TY  - JOUR
A1  - Leong, Jia Xuan
A1  - Raffeiner, Margot
A1  - Spinti, Daniela
A1  - Langin, Gautier
A1  - Franz-Wachtel, Mirita
A1  - Guzman, Andrew R.
A1  - Kim, Jung-Gun
A1  - Pandey, Pooja
A1  - Minina, Alyona E.
A1  - Macek, Boris
A1  - Hafren, Anders
A1  - Bozkurt, Tolga O.
A1  - Mudgett, Mary Beth
A1  - Börnke, Frederik
A1  - Hofius, Daniel
A1  - Uestuen, Suayib
T1  - A bacterial effector counteracts host autophagy by promoting degradation of an autophagy component
JF  - The EMBO journal
N2  - Beyond its role in cellular homeostasis, autophagy plays anti- and promicrobial roles in host-microbe interactions, both in animals and plants. 
One prominent role of antimicrobial autophagy is to degrade intracellular pathogens or microbial molecules, in a process termed xenophagy. 
Consequently, microbes evolved mechanisms to hijack or modulate autophagy to escape elimination. 
Although well-described in animals, the extent to which xenophagy contributes to plant-bacteria interactions remains unknown. 

Here, we provide evidence that Xanthomonas campestris pv. vesicatoria (Xcv) suppresses host autophagy by utilizing type-III effector XopL. XopL interacts with and degrades the autophagy component SH3P2 via its E3 ligase activity to promote infection. 
Intriguingly, XopL is targeted for degradation by defense-related selective autophagy mediated by NBR1/Joka2, revealing a complex antagonistic interplay between XopL and the host autophagy machinery. 

Our results implicate plant antimicrobial autophagy in the depletion of a bacterial virulence factor and unravel an unprecedented pathogen strategy to counteract defense-related autophagy in plant-bacteria interactions.
KW  - autophagy
KW  - effectors
KW  - immunity
KW  - ubiquitination
KW  - xenophagy
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.15252/embj.2021110352
SN  - 1460-2075
VL  - 41
IS  - 13
PB  - Wiley
CY  - Hoboken
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Vilk, Ohad
A1  - Aghion, Erez
A1  - Avgar, Tal
A1  - Beta, Carsten
A1  - Nagel, Oliver
A1  - Sabri, Adal
A1  - Sarfati, Raphael
A1  - Schwartz, Daniel K.
A1  - Weiß, Matthias
A1  - Krapf, Diego
A1  - Nathan, Ran
A1  - Metzler, Ralf
A1  - Assaf, Michael
T1  - Unravelling the origins of anomalous diffusion
BT  - from molecules to migrating storks
JF  - Physical review research / American Physical Society
N2  - Anomalous diffusion or, more generally, anomalous transport, with nonlinear dependence of the mean-squared displacement on the measurement time, is ubiquitous in nature. It has been observed in processes ranging from microscopic movement of molecules to macroscopic, large-scale paths of migrating birds. Using data from multiple empirical systems, spanning 12 orders of magnitude in length and 8 orders of magnitude in time, we employ a method to detect the individual underlying origins of anomalous diffusion and transport in the data. This method decomposes anomalous transport into three primary effects: long-range correlations (“Joseph effect”), fat-tailed probability density of increments (“Noah effect”), and nonstationarity (“Moses effect”). We show that such a decomposition of real-life data allows us to infer nontrivial behavioral predictions and to resolve open questions in the fields of single-particle tracking in living cells and movement ecology.
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.4.033055
SN  - 2643-1564
VL  - 4
IS  - 3
PB  - American Physical Society
CY  - College Park, MD
ER  - 
TY  - GEN
A1  - Paoli, Antonio
A1  - Moro, Tatiana
A1  - Lorenzetti, Silvio
A1  - Seiler, Jan
A1  - Lüthy, Fabian
A1  - Gross, Micah
A1  - Roggio, Federico
A1  - Chaabene, Helmi
A1  - Musumeci, Giuseppe
T1  - The “Journal of Functional Morphology and Kinesiology” Journal Club Series
BT  - Resistance Training
T2  - Journal of Functional Morphology and Kinesiology
N2  - We are glad to introduce the Second Journal Club of Volume Five, Second Issue. This edition is focused on relevant studies published in the last few years in the field of resistance training, chosen by our Editorial Board members and their colleagues. We hope to stimulate your curiosity in this field and to share with you the passion for the sport, seen also from the scientific point of view. The Editorial Board members wish you an inspiring lecture.
Y1  - 2020
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3390/jfmk5020025
SN  - 2411-5142
VL  - 5
IS  - 2
SP  - 1
EP  - 9
PB  - MDPI
CY  - Basel
ER  - 
TY  - GEN
A1  - Lemke, Tristan
T1  - Keine Reform für die Zukunft
T2  - Verfassungsblog : on matters constitutional
N2  - Am 1. Januar 2021 trat die jüngste Reform des Erneuerbare-Energien-Gesetzes (EEG) in Kraft. Sie führte mit der finanziellen Beteiligung der Gemeinden an den Erträgen der Windenergie klammheimlich eine verfassungswidrige Abgabe ein: Durch das Zusammenspiel des neuen § 36k EEG 2021 mit der altbekannten EEG-Umlage fließt eine bei den Strom-Endverbrauchern erhobene Abgabe in die kommunalen Haushalte. Das kann auf keine Gesetzgebungskompetenz gestützt werden. Darüber hinaus führt die Deckelung der EEG-Umlage in den Jahren 2021 und 2022 in Verbindung mit § 36k EEG 2021 dazu, dass in verfassungswidriger Weise Bundesmittel den Gemeinden zur freien Verfügung gestellt werden.
KW  - Abgabe
KW  - Umlage
Y1  - 2021
U6  - https://doi.org/10.17176/20210130-222740-0
SN  - 2366-7044
PB  - Max Steinbeis Verfassungsblog gGmbH
CY  - Berlin
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Wyckmans, Florent
A1  - Otto, A. Ross
A1  - Sebold, Miriam
A1  - Daw, Nathaniel
A1  - Bechara, Antoine
A1  - Saeremans, Mélanie
A1  - Kornreich, Charles
A1  - Chatard, Armand
A1  - Jaafari, Nemat
A1  - Noël, Xavier
T1  - Reduced model-based decision-making in gambling disorder
JF  - Scientific reports
N2  - Compulsive behaviors (e.g., addiction) can be viewed as an aberrant decision process where inflexible reactions automatically evoked by stimuli (habit) take control over decision making to the detriment of a more flexible (goal-oriented) behavioral learning system. These behaviors are thought to arise from learning algorithms known as "model-based" and "model-free" reinforcement learning. Gambling disorder, a form of addiction without the confound of neurotoxic effects of drugs, showed impaired goal-directed control but the way in which problem gamblers (PG) orchestrate model-based and model-free strategies has not been evaluated. Forty-nine PG and 33 healthy participants (CP) completed a two-step sequential choice task for which model-based and model-free learning have distinct and identifiable trial-by-trial learning signatures. The influence of common psychopathological comorbidities on those two forms of learning were investigated. PG showed impaired model-based learning, particularly after unrewarded outcomes. In addition, PG exhibited faster reaction times than CP following unrewarded decisions. Troubled mood, higher impulsivity (i.e., positive and negative urgency) and current and chronic stress reported via questionnaires did not account for those results. These findings demonstrate specific reinforcement learning and decision-making deficits in behavioral addiction that advances our understanding and may be important dimensions for designing effective interventions.
Y1  - 2019
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-56161-z
SN  - 2045-2322
VL  - 9
PB  - Nature Publ. Group
CY  - London
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Kaminski, Jakob A.
A1  - Schlagenhauf, Florian
A1  - Rapp, Michael A.
A1  - Awasthi, Swapnil
A1  - Ruggeri, Barbara
A1  - Deserno, Lorenz
A1  - Banaschewski, Tobias
A1  - Bokde, Arun L. W.
A1  - Bromberg, Uli
A1  - Büchel, Christian
A1  - Quinlan, Erin Burke
A1  - Desrivieres, Sylvane
A1  - Flor, Herta
A1  - Frouin, Vincent
A1  - Garavan, Hugh
A1  - Gowland, Penny
A1  - Ittermann, Bernd
A1  - Martinot, Jean-Luc
A1  - Martinot, Marie-Laure Paillere
A1  - Nees, Frauke
A1  - Orfanos, Dimitri Papadopoulos
A1  - Paus, Tomas
A1  - Poustka, Luise
A1  - Smolka, Michael N.
A1  - Fröhner, Juliane H.
A1  - Walter, Henrik
A1  - Whelan, Robert
A1  - Ripke, Stephan
A1  - Schumann, Gunter
A1  - Heinz, Andreas
T1  - Epigenetic variance in dopamine D2 receptor
BT  - a marker of IQ malleability?
JF  - Translational Psychiatry
N2  - Genetic and environmental factors both contribute to cognitive test performance. A substantial increase in average intelligence test results in the second half of the previous century within one generation is unlikely to be explained by genetic changes. One possible explanation for the strong malleability of cognitive performance measure is that environmental factors modify gene expression via epigenetic mechanisms. Epigenetic factors may help to understand the recent observations of an association between dopamine-dependent encoding of reward prediction errors and cognitive capacity, which was modulated by adverse life events. The possible manifestation of malleable biomarkers contributing to variance in cognitive test performance, and thus possibly contributing to the "missing heritability" between estimates from twin studies and variance explained by genetic markers, is still unclear. Here we show in 1475 healthy adolescents from the IMaging and GENetics (IMAGEN) sample that general IQ (gIQ) is associated with (1) polygenic scores for intelligence, (2) epigenetic modification of DRD2 gene, (3) gray matter density in striatum, and (4) functional striatal activation elicited by temporarily surprising reward-predicting cues. Comparing the relative importance for the prediction of gIQ in an overlapping subsample, our results demonstrate neurobiological correlates of the malleability of gIQ and point to equal importance of genetic variance, epigenetic modification of DRD2 receptor gene, as well as functional striatal activation, known to influence dopamine neurotransmission. Peripheral epigenetic markers are in need of confirmation in the central nervous system and should be tested in longitudinal settings specifically assessing individual and environmental factors that modify epigenetic structure.
Y1  - 2018
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41398-018-0222-7
SN  - 2158-3188
VL  - 8
PB  - Nature Publ. Group
CY  - New York
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Gellert, Paul
A1  - Häusler, Andreas
A1  - Suhr, Ralf
A1  - Gholami, Maryam
A1  - Rapp, Michael A.
A1  - Kuhlmey, Adelheid
A1  - Nordheim, Johanna
T1  - Testing the stress-buffering hypothesis of social support in couples coping with early-stage dementia
JF  - PLoS one
N2  - Purpose:
To test whether the negative relationship between perceived stress and quality of life (Hypothesis 1) can be buffered by perceived social support in patients with dementia as well as in caregivers individually (Hypothesis 2: actor effects) and across partners (Hypothesis 3: partner effects and actor-partner effects).

Method:
A total of 108 couples (N = 216 individuals) comprised of one individual with early-stage dementia and one caregiving partner were assessed at baseline and one month apart. Moderation effects were investigated by applying linear mixed models and actor-partner interdependence models.

Results:
Although the stress-quality of life association was more pronounced in caregivers (beta = -.63, p<.001) compared to patients (beta= -.31, p<.001), this association was equally moderated by social support in patients (beta = .14, p<.05) and in the caregivers (beta =.13, p<.05). From one partner to his or her counterpart, the partner buffering and actor-partner-buffering effect were not present. 

Conclusion:
The stress-buffering effect has been replicated in individuals with dementia and caregivers but not across partners. Interventions to improve quality of life through perceived social support should not only focus on caregivers, but should incorporate both partners.
Y1  - 2018
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0189849
SN  - 1932-6203
VL  - 13
IS  - 1
PB  - PLoS
CY  - San Fransisco
ER  - 
TY  - GEN
A1  - Garbusow, Maria
A1  - Sommer, C.
A1  - Nebe, S.
A1  - Sebold, Miriam
A1  - Kuitunen-Paul, Sören
A1  - Wittchen, H. U.
A1  - Smolka, M.
A1  - Zimmermann, U.
A1  - Rapp, Michael A.
A1  - Huys, Q.
A1  - Schlagenhauf, Florian
A1  - Heinz, A.
T1  - Pavlovian-instrumental transfer in the course of alcohol use disorder
T2  - European psychiatry : the journal of the Association of European Psychiatrists
N2  - Background: Pavlovian processes are thought to play an important role in the development, maintenance and relapse of alcohol dependence, possibly by influencing and usurping on- going thought and behavior. The influence of Pavlovian stimuli on on-going behavior is paradigmatically measured by Pavlovian-to-instrumental-transfer (PIT) tasks. These involve multiple stages and are complex. Whether increased PIT is involved in human alcohol
dependence is uncertain. We therefore aimed to establish and validate a modified PIT paradigm that would be robust, consistent, and tolerated by healthy controls as well as by patients suffering from alcohol dependence, and to explore whether alcohol dependence is associated with enhanced Pavlovian-Instrumental transfer.

Methods: 32 recently detoxified alcohol-dependent patients and 32 age and gender matched healthy controls performed a PIT task with instrumental go/no-go approach behaviours. The task involved both Pavlovian stimuli associated with monetary rewards and losses, and images of drinks.

Results: Both patients and healthy controls showed a robust and temporally stable PIT effect. Strengths of PIT effects to drug-related and monetary conditioned stimuli were highly correlated. Patients more frequently showed a PIT effect and the effect was stronger in response to aversively conditioned CSs (conditioned suppression), but there was no group difference in response to appetitive CSs.

