challenging. To investigate this complex interplay, the pulmonary processes can be integrated into mathematical models. However, existing modeling attempts considerably simplify these processes or are not systematically evaluated against (clinical) data. In this work, we developed a mathematical framework based on physiologically-structured population equations to integrate all relevant pulmonary processes mechanistically. A tailored numerical resolution strategy was chosen and the mechanistic model was evaluated systematically against data from different clinical studies. Without adapting the mechanistic model or estimating kinetic parameters based on individual study data, the developed model was able to predict simultaneously (i) lung retention profiles of inhaled insoluble particles, (ii) particle size-dependent pharmacokinetics of inhaled monodisperse particles, (iii) pharmacokinetic differences between inhaled fluticasone propionate and budesonide, as well as (iv) pharmacokinetic differences between healthy volunteers and asthmatic patients. Finally, to identify the most impactful optimization criteria for orally inhaled drugs, the developed mechanistic model was applied to investigate the impact of input parameters on both the pulmonary and systemic exposure. Interestingly, the solubility of the inhaled drug did not have any relevant impact on the local and systemic pharmacokinetics. Instead, the pulmonary dissolution rate, the particle size, the tissue affinity, and the systemic clearance were the most impactful potential optimization parameters. In the future, the developed prediction framework should be considered a powerful tool for identifying optimal drug and formulation characteristics. Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1008466 SN - 1553-734X SN - 1553-7358 VL - 16 IS - 12 PB - PLoS CY - San Fransisco ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Wandt, Viktoria Klara Veronika A1 - Winkelbeiner, Nicola Lisa A1 - Bornhorst, Julia A1 - Witt, Barbara A1 - Raschke, Stefanie A1 - Simon, Luise A1 - Ebert, Franziska A1 - Kipp, Anna Patricia A1 - Schwerdtle, Tanja T1 - A matter of concern BT - trace element dyshomeostasis and genomic stability in neurons JF - Redox Biology N2 - Neurons are post-mitotic cells in the brain and their integrity is of central importance to avoid neurodegeneration. Yet, the inability of self-replenishment of post-mitotic cells results in the need to withstand challenges from numerous stressors during life. Neurons are exposed to oxidative stress due to high oxygen consumption during metabolic activity in the brain. Accordingly, DNA damage can occur and accumulate, resulting in genome instability. In this context, imbalances in brain trace element homeostasis are a matter of concern, especially regarding iron, copper, manganese, zinc, and selenium. Although trace elements are essential for brain physiology, excess and deficient conditions are considered to impair neuronal maintenance. Besides increasing oxidative stress, DNA damage response and repair of oxidative DNA damage are affected by trace elements. Hence, a balanced trace element homeostasis is of particular importance to safeguard neuronal genome integrity and prevent neuronal loss. This review summarises the current state of knowledge on the impact of deficient, as well as excessive iron, copper, manganese, zinc, and selenium levels on neuronal genome stability Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.redox.2021.101877 SN - 2213-2317 VL - 41 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Malem-Shinitski, Noa A1 - Opper, Manfred A1 - Reich, Sebastian A1 - Schwetlick, Lisa A1 - Seelig, Stefan A. A1 - Engbert, Ralf T1 - A mathematical model of local and global attention in natural scene viewing JF - PLoS Computational Biology : a new community journal N2 - Author summary
Switching between local and global attention is a general strategy in human information processing. We investigate whether this strategy is a viable approach to model sequences of fixations generated by a human observer in a free viewing task with natural scenes. Variants of the basic model are used to predict the experimental data based on Bayesian inference. Results indicate a high predictive power for both aggregated data and individual differences across observers. The combination of a novel model with state-of-the-art Bayesian methods lends support to our two-state model using local and global internal attention states for controlling eye movements.
Understanding the decision process underlying gaze control is an important question in cognitive neuroscience with applications in diverse fields ranging from psychology to computer vision. The decision for choosing an upcoming saccade target can be framed as a selection process between two states: Should the observer further inspect the information near the current gaze position (local attention) or continue with exploration of other patches of the given scene (global attention)? Here we propose and investigate a mathematical model motivated by switching between these two attentional states during scene viewing. The model is derived from a minimal set of assumptions that generates realistic eye movement behavior. We implemented a Bayesian approach for model parameter inference based on the model's likelihood function. In order to simplify the inference, we applied data augmentation methods that allowed the use of conjugate priors and the construction of an efficient Gibbs sampler. This approach turned out to be numerically efficient and permitted fitting interindividual differences in saccade statistics. Thus, the main contribution of our modeling approach is two-fold; first, we propose a new model for saccade generation in scene viewing. Second, we demonstrate the use of novel methods from Bayesian inference in the field of scan path modeling. Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1007880 SN - 1553-734X SN - 1553-7358 VL - 16 IS - 12 PB - PLoS CY - San Fransisco ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Fuchs, Susanne A1 - Koenig, Laura L. A1 - Gerstenberg, Annette T1 - A longitudinal study of speech acoustics in older French females BT - analysis of the filler particle euh across utterance positions JF - Languages : open access journal N2 - Aging in speech production is a multidimensional process. Biological, cognitive, social, and communicative factors can change over time, stay relatively stable, or may even compensate for each other. In this longitudinal work, we focus on stability and change at the laryngeal and supralaryngeal levels in the discourse particle euh produced by 10 older French-speaking females at two times, 10 years apart. Recognizing the multiple discourse roles of euh, we divided out occurrences according to utterance position. We quantified the frequency of euh, and evaluated acoustic changes in formants, fundamental frequency, and voice quality across time and utterance position. Results showed that euh frequency was stable with age. The only acoustic measure that revealed an age effect was harmonics-to-noise ratio, showing less noise at older ages. Other measures mostly varied with utterance position, sometimes in interaction with age. Some voice quality changes could reflect laryngeal adjustments that provide for airflow conservation utterance-finally. The data suggest that aging effects may be evident in some prosodic positions (e.g., utterance-final position), but not others (utterance-initial position). Thus, it is essential to consider the interactions among these factors in future work and not assume that vocal aging is evident throughout the signal. KW - aging KW - prosody KW - voice quality KW - fundamental frequency KW - formants KW - filler KW - particles Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/languages6040211 SN - 2226-471X VL - 6 IS - 4 PB - MDPI CY - Basel ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Herold, Fabian A1 - Labott, Berit K. A1 - Grässler, Bernhard A1 - Halfpaap, Nicole A1 - Langhans, Corinna A1 - Müller, Patrick A1 - Ammar, Achraf A1 - Dordevic, Milos A1 - Hökelmann, Anita A1 - Müller, Notger Germar T1 - A Link between Handgrip Strength and Executive Functioning: A Cross-Sectional Study in Older Adults with Mild Cognitive Impairment and Healthy Controls JF - Healthcare : open access journal N2 - Older adults with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) who in addition to their memory deficits also suffer from frontal-executive dysfunctions have a higher risk of developing dementia later in their lives than older adults with aMCI without executive deficits and older adults with non-amnestic MCI (naMCI). Handgrip strength (HGS) is also correlated with the risk of cognitive decline in the elderly. Hence, the current study aimed to investigate the associations between HGS and executive functioning in individuals with aMCI, naMCI and healthy controls. Older, right-handed adults with amnestic MCI (aMCI), non-amnestic MCI (naMCI), and healthy controls (HC) conducted a handgrip strength measurement via a handheld dynamometer. Executive functions were assessed with the Trail Making Test (TMT A&B). Normalized handgrip strength (nHGS, normalized to Body Mass Index (BMI)) was calculated and its associations with executive functions (operationalized through z-scores of TMT B/A ratio) were investigated through partial correlation analyses (i.e., accounting for age, sex, and severity of depressive symptoms). A positive and low-to-moderate correlation between right nHGS (rp (22) = 0.364; p = 0.063) and left nHGS (rp (22) = 0.420; p = 0.037) and executive functioning in older adults with aMCI but not in naMCI or HC was observed. Our results suggest that higher levels of nHGS are linked to better executive functioning in aMCI but not naMCI and HC. This relationship is perhaps driven by alterations in the integrity of the hippocampal-prefrontal network occurring in older adults with aMCI. Further research is needed to provide empirical evidence for this assumption. KW - MCI KW - hippocampal-prefrontal network KW - handgrip strength KW - exercise cognition KW - aging KW - brain health Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare10020230 SN - 2227-9032 VL - 10 SP - 1 EP - 14 PB - MDPI CY - Basel, Schweiz ET - 2 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Schwarz, Ingo A1 - Kutzinski, Vera M. ED - Ette, Ottmar ED - Knobloch, Eberhard T1 - A Letter from Alexander von Humboldt to Joseph Albert Wright – Archival Traces JF - HiN : Alexander von Humboldt im Netz N2 - A few months before his death, A. v. Humboldt attended the celebration in honor of the 127th birthday of George Washington at the US legation in Berlin. A letter to the American Envoy, Joseph A. Wright (1810 – 1867), underlines Humboldt’s admiration for the fi rst president of the United States. At the same time Humboldt asked the diplomat to mail a letter to the German-American Bernard Moses (1832 – 1897) in Clinton, Louisiana, who had named his son Alexander Humboldt Moses (grave on the Hebrew Rest Cemetery #2 in New Orleans, burial plot A, 12, 5). It appears to be possible that the Moses family still owns Humboldt’s letter. N2 - Wenige Monate vor seinem Tod besuchte A. v. Humboldt die Feier zu Ehren des 127. Geburtstages von George Washington an der Gesandtschaft der Vereinigten Staaten in Berlin. Ein Brief an den Gesandten, Joseph A. Wright (1810 – 1867), betonte Humboldts Bewunderung für den ersten Präsidenten der Vereinten Staaten. Gleichzeit bat Humboldt den Diplomaten um die Beförderung eines Briefes an den Deutschamerikaner Bernard Moses(1832 – 1897) in Clinton, Louisiana, der seinen Sohn Alexander Humboldt Moses (Grab auf dem Hebrew Rest Cemetery #2 in New Orleans, Grabstelle A, 12, 5) genannt hat. N2 - Unos meses antes de su muerte, A. v. Humboldt asistió a la celebración en honor al 127º cumpleaños de George Washington en la legación estadounidense en Berlín. Una carta al delegado estadounidense, Joseph A. Wright (1810 – 1867), subraya la admiración de Humboldt por el primer presidente de los Estados Unidos. Al mismo tiempo, Humboldt le pidió al diplomático que enviara una carta al germano-estadounidense Bernard Moses (1832 – 1897) en Clinton, Louisiana, quien había puesto a su hijo, el nombre de Alexander Humboldt Moses(tumba en el cementerio Hebrew Rest número 2 en Nueva Orleans, lugar de enteramiento: A, 12, 5). KW - Alexander Humboldt KW - Moses KW - Korrespondenz Alexander von Humboldts KW - Vereinigten Staaten Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-532787 SN - 2568-3543 SN - 1617-5239 VL - XXII IS - 43 SP - 5 EP - 12 PB - Universitätsverlag Potsdam CY - Potsdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Zhang, Youjun A1 - Chen, Moxian A1 - Siemiatkowska, Beata A1 - Toleco, Mitchell Rey A1 - Jing, Yue A1 - Strotmann, Vivien A1 - Zhang, Jianghua A1 - Stahl, Yvonne A1 - Fernie, Alisdair T1 - A highly efficient agrobacterium-mediated method for transient gene expression and functional studies in multiple plant species JF - Plant Communications N2 - Although the use of stable transformation technology has led to great insight into gene function, its application in high-throughput studies remains arduous. Agro-infiltration have been widely used in species such as Nicotiana benthamiana for the rapid detection of gene expression and protein interaction analysis, but this technique does not work efficiently in other plant species, including Arabidopsis thaliana. As an efficient high-throughput transient expression system is currently lacking in the model plant species A. thaliana, we developed a method that is characterized by high efficiency, reproducibility, and suitability for transient expression of a variety of functional proteins in A. thaliana and 7 other plant species, including Brassica oleracea, Capsella rubella, Thellungiella salsuginea, Thellungiella halophila, Solanum tuberosum, Capsicum annuum, and N. benthamiana. Efficiency of this method was independently verified in three independent research facilities, pointing to the robustness of this technique. Furthermore, in addition to demonstrating the utility of this technique in a range of species, we also present a case study employing this method to assess protein-protein interactions in the sucrose biosynthesis pathway in Arabidopsis. KW - transient expression KW - agro-infiltration KW - subcellular localization KW - protein-protein interaction Y1 - 2019 SN - 2590-3462 VL - 1 IS - 5 PB - Science Direct CY - New York ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Zass, Alexander T1 - A Gibbs point process of diffusions: Existence and uniqueness JF - Lectures in pure and applied mathematics KW - random point processes KW - statistical mechanics KW - stochastic analysis Y1 - 2020 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-471951 SN - 978-3-86956-485-2 SN - 2199-4951 SN - 2199-496X IS - 6 SP - 13 EP - 22 PB - Universitätsverlag Potsdam CY - Potsdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Risbey, James S. A1 - Lewandowsky, Stephan A1 - Cowtan, Kevin A1 - Oreskes, Naomi A1 - Rahmstorf, Stefan A1 - Jokimäki, Ari A1 - Foster, Grant T1 - A fluctuation in surface temperature in historical context BT - reassessment and retrospective on the evidence JF - Environmental research letters N2 - This work reviews the literature on an alleged global warming 'pause' in global mean surface temperature (GMST) to determine how it has been defined, what time intervals are used to characterise it, what data are used to measure it, and what methods used to assess it. We test for 'pauses', both in the normally understood meaning of the term to mean no warming trend, as well as for a 'pause' defined as a substantially slower trend in GMST. The tests are carried out with the historical versions of GMST that existed for each pause-interval tested, and with current versions of each of the GMST datasets. The tests are conducted following the common (but questionable) practice of breaking the linear fit at the start of the trend interval ('broken' trends), and also with trends that are continuous with the data bordering the trend interval. We also compare results when appropriate allowance is made for the selection bias problem. The results show that there is little or no statistical evidence for a lack of trend or slower trend in GMST using either the historical data or the current data. The perception that there was a 'pause' in GMST was bolstered by earlier biases in the data in combination with incomplete statistical testing. KW - climate variability KW - climate trends KW - temperature fluctuation KW - pause hiatus Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aaf342 SN - 1748-9326 VL - 13 IS - 12 PB - IOP Publ. Ltd. CY - Bristol ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Langenhan, Jennifer A1 - Jaeger, Carsten A1 - Baum, Katharina A1 - Simon, Mareike A1 - Lisec, Jan T1 - A flexible tool to correct superimposed mass isotopologue distributions in GC-APCI-MS flux experiments JF - Metabolites N2 - The investigation of metabolic fluxes and metabolite distributions within cells by means of tracer molecules is a valuable tool to unravel the complexity of biological systems. Technological advances in mass spectrometry (MS) technology such as atmospheric pressure chemical ionization (APCI) coupled with high resolution (HR), not only allows for highly sensitive analyses but also broadens the usefulness of tracer-based experiments, as interesting signals can be annotated de novo when not yet present in a compound library. However, several effects in the APCI ion source, i.e., fragmentation and rearrangement, lead to superimposed mass isotopologue distributions (MID) within the mass spectra, which need to be corrected during data evaluation as they will impair enrichment calculation