Conclusion: The implementation of PIT has favorably robust properties in chronic alcohol- dependent patients and in healthy controls. It shows internal consistency between monetary and drug-related cues. The findings support an association of alcohol dependence with an increased propensity towards PIT.
Y1  - 2018
SN  - 0924-9338
SN  - 1778-3585
VL  - 48
SP  - S546
EP  - S546
PB  - Elsevier
CY  - ISSY-LES-MOULINEAUX
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Heissel, Andreas
A1  - Pietrek, Anou F.
A1  - Schwefel, Melanie
A1  - Abula, Kahar
A1  - Wilbertz, Gregor
A1  - Heinzel, Stephan
A1  - Rapp, Michael A.
T1  - STEP.De study
BT  - a multicentre cluster-randomised effectiveness trial of exercise therapy for patients with depressive symptoms in healthcare services : study protocol
JF  - BMJ open
N2  - Introduction Although exercise therapy has widely been shown to be an efficacious treatment modality for depression, evidence for its effectiveness and cost efficiency is lacking. The Sport/Exercise Therapy for Depression study is a multicentre cluster-randomised effectiveness trial that aims to compare the effectiveness and cost efficiency of exercise therapy and psychotherapy as antidepressant treatment. <br /> Methods and analysis 480 patients (aged 18-65) with an International Classification of Diseases diagnosis associated with depressive symptoms are recruited. Up to 30 clusters (psychotherapists) are randomly assigned to allocate patients to either an exercise or a psychotherapy treatment as usual in a 2: 1 ratio. The primary outcome (depressive symptoms) and the secondary outcomes (work and social adjustment, quality of life) will be assessed at six measurement time points (t0: baseline, t1: 8 weeks after treatment initiation, t2: 16 weeks after treatment initiation, t3/ 4/5: 2, 6, 12 months after treatment). Linear regression analyses will be used for the primary endpoint data analysis. For the secondary endpoints, mixed linear and logistic regression models with fixed and random factors will be added. For the cost efficiency analysis, expenditures in the 12 months before and after the intervention and the outcome difference will be compared between groups in a multilevel model. Recruitment start date was 1 July 2018 and the planned recruitment end date is 31 December 2020. <br /> Ethics and dissemination The study protocol was approved by the ethics committee of the University of Potsdam (No. 17/2018) and the Freie Universitat Berlin (No. 206/2018) and registered in the ISRCTN registry. Informed written consent will be obtained from all participants. The study will be reported in accordance with the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials and the Recommendations for Interventional Trials statements. The results will be published in peer-reviewed academic journals and disseminated to the public.
Y1  - 2020
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2019-036287
SN  - 2044-6055
VL  - 10
IS  - 4
PB  - BMJ Publishing Group
CY  - London
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Schulze, Susanne
A1  - Merz, Sibille
A1  - Thier, Anne
A1  - Tallarek, Marie
A1  - König, Franziska
A1  - Uhlenbrock, Greta
A1  - Nübling, Matthias
A1  - Lincke, Hans-Joachim
A1  - Rapp, Michael A.
A1  - Spallek, Jacob
A1  - Holmberg, Christine
T1  - Psychosocial burden in nurses working in nursing homes during the Covid-19 pandemic
BT  - a cross-sectional study with quantitative and qualitative data
JF  - BMC health services research
N2  - Background The Covid-19 pandemic led to increased work-related strain and psychosocial burden in nurses worldwide, resulting in high prevalences of mental health problems. Nurses in long-term care facilities seem to be especially affected by the pandemic. Nevertheless, there are few findings indicating possible positive changes for health care workers. Therefore, we investigated which psychosocial burdens and potential positive aspects nurses working in long-term care facilities experience during the Covid-19 pandemic. Methods We conducted a mixed-methods study among nurses and nursing assistants working in nursing homes in Germany. The survey contained the third German version of the Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire (COPSOQ III). Using Welch's t-tests, we compared the COPSOQ results of our sample against a pre-pandemic reference group of geriatric nurses from Germany. Additionally, we conducted semi-structured interviews with geriatric nurses with a special focus on psychosocial stress, to reach a deeper understanding of their experiences on work-related changes and burdens during the pandemic. Data were analysed using thematic coding (Braun and Clarke). Results Our survey sample (n = 177) differed significantly from the pre-pandemic reference group in 14 out of 31 COPSOQ scales. Almost all of these differences indicated negative changes. Our sample scored significantly worse regarding the scales 'quantitative demands', 'hiding emotions', 'work-privacy conflicts', 'role conflicts', 'quality of leadership', 'support at work', 'recognition', 'physical demands', 'intention to leave profession', 'burnout', 'presenteeism' and 'inability to relax'. The interviews (n = 15) revealed six main themes related to nurses' psychosocial stress: 'overall working conditions', 'concern for residents', 'management of relatives', 'inability to provide terminal care', 'tensions between being infected and infecting others' and 'technicisation of care'. 'Enhanced community cohesion' (interviews), 'meaning of work' and 'quantity of social relations' (COPSOQ III) were identified as positive effects of the pandemic. Conclusions Results clearly illustrate an aggravation of geriatric nurses' situation and psychosocial burden and only few positive changes due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Pre-existing hardships seem to have further deteriorated and new stressors added to nurses' strain. The perceived erosion of care, due to an overemphasis of the technical in relation to the social and emotional dimensions of care, seems to be especially burdensome to geriatric nurses.
KW  - COPSOQ
KW  - Nurses
KW  - Nursing home
KW  - Psychosocial burden
KW  - Mixed-methods study
KW  - Covid-19
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-022-08333-3
SN  - 1472-6963
VL  - 22
IS  - 1
PB  - BMC
CY  - London
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Förstner, Bernd Rainer
A1  - Böttger, Sarah Jane
A1  - Moldavski, Alexander
A1  - Bajbouj, Malek
A1  - Pfennig, Andrea
A1  - Manook, Andre
A1  - Ising, Marcus
A1  - Pittig, Andre
A1  - Heinig, Ingmar
A1  - Heinz, Andreas
A1  - Mathiak, Klaus
A1  - Schulze, Thomas G.
A1  - Schneider, Frank
A1  - Kamp-Becker, Inge
A1  - Meyer-Lindenberg, Andreas
A1  - Padberg, Frank
A1  - Banaschewski, Tobias
A1  - Bauer, Michael
A1  - Rupprecht, Rainer
A1  - Wittchen, Hans-Ulrich
A1  - Rapp, Michael A.
A1  - Tschorn, Mira
T1  - The associations of positive and negative valence systems, cognitive systems and social processes on disease severity in anxiety and depressive disorders
JF  - Frontiers in psychiatry
N2  - Background   Anxiety and depressive disorders share common features of mood dysfunctions. This has stimulated interest in transdiagnostic dimensional research as proposed by the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) approach by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) aiming to improve the understanding of underlying disease mechanisms. The purpose of this study was to investigate the processing of RDoC domains in relation to disease severity in order to identify latent disorder-specific as well as transdiagnostic indicators of disease severity in patients with anxiety and depressive disorders. 

Methods   Within the German research network for mental disorders, 895 participants (n = 476 female, n = 602 anxiety disorder, n = 257 depressive disorder) were recruited for the Phenotypic, Diagnostic and Clinical Domain Assessment Network Germany (PD-CAN) and included in this cross-sectional study. We performed incremental regression models to investigate the association of four RDoC domains on disease severity in patients with affective disorders: Positive (PVS) and Negative Valance System (NVS), Cognitive Systems (CS) and Social Processes (SP). 

Results   The results confirmed a transdiagnostic relationship for all four domains, as we found significant main effects on disease severity within domain-specific models (PVS: & beta; = -0.35; NVS: & beta; = 0.39; CS: & beta; = -0.12; SP: & beta; = -0.32). We also found three significant interaction effects with main diagnosis showing a disease-specific association. 

Limitations   The cross-sectional study design prevents causal conclusions. Further limitations include possible outliers and heteroskedasticity in all regression models which we appropriately controlled for. 

Conclusion   Our key results show that symptom burden in anxiety and depressive disorders is associated with latent RDoC indicators in transdiagnostic and disease-specific ways.
KW  - Research Domain Criteria
KW  - depression
KW  - anxiety disoders
KW  - disease severity
KW  - transdiagnostic
KW  - RDoC
Y1  - 2023
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1161097
SN  - 1664-0640
VL  - 14
PB  - Frontiers Research Foundation
CY  - Lausanne
ER  - 
TY  - GEN
A1  - Sebold, Miriam
A1  - Garbusow, Maria
A1  - Nebe, S.
A1  - Sundmacher, L.
A1  - Kuitunen-Paul, Sören
A1  - Wittchen, H. U.
A1  - Smolka, M.
A1  - Zimmermann, U.
A1  - Rapp, Michael A.
A1  - Huys, Q.
A1  - Schlagenhauf, Florian
A1  - Heinz, A.
T1  - From goals to habits in alcohol dependence
BT  - association with treatment outcome and cognitive bias modification training
T2  - European psychiatry : the journal of the Association of European Psychiatrists
Y1  - 2018
SN  - 0924-9338
SN  - 1778-3585
VL  - 48
SP  - S274
EP  - S274
PB  - Elsevier
CY  - Paris
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Garbusow, Maria
A1  - Nebe, Stephan
A1  - Sommer, Christian
A1  - Kuitunen-Paul, Sören
A1  - Sebold, Miriam
A1  - Schad, Daniel
A1  - Friedel, Eva
A1  - Veer, Ilya M.
A1  - Wittchen, Hans-Ulrich
A1  - Rapp, Michael A.
A1  - Ripke, Stephan
A1  - Walter, Henrik
A1  - Huys, Quentin J. M.
A1  - Schlagenhauf, Florian
A1  - Smolka, Michael N.
A1  - Heinz, Andreas
T1  - Pavlovian-To-Instrumental Transfer and Alcohol Consumption in Young Male Social Drinkers
BT  - Behavioral, Neural and Polygenic Correlates
JF  - Journal of Clinical Medicine
N2  - In animals and humans, behavior can be influenced by irrelevant stimuli, a phenomenon called Pavlovian-to-instrumental transfer (PIT). In subjects with substance use disorder, PIT is even enhanced with functional activation in the nucleus accumbens (NAcc) and amygdala. While we observed enhanced behavioral and neural PIT effects in alcohol-dependent subjects, we here aimed to determine whether behavioral PIT is enhanced in young men with high-risk compared to low-risk drinking and subsequently related functional activation in an a-priori region of interest encompassing the NAcc and amygdala and related to polygenic risk for alcohol consumption. A representative sample of 18-year old men (n = 1937) was contacted: 445 were screened, 209 assessed: resulting in 191 valid behavioral, 139 imaging and 157 genetic datasets. None of the subjects fulfilled criteria for alcohol dependence according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-IV-TextRevision (DSM-IV-TR). We measured how instrumental responding for rewards was influenced by background Pavlovian conditioned stimuli predicting action-independent rewards and losses. Behavioral PIT was enhanced in high-compared to low-risk drinkers (b = 0.09, SE = 0.03, z = 2.7, p < 0.009). Across all subjects, we observed PIT-related neural blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) signal in the right amygdala (t = 3.25, p(SVC) = 0.04, x = 26, y = -6, z = -12), but not in NAcc. The strength of the behavioral PIT effect was positively correlated with polygenic risk for alcohol consumption (r(s) = 0.17, p = 0.032). We conclude that behavioral PIT and polygenic risk for alcohol consumption might be a biomarker for a subclinical phenotype of risky alcohol consumption, even if no drug-related stimulus is present. The association between behavioral PIT effects and the amygdala might point to habitual processes related to out PIT task. In non-dependent young social drinkers, the amygdala rather than the NAcc is activated during PIT; possible different involvement in association with disease trajectory should be investigated in future studies.
KW  - Pavlovian-to-instrumental transfer
KW  - amygdala
KW  - alcohol
KW  - polygenic risk
KW  - high risk drinkers
Y1  - 2019
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm8081188
SN  - 2077-0383
VL  - 8
IS  - 8
PB  - MDPI
CY  - Basel
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Jacob, Louis
A1  - Rapp, Michael A.
A1  - Kostev, Karel
T1  - Long-term use of benzodiazepines in older patients in Germany
BT  - a retrospective analysis
JF  - Therapeutic Advances in Psychopharmacology
N2  - Background: The purpose of this study was to analyze the prevalence of long-term benzodiazepine use in older adults treated in general and neuropsychiatric practices in Germany. Methods: This study included 32,182 patients over the age of 65 years who received benzodiazepine prescriptions for the first time between January 2010 and December 2014 in general and neuropsychiatric practices in Germany. Follow up lasted until July 2016. The main outcome measure was the proportion of patients treated with benzodiazepines for >6 months. Results: The proportion of patients with benzodiazepine therapy for >6 months increased with age (65-70 years: 12.3%; 71-80 years: 15.5%; 81-90 years: 23.7%; >90 years: 31.6%) but did not differ significantly between men (15.5%) and women (17.1%). The proportion of patients who received benzodiazepines for >6 months was higher among those with sleep disorders (21.1%), depression (20.8%) and dementia (32.1%) than among those with anxiety (15.5%). By contrast, this proportion was lower among people diagnosed with adjustment disorders (7.7%) and back pain (3.8%). Conclusion: Overall, long-term use of benzodiazepines is common in older people, particularly in patients over the age of 80 and in those diagnosed with dementia, sleep disorders, or depression.
KW  - benzodiazepines
KW  - Germany
KW  - long-term use
KW  - older people
KW  - risk factors
Y1  - 2017
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1177/2045125317696454
SN  - 2045-1253
SN  - 2045-1261
VL  - 7
IS  - 6/7
SP  - 191
EP  - 200
PB  - Sage Publ.
CY  - London
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Sebold, Miriam
A1  - Chen, Hao
A1  - Önal, Aleyna
A1  - Kuitunen-Paul, Sören
A1  - Mojtahedzadeh, Negin
A1  - Garbusow, Maria
A1  - Nebe, Stephan
A1  - Wittchen, Hans-Ulrich
A1  - Huys, Quentin J. M.
A1  - Schlagenhauf, Florian
A1  - Rapp, Michael A.
A1  - Smolka, Michael N.
A1  - Heinz, Andreas
T1  - Stronger prejudices are associated with decreased model-based control
JF  - Frontiers in psychology
N2  - Background: 
Prejudices against minorities can be understood as habitually negative evaluations that are kept in spite of evidence to the contrary. Therefore, individuals with strong prejudices might be dominated by habitual or "automatic" reactions at the expense of more controlled reactions. Computational theories suggest individual differences in the balance between habitual/model-free and deliberative/model-based decision-making.

Methods: 
127 subjects performed the two Step task and completed the blatant and subtle prejudice scale.

Results: 
By using analyses of choices and reaction times in combination with computational modeling, subjects with stronger blatant prejudices showed a shift away from model-based control. There was no association between these decision-making processes and subtle prejudices.

Conclusion: 
These results support the idea that blatant prejudices toward minorities are related to a relative dominance of habitual decision-making. This finding has important implications for developing interventions that target to change prejudices across societies.
KW  - subtle and blatant prejudice
KW  - immigrant
KW  - social behavior;
KW  - decision-making
KW  - computational modeling
KW  - reinforcement learning
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.767022
SN  - 1664-1078
VL  - 12
PB  - Frontiers Research Foundation
CY  - Lausanne
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Jara Muñoz, Julius
A1  - Melnick, Daniel
A1  - Li, Shaoyang
A1  - Socquet, Anne
A1  - Cortés-Aranda, Joaquín
A1  - Brill, Dominik
A1  - Strecker, Manfred
T1  - The cryptic seismic potential of the Pichilemu blind fault in Chile revealed by off-fault geomorphology
JF  - Nature Communications
N2  - The first step towards assessing hazards in seismically active regions involves mapping capable faults and estimating their recurrence times. While the mapping of active faults is commonly based on distinct geologic and geomorphic features evident at the surface, mapping blind seismogenic faults is complicated by the absence of on-fault diagnostic features. Here we investigated the Pichilemu Fault in coastal Chile, unknown until it generated a Mw 7.0 earthquake in 2010. The lack of evident surface faulting suggests activity along a partly-hidden blind fault. We used off-fault deformed marine terraces to estimate a fault-slip rate of 0.52 ± 0.04 m/ka, which, when integrated with satellite geodesy suggests a 2.12 ± 0.2 ka recurrence time for Mw~7.0 normal-faulting earthquakes. We propose that extension in the Pichilemu region is associated with stress changes during megathrust earthquakes and accommodated by sporadic slip during upper-plate earthquakes, which has implications for assessing the seismic potential of cryptic faults along convergent margins and elsewhere.
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-30754-1
SN  - 2041-1723
VL  - 13
PB  - Springer Nature
CY  - London
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Welke, Robert-William
A1  - Sperber, Hannah Sabeth
A1  - Bergmann, Ronny
A1  - Koikkarah, Amit
A1  - Menke, Laura
A1  - Sieben, Christian
A1  - Krüger, Detlev H.
A1  - Chiantia, Salvatore
A1  - Herrmann, Andreas
A1  - Schwarzer, Roland
T1  - Characterization of hantavirus N protein intracellular dynamics and localization
JF  - Viruses
N2  - Hantaviruses are enveloped viruses that possess a tri-segmented, negative-sense RNA genome. 
The viral S-segment encodes the multifunctional nucleocapsid protein (N), which is involved in genome packaging, intracellular protein transport, immunoregulation, and several other crucial processes during hantavirus infection. 

In this study, we generated fluorescently tagged N protein constructs derived from Puumalavirus (PUUV), the dominant hantavirus species in Central, Northern, and Eastern Europe. 
We comprehensively characterized this protein in the rodent cell line CHO-K1, monitoring the dynamics of N protein complex formation and investigating co-localization with host proteins as well as the viral glycoproteins Gc and Gn. 
We observed formation of large, fibrillar PUUV N protein aggregates, rapidly coalescing from early punctate and spike-like assemblies. 
Moreover, we found significant spatial correlation of N with vimentin, actin, and P-bodies but not with microtubules. N constructs also co-localized with Gn and Gc albeit not as strongly as the glycoproteins associated with each other. 

Finally, we assessed oligomerization of N constructs, observing efficient and concentration-dependent multimerization, with complexes comprising more than 10 individual proteins.
KW  - hantavirus
KW  - N protein
KW  - oligomerization
KW  - actin
KW  - P-bodies
KW  - vimentin
KW  - Number and Brightness
KW  - Puumalavirus
KW  - macromolecular assemblies
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3390/v14030457
SN  - 1999-4915
VL  - 14
IS  - 3
PB  - MDPI
CY  - Basel
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Teich, Paula
A1  - Fühner, Thea Heidi
A1  - Baehr, Florian
A1  - Puta, Christian
A1  - Granacher, Urs
A1  - Kliegl, Reinhold
T1  - Covid pandemic effects on the physical fitness of primary school children
BT  - results of the german EMOTIKON project
JF  - Sports Medicine - Open
N2  - BackgroundIn spring of 2020, the Sars-CoV-2 incidence rate increased rapidly in Germany and around the world. Throughout the next 2 years, schools were temporarily closed and social distancing measures were put in place to slow the spread of the Covid-19 virus. Did these social restrictions and temporary school lockdowns affect children's physical fitness? The EMOTIKON project annually tests the physical fitness of all third-graders in the Federal State of Brandenburg, Germany. The tests assess cardiorespiratory endurance (6-min-run test), coordination (star-run test), speed (20-m sprint test), lower (powerLOW, standing long jump test), and upper (powerUP, ball-push test) limbs muscle power, and static balance (one-legged stance test with eyes closed). A total of 125,893 children were tested in the falls from 2016 to 2022. Primary analyses focused on 98,510 keyage third-graders (i.e., school enrollment according to the legal key date, aged 8 to 9 years) from 515 schools. Secondary analyses included 27,383 older-than-keyage third-graders (i.e., OTK, delayed school enrollment or repetition of a grade, aged 9 to 10 years), who have been shown to exhibit lower physical fitness than expected for their age. Linear mixed models fitted pre-pandemic quadratic secular trends, and took into account differences between children and schools.ResultsThird-graders exhibited lower cardiorespiratory endurance, coordination, speed and powerUP in the Covid pandemic cohorts (2020-2022) compared to the pre-pandemic cohorts (2016-2019). Children's powerLOW and static balance were higher in the pandemic cohorts compared to the pre-pandemic cohorts. From 2020 to 2021, coordination, powerLOW and powerUP further declined. Evidence for some post-pandemic physical fitness catch-up was restricted to powerUP. Cohen's |ds| for comparisons of the pandemic cohorts 2020-2022 with pre-pandemic cohorts 2016-2019 ranged from 0.02 for powerLOW to 0.15 for coordination. Within the pandemic cohorts, keyage children exhibited developmental losses ranging from approximately 1 month for speed to 5 months for cardiorespiratory endurance. For powerLOW and static balance, the positive pandemic effects translate to developmental gains of 1 and 7 months, respectively. Pre-pandemic secular trends may account for some of the observed differences between pandemic and pre-pandemic cohorts, especially in powerLOW, powerUP and static balance. The pandemic further increased developmental delays of OTK children in cardiorespiratory endurance, powerUP and balance.ConclusionsThe Covid-19 pandemic was associated with declines in several physical fitness components in German third-graders. Pandemic effects are still visible in 2022. Health-related interventions should specifically target those physical fitness components that were negatively affected by the pandemic (cardiorespiratory endurance, coordination, speed).
KW  - Sars-CoV-2
KW  - Cohort study
KW  - Cardiorespiratory endurance
KW  - Muscle power
KW  - Physical fitness
KW  - Youth
KW  - EMOTIKON
KW  - Linear mixed models
Y1  - 2023
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1186/s40798-023-00624-1
SN  - 2198-9761
VL  - 9
IS  - 1
PB  - Springer
CY  - New York
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Michirev, Alexej
A1  - Kühne, Katharina
A1  - Lindemann, Oliver
A1  - Fischer, Martin H.
A1  - Raab, Markus
T1  - How to not induce SNAs
BT  - the insufficiency of directional force
JF  - PLoS one
N2  - People respond faster to smaller numbers in their left space and to larger numbers in their right space. Here we argue that movements in space contribute to the formation of spatial-numerical associations (SNAs). We studied the impact of continuous isometric forces along the horizontal or vertical cardinal axes on SNAs while participants performed random number production and arithmetic verification tasks. Our results suggest that such isometric directional force do not suffice to induce SNAs.
Y1  - 2023
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0288038
SN  - 1932-6203
VL  - 18
IS  - 6
PB  - PLoS
CY  - San Fransisco
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Borýsek, Martin
T1  - In search of Ovidian hebrew
BT  - a philological study of a lesser known modern hebrew translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses
JF  - Acta Universitatis Carolinae : AUC
N2  - This paper focuses on the first substantial translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses into modern Hebrew, whose author was Yehoshua Friedman (1885–1934). The first part of the paper sets Friedman into the context of modern Hebrew classical philology and explores the character of his verse. The core of the text consists of three case studies of selected excerpts from Ovid’s story of Apollo and Daphne (Met. I, 456–465; 481–482; 545–552). Based on detailed linguistic and stylistic analysis of these texts, I argue that Friedman did not simply adopt a pre-existing linguistic register, but rather created an original Ovidian idiom that helped to win him lasting significance in the history of Hebrew translations from classical languages.
KW  - Ovid’s Metamorphoses
KW  - Yehoshua Friedman
KW  - modern Hebrew literature
KW  - classical translations
KW  - Apollo and Daphne
Y1  - 2022
UR  - https://karolinum.cz/casopis/auc-philologica/rocnik-2021/cislo-4/clanek-10183
U6  - https://doi.org/10.14712/24646830.2022.11
SN  - 0567-8269
SN  - 2464-6830
IS  - 4
SP  - 29
EP  - 56
PB  - Karolinum Press
CY  - Prag
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Rosin, Paul L.
A1  - Lai, Yu-Kun
A1  - Mould, David
A1  - Yi, Ran
A1  - Berger, Itamar
A1  - Doyle, Lars
A1  - Lee, Seungyong
A1  - Li, Chuan
A1  - Liu, Yong-Jin
A1  - Semmo, Amir
A1  - Shamir, Ariel
A1  - Son, Minjung
A1  - Winnemöller, Holger
T1  - NPRportrait 1.0: A three-level benchmark for non-photorealistic rendering of portraits
JF  - Computational visual media
N2  - Recently, there has been an upsurge of activity in image-based non-photorealistic rendering (NPR), and in particular portrait image stylisation, due to the advent of neural style transfer (NST). However, the state of performance evaluation in this field is poor, especially compared to the norms in the computer vision and machine learning communities. Unfortunately, the task of evaluating image stylisation is thus far not well defined, since it involves subjective, perceptual, and aesthetic aspects. To make progress towards a solution, this paper proposes a new structured, three-level, benchmark dataset for the evaluation of stylised portrait images. Rigorous criteria were used for its construction, and its consistency was validated by user studies. Moreover, a new methodology has been developed for evaluating portrait stylisation algorithms, which makes use of the different benchmark levels as well as annotations provided by user studies regarding the characteristics of the faces. We perform evaluation for a wide variety of image stylisation methods (both portrait-specific and general purpose, and also both traditional NPR approaches and NST) using the new benchmark dataset.
KW  - non-photorealistic rendering (NPR)
KW  - image stylization
KW  - style transfer
KW  - portrait
KW  - evaluation
KW  - benchmark
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1007/s41095-021-0255-3
SN  - 2096-0433
SN  - 2096-0662
VL  - 8
IS  - 3
SP  - 445
EP  - 465
PB  - Springer Nature
CY  - London
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Tomowski, Maxi
A1  - Lozada-Gobilard, Sissi Donna
A1  - Jeltsch, Florian
A1  - Tiedemann, Ralph
T1  - Recruitment and migration patterns reveal a key role for seed banks in the meta-population dynamics of an aquatic plant
JF  - Scientific reports
N2  - Progressive habitat fragmentation threatens plant species with narrow habitat requirements. While local environmental conditions define population growth rates and recruitment success at the patch level, dispersal is critical for population viability at the landscape scale. Identifying the dynamics of plant meta-populations is often confounded by the uncertainty about soil-stored population compartments. We combined a landscape-scale assessment of an amphibious plant's population structure with measurements of dispersal complexity in time to track dispersal and putative shifts in functional connectivity. Using 13 microsatellite markers, we analyzed the genetic structure of extant Oenanthe aquatica populations and their soil seed banks in a kettle hole system to uncover hidden connectivity among populations in time and space. Considerable spatial genetic structure and isolation-by-distance suggest limited gene flow between sites. Spatial isolation and patch size showed minor effects on genetic diversity. Genetic similarity found among extant populations and their seed banks suggests increased local recruitment, despite some evidence of migration and recent colonization. Results indicate stepping-stone dispersal across adjacent populations. Among permanent and ephemeral demes the resulting meta-population demography could be determined by source-sink dynamics. Overall, these spatiotemporal connectivity patterns support mainland-island dynamics in our system, highlighting the importance of persistent seed banks as enduring sources of genetic diversity.
Y1  - 2023
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-37974-5
SN  - 2045-2322
VL  - 13
IS  - 1
PB  - Springer Nature
CY  - London
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Arend, Marius
A1  - Zimmer, David
A1  - Xu, Rudan
A1  - Sommer, Frederik
A1  - Mühlhaus, Timo
A1  - Nikoloski, Zoran
T1  - Proteomics and constraint-based modelling reveal enzyme kinetic properties of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii on a genome scale
JF  - Nature Communications
N2  - Metabolic engineering of microalgae offers a promising solution for sustainable biofuel production, and rational design of engineering strategies can be improved by employing metabolic models that integrate enzyme turnover numbers. However, the coverage of turnover numbers for Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, a model eukaryotic microalga accessible to metabolic engineering, is 17-fold smaller compared to the heterotrophic cell factory Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Here we generate quantitative protein abundance data of Chlamydomonas covering 2337 to 3708 proteins in various growth conditions to estimate in vivo maximum apparent turnover numbers. Using constrained-based modeling we provide proxies for in vivo turnover numbers of 568 reactions, representing a 10-fold increase over the in vitro data for Chlamydomonas. Integration of the in vivo estimates instead of in vitro values in a metabolic model of Chlamydomonas improved the accuracy of enzyme usage predictions. Our results help in extending the knowledge on uncharacterized enzymes and improve biotechnological applications of Chlamydomonas.
KW  - Computational models
KW  - Enzymes
KW  - Proteomics
Y1  - 2023
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-40498-1
SN  - 2041-1723
VL  - 14
IS  - 1
PB  - Springer Nature
CY  - London
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Miklashevsky, Alex
A1  - Kulkova, Elena
A1  - Michirev, Alexej
A1  - Jeglinski-Mende, Melinda A.
A1  - Bertonatti, Matias
T1  - Book review on: Raab, Markus: Judgment, decision-making, and embodied choices. - 
London ; San Diego ; Cambridge, MA ; Oxford: Academic Press, 2020. - xv, 155 pages. - ISBN: 978-0-12-823523-2
JF  - Frontiers in psychology
KW  - embodied cognition
KW  - decision making
KW  - embodied choice
KW  - book review
KW  - mind-body
Y1  - 2021
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.665728
SN  - 1664-1078
VL  - 12
PB  - Frontiers Research Foundation
CY  - Lausanne
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Schmidt, Sabrina
A1  - Reil, Daniela
A1  - Jeske, Kathrin
A1  - Drewes, Stephan
A1  - Rosenfeld, Ulrike
A1  - Fischer, Stefan
A1  - Spierling, Nastasja G.
A1  - Labutin, Anton
A1  - Heckel, Gerald
A1  - Jacob, Jens
A1  - Ulrich, Rainer G.
A1  - Imholt, Christian
T1  - Spatial and temporal dynamics and molecular evolution of Tula orthohantavirus in German vole populations
JF  - Viruses / Molecular Diversity Preservation International (MDPI)
N2  - Tula orthohantavirus (TULV) is a rodent-borne hantavirus with broad geographical distribution in Europe. Its major reservoir is the common vole (Microtus arvalis), but TULV has also been detected in closely related vole species. Given the large distributional range and high amplitude population dynamics of common voles, this host-pathogen complex presents an ideal system to study the complex mechanisms of pathogen transmission in a wild rodent reservoir. We investigated the dynamics of TULV prevalence and the subsequent potential effects on the molecular evolution of TULV in common voles of the Central evolutionary lineage. Rodents were trapped for three years in four regions of Germany and samples were analyzed for the presence of TULV-reactive antibodies and TULV RNA with subsequent sequence determination. The results show that individual (sex) and population-level factors (abundance) of hosts were significant predictors of local TULV dynamics. At the large geographic scale, different phylogenetic TULV clades and an overall isolation-by-distance pattern in virus sequences were detected, while at the small scale (<4 km) this depended on the study area. In combination with an overall delayed density dependence, our results highlight that frequent, localized bottleneck events for the common vole and TULV do occur and can be offset by local recolonization dynamics.
KW  - rodents
KW  - hantavirus
KW  - monitoring
KW  - population dynamics
KW  - common vole
KW  - field vole
KW  - water vole
KW  - phylogeny
KW  - molecular evolution
Y1  - 2021
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3390/v13061132
SN  - 1999-4915
VL  - 13
IS  - 6
PB  - MDPI
CY  - Basel
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Jaiser, Ralf
A1  - Akperov, Mirseid
A1  - Timazhev, A.
A1  - Romanowsky, Erik
A1  - Handorf, Dörthe
A1  - Mokhov, I. I.
T1  - Linkages between arctic and mid-latitude weather and climate
BT  - unraveling the impact of changing sea ice and sea surface temperatures during Winter
JF  - Meteorologische Zeitschrift
N2  - The study addresses the question, if observed changes in terms of Arctic-midlatitude linkages during winter are driven by Arctic Sea ice decline alone or if the increase of global sea surface temperatures plays an additional role. We compare atmosphere-only model experiments with ECHAM6 to ERA-Interim Reanalysis data. The model sensitivity experiment is implemented as a set of four combinations of sea ice and sea surface temperature boundary conditions. Atmospheric circulation regimes are determined and evaluated in terms of their cyclone and blocking characteristics and changes in frequency during winter. As a prerequisite, ECHAM6 reproduces general features of circulation regimes very well. Tropospheric changes induced by the change of boundary conditions are revealed and further impacts on the large-scale circulation up into the stratosphere are investigated. In early winter, the observed increase of atmospheric blocking in the region between Scandinavia and the Urals are primarily related to the changes in sea surface temperatures. During late winter, we f nd a weakened polar stratospheric vortex in the reanalysis that further impacts the troposphere. In the model sensitivity study a climatologically weakened polar vortex occurs only if sea ice is reduced and sea surface temperatures are increased together. This response is delayed compared to the reanalysis. The tropospheric response during late winter is inconclusive in the model, which is potentially related to the weak and delayed response in the stratosphere. The model experiments do not reproduce the connection between early and late winter as interpreted from the reanalysis. Potentially explaining this mismatch, we identify a discrepancy of ECHAM6 to reproduce the weakening of the stratospheric polar vortex through blocking induced upward propagation of planetary waves.
KW  - Weather regimes
KW  - Blocking
KW  - Cyclones
KW  - Wave Propagation
KW  - Stratosphere
Y1  - 2023
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1127/metz/2023/1154
SN  - 0941-2948
SN  - 1610-1227
VL  - 32
IS  - 3
SP  - 173
EP  - 194
PB  - Schweizerbart
CY  - Stuttgart
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Mayer, Dennis
A1  - Lever, Fabiano
A1  - Picconi, David
A1  - Metje, Jan
A1  - Ališauskas, Skirmantas
A1  - Calegari, Francesca
A1  - Düsterer, Stefan
A1  - Ehlert, Christopher
A1  - Feifel, Raimund
A1  - Niebuhr, Mario
A1  - Manschwetus, Bastian
A1  - Kuhlmann, Marion
A1  - Mazza, Tommaso
A1  - Robinson, Matthew Scott
A1  - Squibb, Richard James
A1  - Trabattoni, Andrea
A1  - Wallner, Måns
A1  - Saalfrank, Peter
A1  - Wolf, Thomas J. A.
A1  - Gühr, Markus
T1  - Following excited-state chemical shifts in molecular ultrafast x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy
JF  - Nature Communications
N2  - The conversion of photon energy into other energetic forms in molecules is accompanied by charge moving on ultrafast timescales. We directly observe the charge motion at a specific site in an electronically excited molecule using time-resolved x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (TR-XPS). We extend the concept of static chemical shift from conventional XPS by the excited-state chemical shift (ESCS), which is connected to the charge in the framework of a potential model. This allows us to invert TR-XPS spectra to the dynamic charge at a specific atom. We demonstrate the power of TR-XPS by using sulphur 2p-core-electron-emission probing to study the UV-excited dynamics of 2-thiouracil. The method allows us to discover that a major part of the population relaxes to the molecular ground state within 220–250 fs. In addition, a 250-fs oscillation, visible in the kinetic energy of the TR-XPS, reveals a coherent exchange of population among electronic states.
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-27908-y
SN  - 2041-1723
VL  - 13
PB  - Springer Nature
CY  - Berlin
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Veh, Georg
A1  - Lützow, Natalie
A1  - Kharlamova, Varvara
A1  - Petrakov, Dmitry
A1  - Hugonnet, Romain
A1  - Korup, Oliver
T1  - Trends, Breaks, and Biases in the Frequency of Reported Glacier Lake Outburst Floods
JF  - Earth's Future
N2  - Thousands of glacier lakes have been forming behind natural dams in high mountains following glacier retreat since the early 20th century. Some of these lakes abruptly released pulses of water and sediment with disastrous downstream consequences. Yet it remains unclear whether the reported rise of these glacier lake outburst floods (GLOFs) has been fueled by a warming atmosphere and enhanced meltwater production, or simply a growing research effort. Here we estimate trends and biases in GLOF reporting based on the largest global catalog of 1,997 dated glacier-related floods in six major mountain ranges from 1901 to 2017. We find that the positive trend in the number of reported GLOFs has decayed distinctly after a break in the 1970s, coinciding with independently detected trend changes in annual air temperatures and in the annual number of field-based glacier surveys (a proxy of scientific reporting). We observe that GLOF reports and glacier surveys decelerated, while temperature rise accelerated in the past five decades. Enhanced warming alone can thus hardly explain the annual number of reported GLOFs, suggesting that temperature-driven glacier lake formation, growth, and failure are weakly coupled, or that outbursts have been overlooked. Indeed, our analysis emphasizes a distinct geographic and temporal bias in GLOF reporting, and we project that between two to four out of five GLOFs on average might have gone unnoticed in the early to mid-20th century. We recommend that such biases should be considered, or better corrected for, when attributing the frequency of reported GLOFs to atmospheric warming.
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1029/2021EF002426
SN  - 2328-4277
VL  - 10
SP  - 1
EP  - 14
PB  - Wiley-Blackwell
CY  - Hoboken, New Jersey
ET  - 3
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Bouamra, Marwa
A1  - Zouhal, Hassane
A1  - Ratel, Sébastien
A1  - Makhlouf, Issam
A1  - Bezrati, Ikram
A1  - Chtara, Moktar
A1  - Behm, David George
A1  - Granacher, Urs
A1  - Chaouachi, Anis
T1  - Concurrent Training Promotes Greater Gains on Body Composition and Components of Physical Fitness Than Single-Mode Training (Endurance or Resistance) in Youth With Obesity
JF  - Frontiers in Physiology
N2  - The prevalence of obesity in the pediatric population has become a major public health issue. Indeed, the dramatic increase of this epidemic causes multiple and harmful consequences, Physical activity, particularly physical exercise, remains to be the cornerstone of interventions against childhood obesity. Given the conflicting findings with reference to the relevant literature addressing the effects of exercise on adiposity and physical fitness outcomes in obese children and adolescents, the effect of duration-matched concurrent training (CT) [50% resistance (RT) and 50% high-intensity-interval-training (HIIT)] on body composition and physical fitness in obese youth remains to be elucidated. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine the effects of 9-weeks of CT compared to RT or HIIT alone, on body composition and selected physical fitness components in healthy sedentary obese youth. Out of 73 participants, only 37; [14 males and 23 females; age 13.4 ± 0.9 years; body-mass-index (BMI): 31.2 ± 4.8 kg·m-2] were eligible and randomized into three groups: HIIT (n = 12): 3-4 sets×12 runs at 80–110% peak velocity, with 10-s passive recovery between bouts; RT (n = 12): 6 exercises; 3–4 sets × 10 repetition maximum (RM) and CT (n = 13): 50% serial completion of RT and HIIT. CT promoted significant greater gains compared to HIIT and RT on body composition (p < 0.01, d = large), 6-min-walking test distance (6 MWT-distance) and on 6 MWT-VO2max (p < 0.03, d = large). In addition, CT showed substantially greater improvements than HIIT in the medicine ball throw test (20.2 vs. 13.6%, p < 0.04, d = large). On the other hand, RT exhibited significantly greater gains in relative hand grip strength (p < 0.03, d = large) and CMJ (p < 0.01, d = large) than HIIT and CT. CT promoted greater benefits for fat, body mass loss and cardiorespiratory fitness than HIIT or RT modalities. This study provides important information for practitioners and therapists on the application of effective exercise regimes with obese youth to induce significant and beneficial body composition changes. The applied CT program and the respective programming parameters in terms of exercise intensity and volume can be used by practitioners as an effective exercise treatment to fight the pandemic overweight and obesity in youth.
KW  - weight loss
KW  - adolescents
KW  - high-intensity-interval training
KW  - resistance training
KW  - DXA
KW  - matched time
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2022.869063
SN  - 1664-042X
VL  - 13
SP  - 1
EP  - 16
PB  - Frontiers
CY  - Lausanne, Schweiz
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Heistermann, Maik
A1  - Bogena, Heye
A1  - Francke, Till
A1  - Güntner, Andreas
A1  - Jakobi, Jannis
A1  - Rasche, Daniel
A1  - Schrön, Martin
A1  - Döpper, Veronika
A1  - Fersch, Benjamin
A1  - Groh, Jannis
A1  - Patil, Amol
A1  - Pütz, Thomas
A1  - Reich, Marvin
A1  - Zacharias, Steffen
A1  - Zengerle, Carmen
A1  - Oswald, Sascha
T1  - Soil moisture observation in a forested headwater catchment: combining a dense cosmic-ray neutron sensor network with roving and hydrogravimetry at the TERENO site Wüstebach
JF  - Earth system science data : ESSD
N2  - Cosmic-ray neutron sensing (CRNS) has become an effective method to measure soil moisture at a horizontal scale of hundreds of metres and a depth of decimetres. Recent studies proposed operating CRNS in a network with overlapping footprints in order to cover root-zone water dynamics at the small catchment scale and, at the same time, to represent spatial heterogeneity. In a joint field campaign from September to November 2020 (JFC-2020), five German research institutions deployed 15 CRNS sensors in the 0.4 km2 Wüstebach catchment (Eifel mountains, Germany). The catchment is dominantly forested (but includes a substantial fraction of open vegetation) and features a topographically distinct catchment boundary. In addition to the dense CRNS coverage, the campaign featured a unique combination of additional instruments and techniques: hydro-gravimetry (to detect water storage dynamics also below the root zone); ground-based and, for the first time, airborne CRNS roving; an extensive wireless soil sensor network, supplemented by manual measurements; and six weighable lysimeters. Together with comprehensive data from the long-term local research infrastructure, the published data set (available at https://doi.org/10.23728/b2share.756ca0485800474e9dc7f5949c63b872; Heistermann et al., 2022) will be a valuable asset in various research contexts: to advance the retrieval of landscape water storage from CRNS, wireless soil sensor networks, or hydrogravimetry; to identify scale-specific combinations of sensors and methods to represent soil moisture variability; to improve the understanding and simulation of land–atmosphere exchange as well as hydrological and hydrogeological processes at the hillslope and the catchment scale; and to support the retrieval of soil water content from airborne and spaceborne remote sensing platforms.
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-14-2501-2022
SN  - 1866-3516
SN  - 1866-3508
VL  - 14
IS  - 5
SP  - 2501
EP  - 2519
PB  - Copernicus
CY  - Katlenburg-Lindau
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Garcia, Sarahi L.
A1  - Buck, Moritz
A1  - Hamilton, Joshua J.
A1  - Wurzbacher, Christian
A1  - Grossart, Hans-Peter
A1  - McMahon, Katherine D.
A1  - Eiler, Alexander
T1  - Model communities hint at promiscuous metabolic linkages between ubiquitous free-living freshwater bacteria
JF  - mSphere
N2  - Genome streamlining is frequently observed in free-living aquatic microorganisms and results in physiological dependencies between microorganisms. However, we know little about the specificity of these microbial associations. In order to examine the specificity and extent of these associations, we established mixed cultures from three different freshwater environments and analyzed the cooccurrence of organisms using a metagenomic time series. Free-living microorganisms with streamlined genomes lacking multiple biosynthetic pathways showed no clear recurring pattern in their interaction partners. Free-living freshwater bacteria form promiscuous cooperative associations. This notion contrasts with the well-documented high specificities of interaction partners in host-associated bacteria. Considering all data together, we suggest that highly abundant free-living bacterial lineages are functionally versatile in their interactions despite their distinct streamlining tendencies at the single-cell level. This metabolic versatility facilitates interactions with a variable set of community members.
KW  - community
KW  - interactions
KW  - metagenomics
KW  - microbial ecology
KW  - mixed cultures
KW  - promiscuous
Y1  - 2018
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1128/mSphere.00202-18
SN  - 2379-5042
VL  - 3
IS  - 3
PB  - American Society for Microbiology
CY  - Washington
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Günthel, Marco
A1  - Donis, Daphne
A1  - Kirillin, Georgiy
A1  - Ionescu, Danny
A1  - Bizic, Mina
A1  - McGinnis, Daniel F.
A1  - Grossart, Hans-Peter
A1  - Tang, Kam W.
T1  - Contribution of oxic methane production to surface methane emission in lakes and its global importance
JF  - Nature Communications
N2  - Recent discovery of oxic methane production in sea and lake waters, as well as wetlands, demands re-thinking of the global methane cycle and re-assessment of the contribution of oxic waters to atmospheric methane emission. Here we analysed system-wide sources and sinks of surface-water methane in a temperate lake. Using a mass balance analysis, we show that internal methane production in well-oxygenated surface water is an important source for surface-water methane during the stratified period. Combining our results and literature reports, oxic methane contribution to emission follows a predictive function of littoral sediment area and surface mixed layer volume. The contribution of oxic methane source(s) is predicted to increase with lake size, accounting for the majority (>50%) of surface methane emission for lakes with surface areas >1 km(2).
Y1  - 2019
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-13320-0
SN  - 2041-1723
VL  - 10
PB  - Nature Publishing Group UK
CY  - London
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Klaus, Benita
A1  - Müller, Patrick
A1  - van Wickeren, Nora
A1  - Dordevic, Milos
A1  - Schmicker, Marlen
A1  - Zdunczyk, Yael
A1  - Brigadski, Tanja
A1  - Lessmann, Volkmar
A1  - Vielhaber, Stefan
A1  - Schreiber, Stefanie
A1  - Müller, Notger Germar
T1  - Structural and functional brain alterations in patients with myasthenia gravis
JF  - Brain communications
N2  - Myasthenia gravis is an autoimmune disease affecting neuromuscular transmission and causing skeletal muscle weakness. Additionally, systemic inflammation, cognitive deficits and autonomic dysfunction have been described. 