otherwise. Here, we present and evaluate a novel software tool to automatically perform such corrections. We discuss the different effects, explain the implemented algorithm, and show its application on several experimental datasets. This adjustable tool is available as an R package from CRAN. KW - mass isotopologue distribution KW - enrichment calculation KW - flux KW - experiments KW - atmospheric pressure chemical ionization KW - R package KW - CorMID Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/metabo12050408 SN - 2218-1989 VL - 12 IS - 5 PB - MDPI CY - Basel ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Xiao, Shangbin A1 - Liu, Liu A1 - Wang, Wei A1 - Lorke, Andreas A1 - Woodhouse, Jason Nicholas A1 - Grossart, Hans-Peter T1 - A Fast-Response Automated Gas Equilibrator (FaRAGE) for continuous in situ measurement of CH4 and CO2 dissolved in water JF - Hydrology and earth system sciences : HESS N2 - Biogenic greenhouse gas emissions, e.g., of methane (CH4) and carbon dioxide (CO2) from inland waters, contribute substantially to global warming. In aquatic systems, dissolved greenhouse gases are highly heterogeneous in both space and time. To better understand the biological and physical processes that affect sources and sinks of both CH4 and CO2, their dissolved concentrations need to be measured with high spatial and temporal resolution. To achieve this goal, we developed the Fast-Response Automated Gas Equilibrator (FaRAGE) for real-time in situ measurement of dissolved CH4 and CO2 concentrations at the water surface and in the water column. FaRAGE can achieve an exceptionally short response time (t(95%) = 12 s when including the response time of the gas analyzer) while retaining an equilibration ratio of 62.6% and a measurement accuracy of 0.5% for CH4. A similar performance was observed for dissolved CO2 (t(95%) = 10 s, equilibration ratio 67.1 %). An equilibration ratio as high as 91.8% can be reached at the cost of a slightly increased response time (16 s). The FaRAGE is capable of continuously measuring dissolved CO2 and CH4 concentrations in the nM-to-submM (10(-9)-10(-3) mol L-1) range with a detection limit of subnM (10(-10) mol L-1), when coupling with a cavity ring-down greenhouse gas analyzer (Picarro GasScouter). FaRAGE allows for the possibility of mapping dissolved concentration in a "quasi" three-dimensional manner in lakes and provides an inexpensive alternative to other commercial gas equilibrators. It is simple to operate and suitable for continuous monitoring with a strong tolerance for suspended particles. While the FaRAGE is developed for inland waters, it can be also applied to ocean waters by tuning the gas-water mixing ratio. The FaRAGE is easily adapted to suit other gas analyzers expanding the range of potential applications, including nitrous oxide and isotopic composition of the gases. Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-3871-2020 SN - 1027-5606 SN - 1607-7938 VL - 24 IS - 7 SP - 3871 EP - 3880 PB - European Geosciences Union (EGU) ; Copernicus CY - Munich ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Demal, Till Joscha A1 - Heise, Melina A1 - Reiz, Benedikt A1 - Dogra, Deepika A1 - Braenne, Ingrid A1 - Reichenspurner, Hermann A1 - Männer, Jörg A1 - Aherrahrou, Zouhair A1 - Schunkert, Heribert A1 - Erdmann, Jeanette A1 - Abdelilah-Seyfried, Salim T1 - A familial congenital heart disease with a possible multigenic origin involving a mutation in BMPR1A JF - Scientific reports N2 - The genetics of many congenital heart diseases (CHDs) can only unsatisfactorily be explained by known chromosomal or Mendelian syndromes. Here, we present sequencing data of a family with a potentially multigenic origin of CHD. Twelve of nineteen family members carry a familial mutation [NM_004329.2:c.1328 G > A (p.R443H)] which encodes a predicted deleterious variant of BMPR1A. This mutation co-segregates with a linkage region on chromosome 1 that associates with the emergence of severe CHDs including Ebstein’s anomaly, atrioventricular septal defect, and others. We show that the continuous overexpression of the zebrafish homologous mutation bmpr1aap.R438H within endocardium causes a reduced AV valve area, a downregulation of Wnt/ß-catenin signalling at the AV canal, and growth of additional tissue mass in adult zebrafish hearts. This finding opens the possibility of testing genetic interactions between BMPR1A and other candidate genes within linkage region 1 which may provide a first step towards unravelling more complex genetic patterns in cardiovascular disease aetiology. Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-39648-7 SN - 2045-2322 VL - 9 PB - Nature Publ. Group CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Ette, Ottmar T1 - A expulsão do Éden BT - Migração e escrita depois do paraíso JF - Literatura e autoritarismo N2 - A temática da migração está intimamente vinculada à história humana, desde a narrativa bíblica da expulsão do paraíso. O ser humano não apenas empregou técnicas cada vez mais sofisticadas para a violência, como também transmitiu, através dos séculos, técnicas de conservação e uso de seu saberconviver. Nesse sentido móvel da história, e em consonância com as literaturas do mundo, a partir de suas diversas origens, é possível dizer que existe um “Homo migrans” desde que existe o “Homo sapiens”. Assim, é possível afirmar que as ideias territoriais ou territorializantes com proveniência histórico-espacial permitem, vez ou outra, reconhecer seus esforços para filtrar e isolar a dimensão histórico-móvel e vetorial da história como narrativa, para tentar construir, com a ajuda de ideias estáticas, novos lugares da promessa ou da perda, da abundância ou da queda. KW - Migração KW - Saberconviver KW - Literaturas do mundo Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.5902/1679849X65745 SN - 1679-849X IS - 25 SP - 5 EP - 42 PB - Universidade Federal de Santa Maria (UFSM) CY - Santa Maria ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Brill, Fabio Alexander A1 - Passuni Pineda, Silvia A1 - Espichan Cuya, Bruno A1 - Kreibich, Heidi T1 - A data-mining approach towards damage modelling for El Nino events in Peru JF - Geomatics, natural hazards and risk N2 - Compound natural hazards likeEl Ninoevents cause high damage to society, which to manage requires reliable risk assessments. Damage modelling is a prerequisite for quantitative risk estimations, yet many procedures still rely on expert knowledge, and empirical studies investigating damage from compound natural hazards hardly exist. A nationwide building survey in Peru after theEl Ninoevent 2017 - which caused intense rainfall, ponding water, flash floods and landslides - enables us to apply data-mining methods for statistical groundwork, using explanatory features generated from remote sensing products and open data. We separate regions of different dominant characteristics through unsupervised clustering, and investigate feature importance rankings for classifying damage via supervised machine learning. Besides the expected effect of precipitation, the classification algorithms select the topographic wetness index as most important feature, especially in low elevation areas. The slope length and steepness factor ranks high for mountains and canyons. Partial dependence plots further hint at amplified vulnerability in rural areas. An example of an empirical damage probability map, developed with a random forest model, is provided to demonstrate the technical feasibility. KW - Natural hazard KW - damage model KW - residential buildings KW - data-mining KW - remote KW - sensing KW - open data Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/19475705.2020.1818636 SN - 1947-5705 SN - 1947-5713 VL - 11 IS - 1 SP - 1966 EP - 1990 PB - Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group CY - Abingdon ER - TY - RPRT A1 - Hajos, Yael T1 - A Critical Overview of the Public Health Emergency of International Concern Mechanism BT - The Case of Covid-19 T2 - Staat, Recht und Politik – Forschungs- und Diskussionspapiere T2 - State, Law, and Politics — Research and Discussion Papers N2 - The last years have been affected by Covid-19 and the international emergency mecha-nism to deal with health-related threats. The effects of this period manifested differ-ently worldwide, depending on matters such as international relations, national policies, power dynamics etc. Additionally, the impact of this time will likely have long-term effects which are yet to be known. This paper gives a critical overview of the Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) mechanism in the context of Covid-19. It does so by explaining the legal framework for states of emergency, specifically in the context of a PHEIC, while considering its restrictions and limitations on human rights. It further outlines issues in the manifestation of global protections and limitations on human rights during Covid-19. Lastly, considering the likelihood of future PHEICs and the known systemic obstructions, this paper offers ways to im-prove this mechanism from a holistic, non-zero-sum perspective. N2 - Die letzten Jahre waren geprägt von Covid-19 und dem internationalen Notfallmecha-nismus zur Bewältigung gesundheitsbe-zogener Bedrohungen. Die Auswirkungen dieser Zeit zeigten sich weltweit unter-schiedlich, abhängig von den internatio-nalen Beziehungen, der nationalen Politik, der Machtdynamik usw. Außerdem werden die Auswirkungen dieser Zeit wahrschein-lich langfristige, heute noch unbekannte Folgen haben. Diese Studie gibt einen kriti-schen Überblick über den Mechanismus für internationale gesundheitliche Notfälle (Public Health Emergency of International Concern – PHEIC) im Kontext von Covid-19. Zu diesem Zweck wird der rechtliche Rahmen für Notfälle, insbesondere im Zusammenhang mit PHEIC, erläutert, und es werden die damit verbundenen Ein-schränkungen und Begrenzungen der Menschenrechte betrachtet. In Anbetracht der Wahrscheinlichkeit künftiger PHEICs und der bekannten systemischen Hin-dernisse bietet dieses Papier schließlich Möglichkeiten zur Verbesserung dieses Mechanismus aus einer ganzheitlichen Per-spektive. T3 - Staat, Recht und Politik – Forschungs- und Diskussionspapiere = State, Law, and Politics - Research and Discussion Papers - 15 Y1 - 2023 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-585238 SN - 2509-6974 IS - 15 PB - Universitätsverlag Potsdam CY - Potsdam ER - TY - RPRT A1 - Baganz, Melissa A1 - de Teresa, Aurelia Gómez A1 - Lingg, Rosana T. A1 - Montijo, Yuriditzi Pascacio T1 - A critical assessment on National Action Plans BT - Challenges and benefits for the promotion and protection of Human Rights T2 - Staat, Recht und Politik – Forschungs- und Diskussionspapiere T2 - State, Law, and Politics - Research and Discussion Papers N2 - National Action Plans (NAPs) have been increas-ingly adopted world-wide after the Vienna Dec-laration in 1993, where it was urged to consider the improvement and promotion of Human Rights. In this paper, we discuss their usefulness and success by analysing the challenges present-ed during NAP processes as well as the benefits this set of actions entails: The challenges for their implementation outweigh its actual benefits. Nevertheless, NAPs have great potential. Based on new research, we elaborate a set of recom-mendations for improving the design and imple-mentation of national action planning. In order to effectively bring NAP into practice, we consider it crucial to plan and analyse every state local circumstances in detail. The latter is important, since the implementation of a concrete set of actions is intended to directly transform and improve the local living conditions of the people. In a long-term perspective, we defend the benefit of NAP’s implementation for complying obliga-tions set up by HR treaties. N2 - Nationale Aktionspläne (NAP) werden seit der Wiener Erklärung