However, little is known about myasthenia gravis-related reorganization of the brain. In this study, we thus investigated the structural and functional brain changes in myasthenia gravis patients. 
Eleven myasthenia gravis patients (age: 70.64 +/- 9.27; 11 males) were compared to age-, sex- and education-matched healthy controls (age: 70.18 +/- 8.98; 11 males). Most of the patients (n = 10, 0.91%) received cholinesterase inhibitors. 

Structural brain changes were determined by applying voxel-based morphometry using high-resolution T-1-weighted sequences. Functional brain changes were assessed with a neuropsychological test battery (including attention, memory and executive functions), a spatial orientation task and brain-derived neurotrophic factor blood levels. 

Myasthenia gravis patients showed significant grey matter volume reductions in the cingulate gyrus, in the inferior parietal lobe and in the fusiform gyrus. Furthermore, myasthenia gravis patients showed significantly lower performance in executive functions, working memory (Spatial Span, P = 0.034, d = 1.466), verbal episodic memory (P = 0.003, d = 1.468) and somatosensory-related spatial orientation (Triangle Completion Test, P = 0.003, d = 1.200). 

Additionally, serum brain-derived neurotrophic factor levels were significantly higher in myasthenia gravis patients (P = 0.001, d = 2.040). Our results indicate that myasthenia gravis is associated with structural and functional brain alterations. Especially the grey matter volume changes in the cingulate gyrus and the inferior parietal lobe could be associated with cognitive deficits in memory and executive functions. 

Furthermore, deficits in somatosensory-related spatial orientation could be associated with the lower volumes in the inferior parietal lobe. Future research is needed to replicate these findings independently in a larger sample and to investigate the underlying mechanisms in more detail. 

Klaus et al. compared myasthenia gravis patients to matched healthy control subjects and identified functional alterations in memory functions as well as structural alterations in the cingulate gyrus, in the inferior parietal lobe and in the fusiform gyrus.
KW  - myasthenia gravis
KW  - neuroplasticity
KW  - VBM
KW  - neuropsychological testing
KW  - BDNF
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1093/braincomms/fcac018
SN  - 2632-1297
VL  - 4
IS  - 1
PB  - Oxford Univ. Press
CY  - Oxford
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Zhang, Zhihao
A1  - Wang, Ting
A1  - Kuang, Jin
A1  - Herold, Fabian
A1  - Ludyga, Sebastian
A1  - Li, Jingming
A1  - Hall, Daniel L.
A1  - Taylor, Alyx
A1  - Healy, Sean
A1  - Yeung, Albert S.
A1  - Kramer, Arthur F.
A1  - Zou, Liye
T1  - The roles of exercise tolerance and resilience in the effect of physical activity on emotional states among college students
JF  - International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology
N2  - Background/objective: Negative emotional states, such as depression, anxiety, and stress challenge health care due to their long-term consequences for mental disorders. Accumulating evidence indicates that regular physical activity (PA) can positively influence negative emotional states. Among possible candidates, resilience and exercise tolerance in particular have the potential to partly explain the positive effects of PA on negative emotional states. Thus, the aim of this study was to investigate the association between PA and negative emotional states, and further determine the mediating effects of exercise tolerance and resilience in such a relationship. Method: In total, 1117 Chinese college students (50.4% female, Mage=18.90, SD=1.25) completed a psychosocial battery, including the 21-item Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS-21), the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC), the Preference for and Tolerance of the Intensity of Exercise Questionnaire (PRETIE-Q), and the International Physical Activity Questionnaire short form (IPAQ-SF). Regression analysis was used to identify the serial multiple mediation, controlling for gender, age and BMI. Results: PA, exercise intensity-tolerance, and resilience were significantly negatively correlated with negative emotional states (Ps<.05). Further, exercise tolerance and resilience partially mediated the relationship between PA and negative emotional states. Conclusions: Resilience and exercise intensity-tolerance can be achieved through regularly engaging in PA, and these newly observed variables play critical roles in prevention of mental illnesses, especially college students who face various challenges. Recommended amount of PA should be incorporated into curriculum or sport clubs within a campus environment.
KW  - Exercise tolerance
KW  - Resilience
KW  - Physical activity
KW  - Emotion
KW  - Depression
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijchp.2022.100312
SN  - 1697-2600
SN  - 1576-7329
VL  - 22
IS  - 3
PB  - Elsevier
CY  - New York
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Tjaden, Jasper
A1  - Seuthe, Miriam
A1  - Weinert, Sebastian
T1  - Recruiting refugees to reduce labour shortages in health care professions
BT  - experimental evidence on the potential of foreign-language outreach on social media
JF  - Human resources for health
N2  - Background
Many high-income countries are grappling with severe labour shortages in the healthcare sector. Refugees and recent migrants present a potential pool for staff recruitment due to their higher unemployment rates, younger age, and lower average educational attainment compared to the host society's labour force. Despite this, refugees and recent migrants, often possessing limited language skills in the destination country, are frequently excluded from traditional recruitment campaigns conducted solely in the host country’s language. Even those with intermediate language skills may feel excluded, as destination-country language advertisements are perceived as targeting only native speakers. This study experimentally assesses the effectiveness of a recruitment campaign for nursing positions in a German care facility, specifically targeting Arabic and Ukrainian speakers through Facebook advertisements.

Methods
We employ an experimental design (AB test) approximating a randomized controlled trial, utilizing Facebook as the delivery platform. We compare job advertisements for nursing positions in the native languages of Arabic and Ukrainian speakers (treatment) with the same advertisements displayed in German (control) for the same target group in the context of a real recruitment campaign for nursing jobs in Berlin, Germany. Our evaluation includes comparing link click rates, visits to the recruitment website, initiated applications, and completed applications, along with the unit cost of these indicators. We assess statistical significance in group differences using the Chi-squared test.

Results
We find that recruitment efforts in the origin language were 5.6 times (Arabic speakers) and 1.9 times (Ukrainian speakers) more effective in initiating nursing job applications compared to the standard model of German-only advertisements among recent migrants and refugees. Overall, targeting refugees and recent migrants was 2.4 (Ukrainians) and 10.8 (Arabic) times cheaper than targeting the reference group of German speakers indicating higher interest among these groups.

Conclusions
The results underscore the substantial benefits for employers in utilizing targeted recruitment via social media aimed at foreign-language communities within the country. This strategy, which is low-cost and low effort compared to recruiting abroad or investing in digitalization, has the potential for broad applicability in numerous high-income countries with sizable migrant communities. Increased employment rates among underemployed refugee and migrant communities, in turn, contribute to reducing poverty, social exclusion, public expenditure, and foster greater acceptance of newcomers within the receiving society.
KW  - social media
KW  - Facebook
KW  - nursing
KW  - refugee
KW  - migrant
KW  - recruitment
Y1  - 2024
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1186/s12960-024-00933-w
SN  - 1478-4491
VL  - 22
SP  - 1
EP  - 9
PB  - Biomed Central
CY  - London
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Fischer, Martin H.
A1  - Winter, Bodo
A1  - Felisatti, Arianna
A1  - Myachykov, Andriy
A1  - Jeglinski-Mende, Melinda A.
A1  - Shaki, Samuel
T1  - More instructions make fewer subtractions
JF  - Frontiers in psychology / Frontiers Research Foundation
N2  - Research on problem solving offers insights into how humans process task-related information and which strategies they use (Newell and Simon, 1972; Öllinger et al., 2014). Problem solving can be defined as the search for possible changes in one's mind (Kahneman, 2003). In a recent study, Adams et al. (2021) assessed whether the predominant problem solving strategy when making changes involves adding or subtracting elements. In order to do this, they used several examples of simple problems, such as editing text or making visual patterns symmetrical, either in naturalistic settings or on-line. The essence of the authors' findings is a strong preference to add rather than subtract elements across a diverse range of problems, including the stabilizing of artifacts, creating symmetrical patterns, or editing texts. More specifically, they succeeded in demonstrating that “participants were less likely to identify advantageous subtractive changes when the task did not (vs. did) cue them to consider subtraction, when they had only one opportunity (vs. several) to recognize the shortcomings of an additive search strategy or when they were under a higher (vs. lower) cognitive load” (Adams et al., 2021, p. 258).

Addition and subtraction are generally defined as de-contextualized mathematical operations using abstract symbols (Russell, 1903/1938). Nevertheless, understanding of both symbols and operations is informed by everyday activities, such as making or breaking objects (Lakoff and Núñez, 2000; Fischer and Shaki, 2018). The universal attribution of “addition bias” or “subtraction neglect” to problem solving activities is perhaps a convenient shorthand but it overlooks influential framing effects beyond those already acknowledged in the report and the accompanying commentary (Meyvis and Yoon, 2021).

Most importantly, while Adams et al.'s study addresses an important issue, their very method of verbally instructing participants, together with lack of control over several known biases, might render their findings less than conclusive. Below, we discuss our concerns that emerged from the identified biases, namely those regarding the instructions and the experimental materials. Moreover, we refer to research from mathematical cognition that provides new insights into Adams et al.'s findings.
KW  - problem solving
KW  - addition
KW  - subtraction
KW  - cognitive bias
KW  - SNARC
Y1  - 2021
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.720616
SN  - 1664-1078
VL  - 12
SP  - 1
EP  - 3
PB  - Frontiers Research Foundation
CY  - Lausanne, Schweiz
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Taleb, Aiham
A1  - Rohrer, Csaba
A1  - Bergner, Benjamin
A1  - De Leon, Guilherme
A1  - Rodrigues, Jonas Almeida
A1  - Schwendicke, Falk
A1  - Lippert, Christoph
A1  - Krois, Joachim
T1  - Self-supervised learning methods for label-efficient dental caries classification
JF  - Diagnostics : open access journal
N2  - High annotation costs are a substantial bottleneck in applying deep learning architectures to clinically relevant use cases, substantiating the need for algorithms to learn from unlabeled data. 

In this work, we propose employing self-supervised methods. To that end, we trained with three self-supervised algorithms on a large corpus of unlabeled dental images, which contained 38K bitewing radiographs (BWRs). We then applied the learned neural network representations on tooth-level dental caries classification, for which we utilized labels extracted from electronic health records (EHRs). Finally, a holdout test-set was established, which consisted of 343 BWRs and was annotated by three dental professionals and approved by a senior dentist. 

This test-set was used to evaluate the fine-tuned caries classification models. Our experimental results demonstrate the obtained gains by pretraining models using self-supervised algorithms. These include improved caries classification performance (6 p.p. increase in sensitivity) and, most importantly, improved label-efficiency. 
In other words, the resulting models can be fine-tuned using few labels (annotations). 