von 1993, in der die Verbesse-rung und Förderung der Menschenrechte gefor-dert wird, weltweit zunehmend angenommen. In diesem Papier diskutieren wir ihren Nutzen und Erfolg, indem wir die Herausforderungen, die sich während der NAP-Prozesse ergeben, sowie die Vorteile, die dieses Maßnahmenpaket mit sich bringt, analysieren: Die Herausforderungen bei ihrer Umsetzung überwiegen die tatsächlichen Vorteile. Dennoch haben NAPs ein großes Poten-zial. Beruhend auf neueren Forschungen erarbei-ten wir eine Reihe von Empfehlungen zur Ver-besserung der Gestaltung und Umsetzung der nationalen Aktionsplanung. Um einen NAP effek-tiv in die Praxis umzusetzen, halten wir es für entscheidend, die lokalen Gegebenheiten jedes Staates im Detail zu planen und zu analysieren. Letzteres ist wichtig, da die Umsetzung eines konkreten Maßnahmenpakets die Lebensbedin-gungen der Menschen vor Ort direkt verändern und verbessern soll. Langfristig gesehen vertei-digen wir den Nutzen der Umsetzung des NAP für die Einhaltung der in den Menschenrechts-verträgen festgelegten Verpflichtungen. T3 - Staat, Recht und Politik – Forschungs- und Diskussionspapiere = State, Law, and Politics - Research and Discussion Papers - 13 Y1 - 2023 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-576797 SN - 2509-6974 IS - 13 PB - Universitätsverlag Potsdam CY - Potsdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Maier, Corinna Sabrina A1 - Wiljes, Jana de A1 - Hartung, Niklas A1 - Kloft, Charlotte A1 - Huisinga, Wilhelm T1 - A continued learning approach for model-informed precision dosing BT - Updating models in clinical practice JF - CPT: pharmacometrics & systems pharmacology N2 - Model-informed precision dosing (MIPD) is a quantitative dosing framework that combines prior knowledge on the drug-disease-patient system with patient data from therapeutic drug/ biomarker monitoring (TDM) to support individualized dosing in ongoing treatment. Structural models and prior parameter distributions used in MIPD approaches typically build on prior clinical trials that involve only a limited number of patients selected according to some exclusion/inclusion criteria. Compared to the prior clinical trial population, the patient population in clinical practice can be expected to also include altered behavior and/or increased interindividual variability, the extent of which, however, is typically unknown. Here, we address the question of how to adapt and refine models on the level of the model parameters to better reflect this real-world diversity. We propose an approach for continued learning across patients during MIPD using a sequential hierarchical Bayesian framework. The approach builds on two stages to separate the update of the individual patient parameters from updating the population parameters. Consequently, it enables continued learning across hospitals or study centers, because only summary patient data (on the level of model parameters) need to be shared, but no individual TDM data. We illustrate this continued learning approach with neutrophil-guided dosing of paclitaxel. The present study constitutes an important step toward building confidence in MIPD and eventually establishing MIPD increasingly in everyday therapeutic use. Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1002/psp4.12745 SN - 2163-8306 VL - 11 IS - 2 SP - 185 EP - 198 PB - London CY - Nature Publ. Group ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Wolff, Martin A1 - Gast, Klaus A1 - Evers, Andreas A1 - Kurz, Michael A1 - Pfeiffer-Marek, Stefania A1 - Schüler, Anja A1 - Seckler, Robert A1 - Thalhammer, Anja T1 - A Conserved Hydrophobic Moiety and Helix-Helix Interactions Drive the Self-Assembly of the Incretin Analog Exendin-4 JF - Biomolecules N2 - Exendin-4 is a pharmaceutical peptide used in the control of insulin secretion. Structural information on exendin-4 and related peptides especially on the level of quaternary structure is scarce. We present the first published association equilibria of exendin-4 directly measured by static and dynamic light scattering. We show that exendin-4 oligomerization is pH dependent and that these oligomers are of low compactness. We relate our experimental results to a structural hypothesis to describe molecular details of exendin-4 oligomers. Discussion of the validity of this hypothesis is based on NMR, circular dichroism and fluorescence spectroscopy, and light scattering data on exendin-4 and a set of exendin-4 derived peptides. The essential forces driving oligomerization of exendin-4 are helix–helix interactions and interactions of a conserved hydrophobic moiety. Our structural hypothesis suggests that key interactions of exendin-4 monomers in the experimentally supported trimer take place between a defined helical segment and a hydrophobic triangle constituted by the Phe22 residues of the three monomeric subunits. Our data rationalize that Val19 might function as an anchor in the N-terminus of the interacting helix-region and that Trp25 is partially shielded in the oligomer by C-terminal amino acids of the same monomer. Our structural hypothesis suggests that the Trp25 residues do not interact with each other, but with C-terminal Pro residues of their own monomers. KW - biophysics KW - diabetes KW - peptides KW - oligomerization KW - conformational change KW - molecular modeling KW - static and dynamic light scattering KW - spectroscopy Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/biom11091305 SN - 2218-273X VL - 11 IS - 9 PB - MDPI CY - Basel ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Chapman, Eric M. A1 - Lant, Benjamin A1 - Ohashi, Yota A1 - Yu, Bin A1 - Schertzberg, Michael A1 - Go, Christopher A1 - Dogra, Deepika A1 - Koskimaki, Janne A1 - Girard, Romuald A1 - Li, Yan A1 - Fraser, Andrew G. A1 - Awad, Issam A. A1 - Abdelilah-Seyfried, Salim A1 - Gingras, Anne-Claude A1 - Derry, William Brent T1 - A conserved CCM complex promotes apoptosis non-autonomously by regulating