Our results show that using as few as 18 annotations can produce >= 45% sensitivity, which is comparable to human-level diagnostic performance. 
This study shows that self-supervision can provide gains in medical image analysis, particularly when obtaining labels is costly and expensive.
KW  - unsupervised methods
KW  - self-supervised learning
KW  - representation learning
KW  - dental caries classification
KW  - data driven approaches
KW  - annotation
KW  - efficient deep learning
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3390/diagnostics12051237
SN  - 2075-4418
VL  - 12
IS  - 5
PB  - MDPI
CY  - Basel
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Gisch, Ulrike Alexandra
A1  - Robert, Margaux
A1  - Berlin, Noemi
A1  - Nebout, Antoine
A1  - Etile, Fabrice
A1  - Teyssier, Sabrina
A1  - Andreeva, Valentina A.
A1  - Hercberg, Serge
A1  - Touvier, Mathilde
A1  - Peneau, Sandrine
T1  - Mastery is associated with weight status, food intake, snacking, and eating disorder symptoms in the NutriNet-Sante cohort study
JF  - Frontiers in Nutrition
N2  - Mastery is a psychological resource that is defined as the extent to which individuals perceive having control over important circumstances of their lives. Although mastery has been associated with various physical and psychological health outcomes, studies assessing its relationship with weight status and dietary behavior are lacking. The aim of this cross-sectional study was to assess the relationship between mastery and weight status, food intake, snacking, and eating disorder (ED) symptoms in the NutriNet-Sante cohort study. Mastery was measured with the Pearlin Mastery Scale (PMS) in 32,588 adults (77.45% female), the mean age was 50.04 (14.53) years. Height and weight were self-reported. Overall diet quality and food group consumption were evaluated with >= 3 self-reported 24-h dietary records (range: 3-27). Snacking was assessed with an ad-hoc question. ED symptoms were assessed with the Sick-Control-One-Fat-Food Questionnaire (SCOFF). Linear and logistic regression analyses were conducted to assess the relationship between mastery and weight status, food intake, snacking, and ED symptoms, controlling for sociodemographic and lifestyle characteristics. Females with a higher level of mastery were less likely to be underweight (OR: 0.88; 95%CI: 0.84, 0.93), overweight [OR: 0.94 (0.91, 0.97)], or obese [class I: OR: 0.86 (0.82, 0.90); class II: OR: 0.76 (0.71, 0.82); class III: OR: 0.77 (0.69, 0.86)]. Males with a higher level of mastery were less likely to be obese [class III: OR: 0.75 (0.57, 0.99)]. Mastery was associated with better diet quality overall, a higher consumption of fruit and vegetables, seafood, wholegrain foods, legumes, non-salted oleaginous fruits, and alcoholic beverages and with a lower consumption of meat and poultry, dairy products, sugary and fatty products, milk-based desserts, and sweetened beverages. Mastery was also associated with lower snacking frequency [OR: 0.89 (0.86, 0.91)] and less ED symptoms [OR: 0.73 (0.71, 0.75)]. As mastery was associated with favorable dietary behavior and weight status, targeting mastery might be a promising approach in promoting healthy behaviors.
KW  - mastery
KW  - locus of control
KW  - weight status
KW  - diet quality
KW  - food group consumption
KW  - snacking
KW  - eating disorder symptoms
KW  - large population
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2022.871669
SN  - 2296-861X
VL  - 9
PB  - Frontiers Media
CY  - Lausanne
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Kretzschmar, Mirjam E.
A1  - Ashby, Ben
A1  - Fearon, Elizabeth
A1  - Overton, Christopher E.
A1  - Panovska-Griffiths, Jasmina
A1  - Pellis, Lorenzo
A1  - Quaife, Matthew
A1  - Rozhnova, Ganna
A1  - Scarabel, Francesca
A1  - Stage, Helena B.
A1  - Swallow, Ben
A1  - Thompson, Robin N.
A1  - Tildesley, Michael J.
A1  - Villela, Daniel Campos
T1  - Challenges for modelling interventions for future pandemics
JF  - Epidemics
N2  - Mathematical modelling and statistical inference provide a framework to evaluate different non-pharmaceutical and pharmaceutical interventions for the control of epidemics that has been widely used during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this paper, lessons learned from this and previous epidemics are used to highlight the challenges for future pandemic control. We consider the availability and use of data, as well as the need for correct parameterisation and calibration for different model frameworks. We discuss challenges that arise in describing and distinguishing between different interventions, within different modelling structures, and allowing both within and between host dynamics. We also highlight challenges in modelling the health economic and political aspects of interventions. Given the diversity of these challenges, a broad variety of interdisciplinary expertise is needed to address them, combining mathematical knowledge with biological and social insights, and including health economics and communication skills. Addressing these challenges for the future requires strong cross disciplinary collaboration together with close communication between scientists and policy makers.
KW  - Mathematical models
KW  - Pandemics
KW  - Pharmaceutical interventions
KW  - Non-pharmaceutical interventions
KW  - Policy support
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epidem.2022.100546
SN  - 1755-4365
SN  - 1878-0067
VL  - 38
PB  - Elsevier
CY  - Amsterdam
ER  - 
TY  - GEN
A1  - Bilgen, Isa
T1  - Our dignity in your hands
T2  - Verfassungsblog : on matters constitutional
Y1  - 2024
UR  - https://verfassungsblog.de/our-dignity-in-your-hands/
U6  - https://doi.org/10.17176/20240204-004255-0
SN  - 2366-7044
PB  - Max Steinbeis Verfassungsblog gGmbH
CY  - Berlin
ER  - 
TY  - GEN
A1  - Bilgen, Isa
T1  - Unsere Würde in Euren Händen
T2  - Verfassungsblog : on matters constitutional
Y1  - 2024
UR  - https://verfassungsblog.de/unsere-wurde-in-euren-handen/
U6  - https://doi.org/10.17176/20240204-004217-0
SN  - 2366-7044
PB  - Max Steinbeis Verfassungsblog gGmbH
CY  - Berlin
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - McHuron, Elizabeth A.
A1  - Adamczak, Stephanie
A1  - Arnould, John P. Y.
A1  - Ashe, Erin
A1  - Booth, Cormac
A1  - Bowen, W. Don
A1  - Christiansen, Fredrik
A1  - Chudzinska, Magda
A1  - Costa, Daniel P.
A1  - Fahlman, Andreas
A1  - Farmer, Nicholas A.
A1  - Fortune, Sarah M. E.
A1  - Gallagher, Cara A.
A1  - Keen, Kelly A.
A1  - Madsen, Peter T.
A1  - McMahon, Clive R.
A1  - Nabe-Nielsen, Jacob
A1  - Noren, Dawn P.
A1  - Noren, Shawn R.
A1  - Pirotta, Enrico
A1  - Rosen, David A. S.
A1  - Speakman, Cassie N.
A1  - Villegas-Amtmann, Stella
A1  - Williams, Rob
T1  - Key questions in marine mammal bioenergetics
JF  - Conservation physiology
N2  - Bioenergetic approaches are increasingly used to understand how marine mammal populations could be affected by a changing and disturbed aquatic environment. There remain considerable gaps in our knowledge of marine mammal bioenergetics, which hinder the application of bioenergetic studies to inform policy decisions. We conducted a priority-setting exercise to identify high-priority unanswered questions in marine mammal bioenergetics, with an emphasis on questions relevant to conservation and management. Electronic communication and a virtual workshop were used to solicit and collate potential research questions from the marine mammal bioenergetic community. From a final list of 39 questions, 11 were identified as 'key'questions because they received votes from at least 50% of survey participants. Key questions included those related to energy intake (prey landscapes, exposure to human activities) and expenditure (field metabolic rate, exposure to human activities, lactation, time-activity budgets), energy allocation priorities, metrics of body condition and relationships with survival and reproductive success and extrapolation of data from one species to another. Existing tools to address key questions include labelled water, animal-borne sensors, mark-resight data from long-term research programs, environmental DNA and unmanned vehicles. Further validation of existing approaches and development of new methodologies are needed to comprehensively address some key questions, particularly for cetaceans. The identification of these key questions can provide a guiding framework to set research priorities, which ultimately may yield more accurate information to inform policies and better conserve marine mammal populations.
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1093/conphys/coac055
SN  - 2051-1434
VL  - 10
IS  - 1
PB  - Oxford Univ. Press
CY  - Oxford
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Dellepiane, Sergio
A1  - Vaid, Akhil
A1  - Jaladanki, Suraj K.
A1  - Coca, Steven
A1  - Fayad, Zahi A.
A1  - Charney, Alexander W.
A1  - Böttinger, Erwin
A1  - He, John Cijiang
A1  - Glicksberg, Benjamin S.
A1  - Chan, Lili
A1  - Nadkarni, Girish
T1  - Acute kidney injury in patients hospitalized with COVID-19 in New York City
BT  - temporal trends From March 2020 to April 2021
JF  - Kidney medicine
Y1  - 2021
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xkme.2021.06.008
SN  - 2590-0595
VL  - 3
IS  - 5
SP  - 877
EP  - 879
PB  - Elsevier
CY  - Amsterdam
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Kowalczyk, Katarzyna A.
A1  - Amann, Thorben
A1  - Strefler, Jessica
A1  - Vorrath, Maria-Elena
A1  - Hartmann, Jens
A1  - de Marco, Serena
A1  - Renforth, Phil
A1  - Foteinis, Spyros
A1  - Kriegler, Elmar
T1  - Marine carbon dioxide removal by alkalinization should no longer be overlooked
JF  - Environmental research letters
N2  - To achieve the Paris climate target, deep emissions reductions have to be complemented with carbon dioxide removal (CDR). However, a portfolio of CDR options is necessary to reduce risks and potential negative side effects. Despite a large theoretical potential, ocean-based CDR such as ocean alkalinity enhancement (OAE) has been omitted in climate change mitigation scenarios so far. In this study, we provide a techno-economic assessment of large-scale OAE using hydrated lime ('ocean liming'). We address key uncertainties that determine the overall cost of ocean liming (OL) such as the CO2 uptake efficiency per unit of material, distribution strategies avoiding carbonate precipitation which would compromise efficiency, and technology availability (e.g., solar calciners). We find that at economic costs of 130–295 $/tCO2 net-removed, ocean liming could be a competitive CDR option which could make a significant contribution towards the Paris climate target. As the techno-economic assessment identified no showstoppers, we argue for more research on ecosystem impacts, governance, monitoring, reporting, and verification, and technology development and assessment to determine whether ocean liming and other OAE should be considered as part of a broader CDR portfolio.
KW  - carbon dioxide removal (CDR)
KW  - ocean alkalinity enhancement (OAE)
KW  - ocean liming (OL)
KW  - echno-economic assessment
KW  - uptake efficiency
Y1  - 2024
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ad5192
SN  - 1748-9326
VL  - 19
IS  - 7
PB  - IOP Publishing
CY  - Bristol
ER  - 
TY  - GEN
A1  - EL Mahmoud, Khaled
T1  - Measuring with double legal standards
BT  - Germany’s intervention in support of Israel before the ICJ
T2  - Verfassungsblog : on matters constitutional
Y1  - 2024
UR  - https://verfassungsblog.de/measuring-with-double-legal-standards-germanys-intervention-in-support-of-israel-before-the-icj/
U6  - https://doi.org/10.59704/1c5ec794a420161f
SN  - 2366-7044
PB  - Max Steinbeis Verfassungsblog gGmbH
CY  - Berlin
ER  - 
TY  - GEN
A1  - Bilgen, Isa
T1  - Freiheit und Nachhaltigkeit im Verfassungswandel
T2  - Verfassungsblog : on matters constitutional
N2  - Mit dem Klima wandelt sich auch notwendig die offene Gesellschaft. Und mit ihr wandelt sich wiederum auch die Verfassung(-sinterpretation). Periodisch wiederkehrende Gesundheits- und Sicherheitskrisen fordern eine dynamische Reaktion des Grundgesetzes auf mit ihnen einhergehende Probleme. In andauernden Krisen wie der Umweltkrise muss die Verfassung gleichzeitig in vielerlei Hinsicht nachhaltig sein. Dabei muss das, was wir unter Freiheit, Klima‑, Umwelt- oder Tierschutz verstehen, immer im Wandel bleiben.
Y1  - 2023
UR  - https://verfassungsblog.de/freiheit-und-nachhaltigkeit-im-verfassungswandel/
U6  - https://doi.org/10.17176/20230617-231023-0
SN  - 2366-7044
PB  - Max Steinbeis Verfassungsblog gGmbH
CY  - Berlin
ER  - 
TY  - GEN
A1  - Weigl, Hannes
T1  - Opfer der Diplomatie
BT  - von moderner Sklaverei, ausgehebelter Immunität und der schwierigen Suche nach Gerechtigkeit
T2  - Verfassungsblog : on matters constitutional
Y1  - 2022
UR  - https://verfassungsblog.de/opfer-der-diplomatie/
U6  - https://doi.org/10.17176/20221208-001620-0
SN  - 2366-7044
PB  - Max Steinbeis Verfassungsblog gGmbH
CY  - Berlin
ER  - 
TY  - GEN
A1  - Köhne, Lea
T1  - (State) immunity for Palestine?
T2  - Verfassungsblog : on matters constitutional
Y1  - 2023
UR  - https://verfassungsblog.de/state-immunity-for-palestine/
U6  - https://doi.org/10.59704/c6b1bf054163ad38
SN  - 2366-7044
PB  - Max Steinbeis Verfassungsblog gGmbH
CY  - Berlin
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Blasimann, Angela
A1  - Busch, Aglaja
A1  - Henle, Philipp
A1  - Bruhn, Sven
A1  - Vissers, Dirk
A1  - Baur, Heiner
T1  - Neuromuscular control during stair descent and artificial tibial translation after acute ACL rupture
JF  - Orthopaedic journal of sports medicine
N2  - Background: Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) rupture has direct effect on passive and active knee stability and, specifically, stretch-reflex excitability. Purpose/Hypothesis: The purpose of this study was to investigate neuromuscular activity in patients with an acute ACL deficit (ACL-D group) compared with a matched control group with an intact ACL (ACL-I group) during stair descent and artificially induced anterior tibial translation. It was hypothesized that neuromuscular control would be impaired in the ACL-D group. Study Design: Cross-sectional study; Level of evidence, 3. Methods: Surface electromyographic (EMG) activity of the vastus medialis (VM), vastus lateralis (VL), biceps femoris (BF), and semitendinosus (ST) muscles was recorded bilaterally in 15 patients with ACL-D (mean, 13.8 days [range, 7-21 days] since injury) and 15 controls with ACL-I during stair descent and artificially induced anterior tibial translation. The movements of stair descent were divided into preactivity, weight acceptance, and push-off phases. Reflex activity during anterior tibial translation was split into preactivity and short, medium, and late latency responses. Walking on a treadmill was used for submaximal EMG normalization. Kruskal-Wallis test and post hoc analyses with Dunn-Bonferroni correction were used to compare normalized root mean square values for each muscle, limb, movement, and reflex phase between the ACL-D and ACL-I groups. Results: During the preactivity phase of stair descent, the hamstrings of the involved leg of the ACL-D group showed 33% to 51% less activity compared with the matched leg and contralateral leg of the ACL-I group (P <.05). During the weight acceptance and push-off phases, the VL revealed a significant reduction (approximately 40%) in the involved leg of the ACL-D group compared with the ACL-I group. At short latency, the BF and ST of the involved leg of the ACL-D group showed a significant increase in EMG activity compared with the uninvolved leg of the ACL-I group, by a factor of 2.2 to 4.6. Conclusion: In the acute phase after an ACL rupture, neuromuscular alterations were found mainly in the hamstrings of both limbs during stair descent and reflex activity. The potential role of prehabilitation needs to be further studied.
KW  - acute
KW  - anterior cruciate ligament
KW  - neuromuscular control
KW  - rupture
KW  - stairs
KW  - tibial translation
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1177/23259671221123299
SN  - 2325-9671
VL  - 10
IS  - 10
PB  - Sage
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Witzel, Katja
A1  - Abu Risha, Marua
A1  - Albers, Philip
A1  - Börnke, Frederik
A1  - Hanschen, Franziska S.
T1  - Identification and Characterization of Three Epithiospecifier Protein Isoforms in Brassica oleracea
JF  - Frontiers in plant science
N2  - Glucosinolates present in Brassicaceae play a major role in herbivory defense. Upon tissue disruption, glucosinolates come into contact with myrosinase, which initiates their breakdown to biologically active compounds. Among these, the formation of epithionitriles is triggered by the presence of epithiospecifier protein (ESP) and a terminal double bond in the glucosinolate side chain. One ESP gene is characterized in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana (AtESP; At1g54040.2). However, Brassica species underwent genome triplication since their divergence from the Arabidopsis lineage. This indicates the presence of multiple ESP isoforms in Brassica crops that are currently poorly characterized. We identified three B. oleracea ESPs, specifically BoESP1 (LOC106296341), BoESP2 (LOC106306810), and BoESP3 (LOC106325105) based on in silico genome analysis. Transcript and protein abundance were assessed in shoots and roots of four B. oleracea vegetables, namely broccoli, kohlrabi, white, and red cabbage, because these genotypes showed a differential pattern for the formation of glucosinolate hydrolysis products as well for their ESP activity. BoESP1 and BoESP2 were expressed mainly in shoots, while BoESP3 was abundant in roots. Biochemical characterization of heterologous expressed BoESP isoforms revealed different substrate specificities towards seven glucosinolates: all isoforms showed epithiospecifier activity on alkenyl glucosinolates, but not on non-alkenyl glucosinolates. The pH-value differently affected BoESP activity: while BoESP1 and BoESP2 activities were optimal at pH 6-7, BoESP3 activity remained relatively stable from pH 4 to 7. In order test their potential for the in vivo modification of glucosinolate breakdown, the three isoforms were expressed in A. thaliana Hi-0, which lacks AtESP expression, and analyzed for the effect on their respective hydrolysis products. The BoESPs altered the hydrolysis of allyl glucosinolate in the A. thaliana transformants to release 1-cyano-2,3-epithiopropane and reduced formation of the corresponding 3-butenenitrile and allyl isothiocyanate. Plants expressing BoESP2 showed the highest percentage of released epithionitriles. Given these results, we propose a model for isoform-specific roles of B. oleracea ESPs in glucosinolate breakdown.
KW  - epithionitrile
KW  - expression profile
KW  - functional complementation
KW  - glucosinolate hydrolysis
KW  - nitrile
KW  - specifier proteins
KW  - tissue specificity
Y1  - 2019
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2019.01552
SN  - 1664-462X
VL  - 10
PB  - Frontiers Research Foundation
CY  - Lausanne
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Licht, Alexis
A1  - Kelson, Julia
A1  - Bergel, Shelly J.
A1  - Schauer, Andrew J.
A1  - Petersen, Sierra Victoria
A1  - Capirala, Ashika
A1  - Huntington, Katharine W.
A1  - Dupont-Nivet, Guillaume
A1  - Win, Zaw
A1  - Aung, Day Wa
T1  - Dynamics of pedogenic carbonate growth in the tropical domain of Myanmar
JF  - Geochemistry, geophysics, geosystems
N2  - Pedogenic carbonate is widespread at mid latitudes where warm and dry conditions favor soil carbonate growth from spring to fall. The mechanisms and timing of pedogenic carbonate formation are more ambiguous in the tropical domain, where long periods of soil water saturation and high soil respiration enhance calcite dissolution. This paper provides stable carbon, oxygen and clumped isotope values from Quaternary and Miocene pedogenic carbonates in the tropical domain of Myanmar, in areas characterized by warm (>18°C) winters and annual rainfall up to 1,700 mm. We show that carbonate growth in Myanmar is delayed to the driest and coldest months of the year by sustained monsoonal rainfall from mid spring to late fall. The range of isotopic variability in Quaternary pedogenic carbonates can be solely explained by temporal changes of carbonate growth within the dry season, from winter to early spring. We propose that high soil moisture year-round in the tropical domain narrows carbonate growth to the driest months and makes it particularly sensitive to the seasonal distribution of rainfall. This sensitivity is also enabled by high winter temperatures, allowing carbonate growth to occur outside the warmest months of the year. This high sensitivity is expected to be more prominent in the geological record during times with higher temperatures and greater expansion of the tropical realm. Clumped isotope temperatures, δ13C and δ18O values of tropical pedogenic carbonates are impacted by changes of both rainfall seasonality and surface temperatures; this sensitivity can potentially be used to track past tropical rainfall distribution.
KW  - clumped isotopes
KW  - pedogenic carbonate
KW  - monsoon
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1029/2021GC009929
SN  - 1525-2027
VL  - 23
IS  - 7
PB  - American Geophysical Union
CY  - Washington
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Wilhelmi, Ilka
A1  - Neumann, Alexander
A1  - Jähnert, Markus
A1  - Ouni, Meriem
A1  - Schürmann, Annette
T1  - Enriched alternative splicing in islets of diabetes-susceptible mice
JF  - International journal of molecular sciences
N2  - Dysfunctional islets of Langerhans are a hallmark of type 2 diabetes (T2D). We hypothesize that differences in islet gene expression alternative splicing which can contribute to altered protein function also participate in islet dysfunction. RNA sequencing (RNAseq) data from islets of obese diabetes-resistant and diabetes-susceptible mice were analyzed for alternative splicing and its putative genetic and epigenetic modulators. We focused on the expression levels of chromatin modifiers and SNPs in regulatory sequences. We identified alternative splicing events in islets of diabetes-susceptible mice amongst others in genes linked to insulin secretion, endocytosis or ubiquitin-mediated proteolysis pathways. The expression pattern of 54 histones and chromatin modifiers, which may modulate splicing, were markedly downregulated in islets of diabetic animals. Furthermore, diabetes-susceptible mice carry SNPs in RNA-binding protein motifs and in splice sites potentially responsible for alternative splicing events. They also exhibit a larger exon skipping rate, e.g., in the diabetes gene Abcc8, which might affect protein function. Expression of the neuronal splicing factor Srrm4 which mediates inclusion of microexons in mRNA transcripts was markedly lower in islets of diabetes-prone compared to diabetes-resistant mice, correlating with a preferential skipping of SRRM4 target exons. The repression of Srrm4 expression is presumably mediated via a higher expression of miR-326-3p and miR-3547-3p in islets of diabetic mice. Thus, our study suggests that an altered splicing pattern in islets of diabetes-susceptible mice may contribute to an elevated T2D risk.
KW  - alternative splicing
KW  - epigenetic
KW  - MicroRNA
KW  - RNAseq
KW  - diabetes
KW  - beta-cell
KW  - failure
Y1  - 2021
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms22168597
SN  - 1422-0067
VL  - 22
IS  - 16
PB  - Molecular Diversity Preservation International
CY  - Basel
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Gorin, Vladislav A.
A1  - Scherz, Mark D.
A1  - Korost, Dmitry V.
A1  - Poyarkov, Nikolay A.
T1  - Consequences of parallel miniaturisation in Microhylinae (Anura, Microhylidae), with the description of a new genus of diminutive South East Asian frogs
JF  - Zoosystematics and evolution : Mitteilungen aus dem Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin
N2  - The genus Microhyla Tschudi, 1838 includes 52 species and is one of the most diverse genera of the family Microhylidae, being the most species-rich taxon of the Asian subfamily Microhylinae. The recent, rapid description of numerous new species of Microhyla with complex phylogenetic relationships has made the taxonomy of the group especially challenging. Several recent phylogenetic studies suggested paraphyly of Microhyla with respect to Glyphoglossus Gunther, 1869, and revealed three major phylogenetic lineages of mid-Eocene origin within this assemblage. However, comprehensive works assessing morphological variation among and within these lineages are absent. In the present study we investigate the generic taxonomy of Microhyla-Glyphoglossus assemblage based on a new phylogeny including 57 species, comparative morphological analysis of skeletons from cleared-and-stained specimens for 23 species, and detailed descriptions of generalized osteology based on volume-rendered micro-CT scans for five speciesal-together representing all major lineages within the group. The results confirm three highly divergent and well-supported clades that correspond with external and osteological morphological characteristics, as well as respective geographic distribution. Accordingly, acknowledging ancient divergence between these lineages and their significant morphological differentiation, we propose to consider these three lineages as distinct genera: Microhyla sensu stricto, Glyphoglossus, and a newly described genus, Nanohyla gen. nov.
KW  - Amphibians
KW  - integrative taxonomy
KW  - narrow-mouthed frogs
KW  - micro-computed tomography
KW  - Nanohyla gen. nov
KW  - osteology
KW  - sexual dimorphism
KW  - taxonomic revision
Y1  - 2021
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3897/zse.97.57968
SN  - 1860-0743
SN  - 1435-1935
VL  - 97
IS  - 1
SP  - 21
EP  - 54
PB  - Pensoft Publishers
CY  - Sofia
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Arntz, Fabian
A1  - Mkaouer, Bessem
A1  - Markov, Adrian
A1  - Schoenfeld, Brad
A1  - Moran, Jason
A1  - Ramirez-Campillo, Rodrigo
A1  - Behrens, Martin
A1  - Baumert, Philipp
A1  - Erskine, Robert M.
A1  - Hauser, Lukas
A1  - Chaabene, Helmi
T1  - Effect of plyometric jump training on skeletal muscle hypertrophy in healthy individuals
BT  - a systematic review with multilevel meta-analysis
JF  - Frontiers in Physiology
N2  - Objective: To examine the effect of plyometric jump training on skeletal muscle hypertrophy in healthy individuals.

Methods: A systematic literature search was conducted in the databases PubMed, SPORTDiscus, Web of Science, and Cochrane Library up to September 2021.

Results: Fifteen studies met the inclusion criteria. The main overall finding (44 effect sizes across 15 clusters median = 2, range = 1–15 effects per cluster) indicated that plyometric jump training had small to moderate effects [standardised mean difference (SMD) = 0.47 (95% CIs = 0.23–0.71); p < 0.001] on skeletal muscle hypertrophy. Subgroup analyses for training experience revealed trivial to large effects in non-athletes [SMD = 0.55 (95% CIs = 0.18–0.93); p = 0.007] and trivial to moderate effects in athletes [SMD = 0.33 (95% CIs = 0.16–0.51); p = 0.001]. Regarding muscle groups, results showed moderate effects for the knee extensors [SMD = 0.72 (95% CIs = 0.66–0.78), p < 0.001] and equivocal effects for the plantar flexors [SMD = 0.65 (95% CIs = −0.25–1.55); p = 0.143]. As to the assessment methods of skeletal muscle hypertrophy, findings indicated trivial to small effects for prediction equations [SMD = 0.29 (95% CIs = 0.16–0.42); p < 0.001] and moderate-to-large effects for ultrasound imaging [SMD = 0.74 (95% CIs = 0.59–0.89); p < 0.001]. Meta-regression analysis indicated that the weekly session frequency moderates the effect of plyometric jump training on skeletal muscle hypertrophy, with a higher weekly session frequency inducing larger hypertrophic gains [β = 0.3233 (95% CIs = 0.2041–0.4425); p < 0.001]. We found no clear evidence that age, sex, total training period, single session duration, or the number of jumps per week moderate the effect of plyometric jump training on skeletal muscle hypertrophy [β = −0.0133 to 0.0433 (95% CIs = −0.0387 to 0.1215); p = 0.101–0.751].

Conclusion: Plyometric jump training can induce skeletal muscle hypertrophy, regardless of age and sex. There is evidence for relatively larger effects in non-athletes compared with athletes. Further, the weekly session frequency seems to moderate the effect of plyometric jump training on skeletal muscle hypertrophy, whereby more frequent weekly plyometric jump training sessions elicit larger hypertrophic adaptations.
KW  - muscle tissue
KW  - muscle strength
KW  - stretch shortening cycle exercise
KW  - muscle growth
KW  - human physical conditioning
KW  - youth sports
KW  - aged
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2022.888464
SN  - 1664-042X
VL  - 13
SP  - 1
EP  - 17
PB  - Frontiers
CY  - Lausanne, Schweiz
ET  - 888464
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Agarwal, Saloni
A1  - Hamidizadeh, Mojdeh
A1  - Bier, Frank Fabian
T1  - Detection of reverse transcriptase LAMP-amplified nucleic acid from oropharyngeal viral swab samples using biotinylated DNA probes through a lateral flow assay
JF  - Biosensors : open access journal
N2  - This study focuses on three key aspects: (a) crude throat swab samples in a viral transport medium (VTM) as templates for RT-LAMP reactions; (b) a biotinylated DNA probe with enhanced specificity for LFA readouts; and (c) a digital semi-quantification of LFA readouts. Throat swab samples from SARS-CoV-2 positive and negative patients were used in their crude (no cleaning or pre-treatment) forms for the RT-LAMP reaction. The samples were heat-inactivated but not treated for any kind of nucleic acid extraction or purification. The RT-LAMP (20 min processing time) product was read out by an LFA approach using two labels: FITC and biotin. FITC was enzymatically incorporated into the RT-LAMP amplicon with the LF-LAMP primer, and biotin was introduced using biotinylated DNA probes, specifically for the amplicon region after RT-LAMP amplification. This assay setup with biotinylated DNA probe-based LFA readouts of the RT-LAMP amplicon was 98.11% sensitive and 96.15% specific. The LFA result was further analysed by a smartphone-based IVD device, wherein the T-line intensity was recorded. The LFA T-line intensity was then correlated with the qRT-PCR Ct value of the positive swab samples. A digital semi-quantification of RT-LAMP-LFA was reported with a correlation coefficient of R2 = 0.702. The overall RT-LAMP-LFA assay time was recorded to be 35 min with a LoD of three RNA copies/µL (Ct-33). With these three advancements, the nucleic acid testing-point of care technique (NAT-POCT) is exemplified as a versatile biosensor platform with great potential and applicability for the detection of pathogens without the need for sample storage, transportation, or pre-processing.
KW  - RT-LAMP
KW  - LFA
KW  - NAAT-LFA
KW  - semi-quantitative
KW  - surveillance-based diagnostics
Y1  - 2023
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3390/bios13110988
SN  - 2079-6374
VL  - 13
IS  - 11
PB  - MDPI
CY  - Basel
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Wittenbecher, Clemens
A1  - Cuadrat, Rafael
A1  - Johnston, Luke
A1  - Eichelmann, Fabian
A1  - Jäger, Susanne
A1  - Kuxhaus, Olga
A1  - Prada, Marcela
A1  - Del Greco, Fabiola M.
A1  - Hicks, Andrew A.
A1  - Hoffman, Per
A1  - Krumsiek, Jan
A1  - Hu, Frank B.
A1  - Schulze, Matthias B.
T1  - Dihydroceramide- and ceramide-profiling provides insights into human cardiometabolic disease etiology
JF  - Nature communications
N2  - Metabolic alterations precede cardiometabolic disease onset. Here we present ceramide- and dihydroceramide-profiling data from a nested case-cohort (type 2 diabetes [T2D, n = 775]; cardiovascular disease [CVD, n = 551]; random subcohort [n = 1137]) in the prospective EPIC-Potsdam study. We apply the novel NetCoupler-algorithm to link a data-driven (dihydro)ceramide network to T2D and CVD risk. Controlling for confounding by other (dihydro)ceramides, ceramides C18:0 and C22:0 and dihydroceramides C20:0 and C22:2 are associated with higher and ceramide C20:0 and dihydroceramide C26:1 with lower T2D risk. Ceramide C16:0 and dihydroceramide C22:2 are associated with higher CVD risk. Genome-wide association studies and Mendelian randomization analyses support a role of ceramide C22:0 in T2D etiology. Our results also suggest that (dh)ceramides partly mediate the putative adverse effect of high red meat consumption and benefits of coffee consumption on T2D risk. Thus, (dihydro)ceramides may play a critical role in linking genetic predisposition and dietary habits to cardiometabolic disease risk.
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-28496-1
SN  - 2041-1723
VL  - 13
PB  - Nature Research
CY  - Berlin
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - DeFelipe, Irene
A1  - Alcalde, Juan
A1  - Baykiev, Eldar
A1  - Bernal, Isabel
A1  - Boonma, Kittiphon
A1  - Carbonell, Ramon
A1  - Flude, Stephanie
A1  - Folch, Arnau
A1  - Fullea, Javier
A1  - García-Castellanos, Daniel
A1  - Geyer, Adelina
A1  - Giralt, Santiago
A1  - Hernández, Armand
A1  - Jiménez-Munt, Ivone
A1  - Kumar, Ajay
A1  - Llorens, Maria-Gema
A1  - Martí, Joan
A1  - Molina, Cecilia
A1  - Olivar-Castaño, Andrés
A1  - Parnell, Andrew
A1  - Schimmel, Martin
A1  - Torné, Montserrat
A1  - Ventosa, Sergi
T1  - Towards a digital twin of the Earth system: Geo-Soft-CoRe, a geoscientific software & code repository
JF  - Frontiers in earth science
N2  - The immense advances in computer power achieved in the last decades have had a significant impact in Earth science, providing valuable research outputs that allow the simulation of complex natural processes and systems, and generating improved forecasts. The development and implementation of innovative geoscientific software is currently evolving towards a sustainable and efficient development by integrating models of different aspects of the Earth system. This will set the foundation for a future digital twin of the Earth. The codification and update of this software require great effort from research groups and therefore, it needs to be preserved for its reuse by future generations of geoscientists. Here, we report on Geo-Soft-CoRe, a Geoscientific Software & Code Repository, hosted at the archive DIGITAL.CSIC. This is an open source, multidisciplinary and multiscale collection of software and code developed to analyze different aspects of the Earth system, encompassing tools to: 1) analyze climate variability; 2) assess hazards, and 3) characterize the structure and dynamics of the solid Earth. Due to the broad range of applications of these software packages, this collection is useful not only for basic research in Earth science, but also for applied research and educational purposes, reducing the gap between the geosciences and the society. By providing each software and code with a permanent identifier (DOI), we ensure its self-sustainability and accomplish the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable) principles. Therefore, we aim for a more transparent science, transferring knowledge in an easier way to the geoscience community, and encouraging an integrated use of computational infrastructure.
KW  - digital twin
KW  - software
KW  - code
KW  - global change
KW  - hazards
KW  - solid earth
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3389/feart.2022.828005
SN  - 2296-6463
VL  - 10
PB  - Frontiers Media
CY  - Lausanne
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Groh, Jannis
A1  - Diamantopoulos, Efstathios
A1  - Duan, Xiaohong
A1  - Ewert, Frank
A1  - Heinlein, Florian
A1  - Herbst, Michael
A1  - Holbak, Maja
A1  - Kamali, Bahareh
A1  - Kersebaum, Kurt-Christian
A1  - Kuhnert, Matthias
A1  - Nendel, Claas
A1  - Priesack, Eckart
A1  - Steidl, Jörg
A1  - Sommer, Michael
A1  - Pütz, Thomas
A1  - Vanderborght, Jan
A1  - Vereecken, Harry
A1  - Wallor, Evelyn
A1  - Weber, Tobias K. D.
A1  - Wegehenkel, Martin
A1  - Weihermüller, Lutz
A1  - Gerke, Horst H.
T1  - Same soil, different climate: Crop model intercomparison on translocated lysimeters
JF  - Vadose zone journal
N2  - Crop model intercomparison studies have mostly focused on the assessment of predictive capabilities for crop development using weather and basic soil data from the same location. Still challenging is the model performance when considering complex interrelations between soil and crop dynamics under a changing climate. The objective of this study was to test the agronomic crop and environmental flux-related performance of a set of crop models. The aim was to predict weighing lysimeter-based crop (i.e., agronomic) and water-related flux or state data (i.e., environmental) obtained for the same soil monoliths that were taken from their original environment and translocated to regions with different climatic conditions, after model calibration at the original site. Eleven models were deployed in the study. The lysimeter data (2014-2018) were from the Dedelow (Dd), Bad Lauchstadt (BL), and Selhausen (Se) sites of the TERENO (TERrestrial ENvironmental Observatories) SOILCan network. Soil monoliths from Dd were transferred to the drier and warmer BL site and the wetter and warmer Se site, which allowed a comparison of similar soil and crop under varying climatic conditions. The model parameters were calibrated using an identical set of crop- and soil-related data from Dd. Environmental fluxes and crop growth of Dd soil were predicted for conditions at BL and Se sites using the calibrated models. The comparison of predicted and measured data of Dd lysimeters at BL and Se revealed differences among models. At site BL, the crop models predicted agronomic and environmental components similarly well. Model performance values indicate that the environmental components at site Se were better predicted than agronomic ones. The multi-model mean was for most observations the better predictor compared with those of individual models. For Se site conditions, crop models failed to predict site-specific crop development indicating that climatic conditions (i.e., heat stress) were outside the range of variation in the data sets considered for model calibration. For improving predictive ability of crop models (i.e., productivity and fluxes), more attention should be paid to soil-related data (i.e., water fluxes and system states) when simulating soil-crop-climate interrelations in changing climatic conditions.
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1002/vzj2.20202
SN  - 1539-1663
VL  - 21
IS  - 4
PB  - Wiley
CY  - Hoboken
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Kühne, Katharina
A1  - Herbold, Erika
A1  - Bendel, Oliver
A1  - Zhou, Yuefang
A1  - Fischer, Martin H.
T1  - “Ick bin een Berlina”
BT  - dialect proficiency impacts a robot’s trustworthiness and competence evaluation
JF  - Frontiers in robotics and AI
N2  - Background:   Robots are increasingly used as interaction partners with humans. Social robots are designed to follow expected behavioral norms when engaging with humans and are available with different voices and even accents. Some studies suggest that people prefer robots to speak in the user’s dialect, while others indicate a preference for different dialects.

Methods:   Our study examined the impact of the Berlin dialect on perceived trustworthiness and competence of a robot. One hundred and twenty German native speakers (Mage = 32 years, SD = 12 years) watched an online video featuring a NAO robot speaking either in the Berlin dialect or standard German and assessed its trustworthiness and competence.

Results:   We found a positive relationship between participants’ self-reported Berlin dialect proficiency and trustworthiness in the dialect-speaking robot. Only when controlled for demographic factors, there was a positive association between participants’ dialect proficiency, dialect performance and their assessment of robot’s competence for the standard German-speaking robot. Participants’ age, gender, length of residency in Berlin, and device used to respond also influenced assessments. Finally, the robot’s competence positively predicted its trustworthiness.