zinc homeostasis JF - Nature Communications N2 - Apoptotic death of cells damaged by genotoxic stress requires regulatory input from surrounding tissues. The C. elegans scaffold protein KRI-1, ortholog of mammalian KRIT1/CCM1, permits DNA damage-induced apoptosis of cells in the germline by an unknown cell non-autonomous mechanism. We reveal that KRI-1 exists in a complex with CCM-2 in the intestine to negatively regulate the ERK-5/MAPK pathway. This allows the KLF-3 transcription factor to facilitate expression of the SLC39 zinc transporter gene zipt-2.3, which functions to sequester zinc in the intestine. Ablation of KRI-1 results in reduced zinc sequestration in the intestine, inhibition of IR-induced MPK-1/ERK1 activation, and apoptosis in the germline. Zinc localization is also perturbed in the vasculature of krit1(-/-) zebrafish, and SLC39 zinc transporters are mis-expressed in Cerebral Cavernous Malformations (CCM) patient tissues. This study provides new insights into the regulation of apoptosis by cross-tissue communication, and suggests a link between zinc localization and CCM disease. Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-09829-z SN - 2041-1723 VL - 10 PB - Nature Publ. Group CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Stauffer, Maxime A1 - Mengesha, Isaak A1 - Seifert, Konrad A1 - Krawczuk, Igor A1 - Fischer, Jens A1 - Serugendo, Giovanna Di Marzo T1 - A computational turn in policy process studies BT - coevolving network dynamics of policy change JF - Complexity N2 - The past three decades of policy process studies have seen the emergence of a clear intellectual lineage with regard to complexity. Implicitly or explicitly, scholars have employed complexity theory to examine the intricate dynamics of collective action in political contexts. However, the methodological counterparts to complexity theory, such as computational methods, are rarely used and, even if they are, they are often detached from established policy process theory. Building on a critical review of the application of complexity theory to policy process studies, we present and implement a baseline model of policy processes using the logic of coevolving networks. Our model suggests that an actor's influence depends on their environment and on exogenous events facilitating dialogue and consensus-building. Our results validate previous opinion dynamics models and generate novel patterns. Our discussion provides ground for further research and outlines the path for the field to achieve a computational turn. Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1155/2022/8210732 SN - 1076-2787 SN - 1099-0526 VL - 2022 PB - Wiley-Hindawi CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Mota, Simon A1 - Leckelt, Marius A1 - Geukes, Katharina A1 - Nestler, Steffen A1 - Humberg, Sarah A1 - Schröder-Abe, Michela A1 - Schmukle, Stefan C. A1 - Back, Mitja D. T1 - A comprehensive examination of narcissists’ self-perceived and actual socioemotional cognition ability JF - Collabra: Psychology N2 - Narcissists are assumed to lack the motivation and ability to share and understand the mental states of others. Prior empirical research, however, has yielded inconclusive findings and has differed with respect to the specific aspects of narcissism and socioemotional cognition that have been examined. Here, we propose a differentiated facet approach that can be applied across research traditions and that distinguishes between facets of narcissism (agentic vs. antagonistic) on the one hand, and facets of socioemotional cognition ability (SECA; self-perceived vs. actual) on the other. Using five nonclinical samples in two studies (total N = 602), we investigated the effect of facets of grandiose narcissism on aspects of socioemotional cognition across measures of affective and cognitive empathy, Theory of Mind, and emotional intelligence, while also controlling for general reasoning ability. Across both studies, agentic facets of narcissism were found to be positively related to perceived SECA, whereas antagonistic facets of narcissism were found to be negatively related to perceived SECA. However, both narcissism facets were negatively related to actual SECA. Exploratory condition-based regression analyses further showed that agentic narcissists had a higher directed discrepancy between perceived and actual SECA: They self-enhanced their socio-emotional capacities. Implications of these results for the multifaceted theoretical understanding of the narcissism-SECA link are discussed. KW - narcissism KW - socioemotional cognition KW - self-perceived ability KW - actual ability KW - empathy KW - emotional intelligence KW - self-enhancement Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1525/collabra.174 SN - 2474-7394 VL - 5 IS - 1 PB - University of California Press CY - Oakland ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Macdonald, Elena A1 - Otero, Noelia A1 - Butler, Tim T1 - A comparison of long-term trends in observations and emission inventories of NOx JF - Atmospheric chemistry and physics / European Geosciences Union N2 - Air pollution is a pressing issue that is associated with adverse effects on human health, ecosystems, and climate. Despite many years of effort to improve air quality, nitrogen dioxide (NO2) limit values are still regularly exceeded in Europe, particularly in cities and along streets. This study explores how concentrations of nitrogen oxides (NOx = NO + NO2) in European urban areas have changed over the last decades and how this relates to changes in emissions. To do so, the incremental approach was used, comparing urban increments (i.e. urban background minus rural concentrations) to total emissions, and roadside increments (i.e. urban roadside concentrations minus urban background concentrations) to traffic emissions. In total, nine European cities were assessed. The study revealed that potentially confounding factors like the impact of urban pollution at rural monitoring sites through atmospheric transport are generally negligible for NOx. The approach proves therefore particularly useful for this pollutant. The estimated urban increments all showed downward trends, and for the majority of the cities the trends aligned well with the total emissions. However, it was found that factors like a very densely populated surrounding or local emission sources in the rural area such as shipping traffic on inland waterways restrict the application of the approach for some cities. The roadside increments showed an overall very diverse picture in their absolute values and trends and also in their relation to traffic emissions. This variability and the discrepancies between roadside increments and emissions could be attributed to a combination of local influencing factors at the street level and different aspects introducing inaccuracies to the trends of the emis-sion inventories used, including deficient emission factors. Applying the incremental approach was evaluated as useful for long-term pan-European studies, but at the same time it was found to be restricted to certain regions and cities due to data availability issues. The results also highlight that using emission inventories for the prediction of future health impacts and compliance with limit values needs to consider the distinct variability in the concentrations not only across but also within cities. Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-21-4007-2021 SN - 1680-7316 SN - 1680-7324 VL - 21 IS - 5 SP - 4007 EP - 4023 PB - Copernicus CY - Göttingen ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Zoccarato, Luca A1 - Sher, Daniel A1 - Miki, Takeshi A1 - Segre, Daniel A1 - Grossart, Hans-Peter T1 - A comparative whole-genome approach identifies bacterial traits for marine microbial interactions JF - Communications biology N2 - Luca Zoccarato, Daniel Sher et al. leverage publicly available bacterial genomes from marine and other environments to examine traits underlying microbial interactions. Their results provide a valuable resource to investigate clusters of functional and linked traits to better understand marine bacteria community assembly and dynamics. Microbial interactions shape the structure and function of microbial communities with profound consequences for biogeochemical cycles and ecosystem health. Yet, most interaction mechanisms are studied only in model systems and their prevalence is unknown. To systematically explore the functional and interaction potential of sequenced marine bacteria, we developed a trait-based approach, and applied it to 473 complete genomes (248 genera), representing a substantial fraction of marine microbial communities. We identified genome functional clusters (GFCs) which group bacterial taxa with common ecology and life history. Most GFCs revealed unique combinations of interaction traits, including the production of siderophores (10% of genomes), phytohormones (3-8%) and different B vitamins (57-70%). Specific GFCs, comprising Alpha- and Gammaproteobacteria, displayed more interaction traits than expected by chance, and are thus predicted to preferentially interact synergistically and/or antagonistically with bacteria and phytoplankton. Linked trait clusters (LTCs) identify traits that may have evolved to act together (e.g., secretion systems, nitrogen metabolism regulation and B vitamin transporters), providing testable hypotheses for complex mechanisms of microbial interactions. Our approach translates multidimensional genomic information into an atlas of marine bacteria and their putative functions, relevant for understanding the fundamental rules that govern community assembly and dynamics. Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-022-03184-4 SN - 2399-3642 VL - 5 IS - 1 PB - Springer Nature CY - Berlin ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Mbebi, Alain J. A1 - Breitler, Jean-Christophe A1 - Bordeaux, M'elanie A1 - Sulpice, Ronan A1 - McHale, Marcus A1 - Tong, Hao A1 - Toniutti, Lucile A1 - Castillo, Jonny Alonso A1 - Bertrand, Benoit A1 - Nikoloski, Zoran T1 - A comparative analysis of genomic and phenomic predictions of growth-related traits in 3-way coffee hybrids JF - G3: Genes, genomes, genetics N2 - Genomic prediction has revolutionized crop breeding despite remaining issues of transferability of models to unseen environmental conditions and environments. Usage of endophenotypes rather than genomic markers leads to the possibility of building phenomic prediction models that can account, in part, for this challenge. Here, we compare and contrast genomic prediction and phenomic prediction models for 3 growth-related traits, namely, leaf count, tree height, and trunk diameter, from 2 coffee 3-way hybrid populations exposed to a series of treatment-inducing environmental conditions. The models are based on 7 different statistical methods built with genomic markers and ChlF data used as predictors. This comparative analysis demonstrates that the best-performing phenomic prediction models show higher predictability than the best genomic prediction models for the considered traits and environments in the vast majority of comparisons within 3-way hybrid populations. In addition, we show that phenomic prediction models are transferrable between conditions but to a lower extent between populations and we conclude that chlorophyll a fluorescence data can serve as alternative predictors in statistical models of coffee hybrid performance. Future directions will explore their combination with other endophenotypes to further improve the prediction of growth-related traits for crops. KW - genomic prediction KW - phenomic prediction KW - 3-way coffee hybrids KW - chlorophyll a fluorescence KW - GenPred KW - Shared Data Resource Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1093/g3journal/jkac170 SN - 2160-1836 VL - 12 IS - 9 PB - Genetics Soc. of America CY - Pittsburgh, PA ER -