Discussion:   Our results inform the design of social robots and emphasize the importance of device control in online experiments.
KW  - competence
KW  - dialect
KW  - human-robot interaction
KW  - robot voice
KW  - social robot
KW  - trust
Y1  - 2024
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3389/frobt.2023.1241519
SN  - 2296-9144
VL  - 10
PB  - Frontiers Media S.A.
CY  - Lausanne
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Petrov, Polina
A1  - Singer, Leo P.
A1  - Coughlin, Michael W.
A1  - Kumar, Vishwesh
A1  - Almualla, Mouza
A1  - Anand, Shreya
A1  - Bulla, Mattia
A1  - Dietrich, Tim
A1  - Foucart, Francois
A1  - Guessoum, Nidhal
T1  - Data-driven expectations for electromagnetic counterpart searches based on LIGO/Virgo public alerts
JF  - The astrophysical journal : an international review of spectroscopy and astronomical physics; part 1
N2  - Searches for electromagnetic counterparts of gravitational-wave signals have redoubled since the first detection in 2017 of a binary neutron star merger with a gamma-ray burst, optical/infrared kilonova, and panchromatic afterglow. Yet, one LIGO/Virgo observing run later, there has not yet been a second, secure identification of an electromagnetic counterpart. This is not surprising given that the localization uncertainties of events in LIGO and Virgo's third observing run, O3, were much larger than predicted. 
We explain this by showing that improvements in data analysis that now allow LIGO/Virgo to detect weaker and hence more poorly localized events have increased the overall number of detections, of which well-localized, gold-plated events make up a smaller proportion overall. 
We present simulations of the next two LIGO/Virgo/KAGRA observing runs, O4 and O5, that are grounded in the statistics of O3 public alerts. To illustrate the significant impact that the updated predictions can have, we study the follow-up strategy for the Zwicky Transient Facility. Realistic and timely forecasting of gravitational-wave localization accuracy is paramount given the large commitments of telescope time and the need to prioritize which events are followed up. 
We include a data release of our simulated localizations as a public proposal planning resource for astronomers.
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ac366d
SN  - 1538-4357
VL  - 924
IS  - 2
PB  - Institute of Physics Publ.
CY  - London
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Döbbeling-Hildebrandt, Niklas
A1  - Miersch, Klaas
A1  - Khanna, Tarun M.
A1  - Bachelet, Marion
A1  - Bruns, Stephan B.
A1  - Callaghan, Max
A1  - Edenhofer, Ottmar
A1  - Flachsland, Christian
A1  - Forster, Piers M.
A1  - Kalkuhl, Matthias
A1  - Koch, Nicolas
A1  - Lamb, William F.
A1  - Ohlendorf, Nils
A1  - Steckel, Jan Christoph
A1  - Minx, Jan C.
T1  - Systematic review and meta-analysis of ex-post evaluations on the effectiveness of carbon pricing
JF  - Nature communications
N2  - Today, more than 70 carbon pricing schemes have been implemented around the globe, but their contributions to emissions reductions remains a subject of heated debate in science and policy. Here we assess the effectiveness of carbon pricing in reducing emissions using a rigorous, machine-learning assisted systematic review and meta-analysis. Based on 483 effect sizes extracted from 80 causal ex-post evaluations across 21 carbon pricing schemes, we find that introducing a carbon price has yielded immediate and substantial emission reductions for at least 17 of these policies, despite the low level of prices in most instances. Statistically significant emissions reductions range between –5% to –21% across the schemes (–4% to –15% after correcting for publication bias). Our study highlights critical evidence gaps with regard to dozens of unevaluated carbon pricing schemes and the price elasticity of emissions reductions. More rigorous synthesis of carbon pricing and other climate policies is required across a range of outcomes to advance our understanding of “what works” and accelerate learning on climate solutions in science and policy.
KW  - carbon and energy
KW  - climate-change mitigation
KW  - climate-change policy
KW  - economics
Y1  - 2024
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-48512-w
SN  - 2041-1723
VL  - 15
IS  - 1
PB  - Springer Nature
CY  - London
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Tchewonpi Sagu, Sorel
A1  - Landgräber, Eva
A1  - Henkel, Ina M.
A1  - Huschek, Gerd
A1  - Homann, Thomas
A1  - Bußler, Sara
A1  - Schlüter, Oliver
A1  - Rawel, Harshadrai Manilal
T1  - Effect of cereal α-amylase/trypsin inhibitors on developmental characteristics and abundance of digestive enzymes of mealworm larvae (Tenebrio molitor L.)
JF  - Insects : open access journal
N2  - The objective of this work was to investigate the potential effect of cereal α-amylase/trypsin inhibitors (ATIs) on growth parameters and selective digestive enzymes of Tenebrio molitor L. larvae. The approach consisted of feeding the larvae with wheat, sorghum and rice meals containing different levels and composition of α-amylase/trypsin inhibitors. The developmental and biochemical characteristics of the larvae were assessed over feeding periods of 5 h, 5 days and 10 days, and the relative abundance of α-amylase and selected proteases in larvae were determined using liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry. Overall, weight gains ranged from 21% to 42% after five days of feeding. The larval death rate significantly increased in all groups after 10 days of feeding (p < 0.05), whereas the pupation rate was about 25% among larvae fed with rice (Oryza sativa L.) and Siyazan/Esperya wheat meals, and only 8% and 14% among those fed with Damougari and S35 sorghum meals. As determined using the Lowry method, the protein contents of the sodium phosphate extracts ranged from 7.80 ± 0.09 to 9.42 ± 0.19 mg/mL and those of the ammonium bicarbonate/urea reached 19.78 ± 0.16 to 37.47 ± 1.38 mg/mL. The total protein contents of the larvae according to the Kjeldahl method ranged from 44.0 and 49.9 g/100 g. The relative abundance of α-amylase, CLIP domain-containing serine protease, modular serine protease zymogen and C1 family cathepsin significantly decreased in the larvae, whereas dipeptidylpeptidase I and chymotrypsin increased within the first hours after feeding (p < 0.05). Trypsin content was found to be constant independently of time or feed material. Finally, based on the results we obtained, it was difficult to substantively draw conclusions on the likely effects of meal ATI composition on larval developmental characteristics, but their effects on the digestive enzyme expression remain relevant.
KW  - growth behavior
KW  - Tenebrio molitor larvae
KW  - feeding
KW  - cereal meals
KW  - α-amylase
KW  - digestive enzymes quantification
KW  - LC-MS/MS
KW  - trypsin inhibitors
Y1  - 2021
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3390/insects12050454
SN  - 2075-4450
VL  - 12
IS  - 5
PB  - MDPI
CY  - Basel
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Schulte, Luise
A1  - Meucci, Stefano
A1  - Stoof-Leichsenring, Kathleen R.
A1  - Heitkam, Tony
A1  - Schmidt, Nicola
A1  - von Hippel, Barbara
A1  - Andreev, Andrei A.
A1  - Diekmann, Bernhard
A1  - Biskaborn, Boris
A1  - Wagner, Bernd
A1  - Melles, Martin
A1  - Pestryakova, Lyudmila A.
A1  - Alsos, Inger G.
A1  - Clarke, Charlotte
A1  - Krutovsky, Konstantin
A1  - Herzschuh, Ulrike
T1  - Larix species range dynamics in Siberia since the Last Glacial captured from sedimentary ancient DNA
JF  - Communications biology
N2  - Climate change is expected to cause major shifts in boreal forests which are in vast areas of Siberia dominated by two species of the deciduous needle tree larch (Larix). The species differ markedly in their ecosystem functions, thus shifts in their respective ranges are of global relevance. 
However, drivers of species distribution are not well understood, in part because paleoecological data at species level are lacking. This study tracks Larix species distribution in time and space using target enrichment on sedimentary ancient DNA extracts from eight lakes across Siberia. We discovered that Larix sibirica, presently dominating in western Siberia, likely migrated to its northern distribution area only in the Holocene at around 10,000 years before present (ka BP), and had a much wider eastern distribution around 33 ka BP. Samples dated to the Last Glacial Maximum (around 21 ka BP), consistently show genotypes of L. gmelinii. 
Our results suggest climate as a strong determinant of species distribution in Larix and provide temporal and spatial data for species projection in a changing climate. 
Using ancient sedimentary DNA from up to 50 kya, dramatic distributional shifts are documented in two dominant boreal larch species, likely guided by environmental changes suggesting climate as a strong determinant of species distribution.
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-022-03455-0
SN  - 2399-3642
VL  - 5
IS  - 1
PB  - Springer Nature
CY  - London
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Jozi Najafabadi, Azam
A1  - Haberland, Christian
A1  - Ryberg, Trond
A1  - Verwater, Vincent F.
A1  - Breton, Eline le
A1  - Handy, Mark R.
A1  - Weber, Michael
T1  - Relocation of earthquakes in the southern and eastern Alps (Austria, Italy) recorded by the dense, temporary SWATH-D network using a Markov chain Monte Carlo inversion
JF  - Solid earth : SE ; an interaktive open access journal of the European Geosciences Union
N2  - In this study, we analyzed a large seismological dataset from temporary and permanent networks in the southern and eastern Alps to establish high-precision hypocenters and 1-D V-P and V-P/V-S models. The waveform data of a subset of local earthquakes with magnitudes in the range of 1-4.2 M-L were recorded by the dense, temporary SWATH-D network and selected stations of the AlpArray network between September 2017 and the end of 2018. The first arrival times of P and S waves of earthquakes are determined by a semi-automatic procedure. We applied a Markov chain Monte Carlo inversion method to simultaneously calculate robust hypocenters, a 1-D velocity model, and station corrections without prior assumptions, such as initial velocity models or earthquake locations. A further advantage of this method is the derivation of the model parameter uncertainties and noise levels of the data. The precision estimates of the localization procedure is checked by inverting a synthetic travel time dataset from a complex 3-D velocity model and by using the real stations and earthquakes geometry. The location accuracy is further investigated by a quarry blast test. The average uncertainties of the locations of the earthquakes are below 500m in their epicenter and similar to 1.7 km in depth. The earthquake distribution reveals seismicity in the upper crust (0-20 km), which is characterized by pronounced clusters along the Alpine frontal thrust, e.g., the Friuli-Venetia (FV) region, the Giudicarie-Lessini (GL) and Schio-Vicenza domains, the Austroalpine nappes, and the Inntal area. Some seismicity also occurs along the Periadriatic Fault. The general pattern of seismicity reflects head-on convergence of the Adriatic indenter with the Alpine orogenic crust. The seismicity in the FV and GL regions is deeper than the modeled frontal thrusts, which we interpret as indication for southward propagation of the southern Alpine deformation front (blind thrusts).
Y1  - 2021
U6  - https://doi.org/10.5194/se-12-1087-2021
SN  - 1869-9529
SN  - 1869-9510
VL  - 12
IS  - 5
SP  - 1087
EP  - 1109
PB  - Copernicus
CY  - Göttingen
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Menze, Inga
A1  - Müller, Notger Germar
A1  - Zähle, Tino
A1  - Schmicker, Marlen
T1  - Individual response to transcranial direct current stimulation as a function of working memory capacity and electrode montage
JF  - Frontiers in human neuroscience
N2  - Introduction
Attempts to improve cognitive abilities via transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) have led to ambiguous results, likely due to the method's susceptibility to methodological and inter-individual factors. Conventional tDCS, i.e., using an active electrode over brain areas associated with the targeted cognitive function and a supposedly passive reference, neglects stimulation effects on entire neural networks. 

Methods
We investigated the advantage of frontoparietal network stimulation (right prefrontal anode, left posterior parietal cathode) against conventional and sham tDCS in modulating working memory (WM) capacity dependent transfer effects of a single-session distractor inhibition (DIIN) training. Since previous results did not clarify whether electrode montage drives this individual transfer, we here compared conventional to frontoparietal and sham tDCS and reanalyzed data of 124 young, healthy participants in a more robust way using linear mixed effect modeling. 

Results
The interaction of electrode montage and WM capacity resulted in systematic differences in transfer effects. While higher performance gains were observed with increasing WM capacity in the frontoparietal stimulation group, low WM capacity individuals benefited more in the sham condition. The conventional stimulation group showed subtle performance gains independent of WM capacity. 

Discussion
Our results confirm our previous findings of WM capacity dependent transfer effects on WM by a single-session DIIN training combined with tDCS and additionally highlight the pivotal role of the specific electrode montage. WM capacity dependent differences in frontoparietal network recruitment, especially regarding the parietal involvement, are assumed to underlie this observation.
KW  - tDCS
KW  - electrode montage
KW  - individual differences
KW  - working memory
KW  - capacity
KW  - distractor inhibition
KW  - frontoparietal network
Y1  - 2023
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2023.1134632
SN  - 1662-5161
VL  - 17
PB  - Frontiers Media
CY  - Lausanne
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Menze, Inga
A1  - Müller, Patrick
A1  - Müller, Notger Germar
A1  - Schmicker, Marlen
T1  - Age-related cognitive effects of the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions and associated mental health changes in Germans
JF  - Scientific reports
N2  - Restrictive means to reduce the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic have not only imposed broad challenges on mental health but might also affect cognitive health. Here we asked how restriction-related changes influence cognitive performance and how age, perceived loneliness, depressiveness and affectedness by restrictions contribute to these effects. 51 Germans completed three assessments of an online based study during the first lockdown in Germany (April 2020), a month later, and during the beginning of the second lockdown (November 2020). Participants completed nine online cognitive tasks of the MyBrainTraining and online questionnaires about their perceived strain and impact on lifestyle factors by the situation (affectedness), perceived loneliness, depressiveness as well as subjective cognitive performance. The results suggested a possible negative impact of depressiveness and affectedness on objective cognitive performance within the course of the lockdown. The younger the participants, the more pronounced these effects were. Loneliness and depressiveness moreover contributed to a worse evaluation of subjective cognition. In addition, especially younger individuals reported increased distress. As important educational and social input has partly been scarce during this pandemic and mental health problems have increased, future research should also assess cognitive long-term consequences.
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-11283-9
SN  - 2045-2322
VL  - 12
IS  - 1
PB  - Nature portfolio
CY  - Berlin
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Zielhofer, Christoph
A1  - Schmidt, Johannes
A1  - Reiche, Niklas
A1  - Tautenhahn, Marie
A1  - Ballasus, Helen
A1  - Burkart, Michael
A1  - Linstädter, Anja
A1  - Dietze, Elisabeth
A1  - Kaiser, Knut
A1  - Mehler, Natascha
T1  - The lower Havel River Region (Brandenburg, Germany)
BT  - a 230-Year-Long historical map record indicates a decrease in surface water areas and groundwater levels
JF  - Water
N2  - Instrumental data show that the groundwater and lake levels in Northeast Germany have decreased over the past decades, and this process has accelerated over the past few years. In addition to global warming, the direct influence of humans on the local water balance is suspected to be the cause. Since the instrumental data usually go back only a few decades, little is known about the multidecadal to centennial-scale trend, which also takes long-term climate variation and the long-term influence by humans on the water balance into account. This study aims to quantitatively reconstruct the surface water areas in the Lower Havel Inner Delta and of adjacent Lake Gulpe in Brandenburg. The analysis includes the calculation of surface water areas from historical and modern maps from 1797 to 2020. The major finding is that surface water areas have decreased by approximately 30% since the pre-industrial period, with the decline being continuous. Our data show that the comprehensive measures in Lower Havel hydro-engineering correspond with groundwater lowering that started before recent global warming. Further, large-scale melioration measures with increasing water demands in the upstream wetlands beginning from the 1960s to the 1980s may have amplified the decline in downstream surface water areas.
KW  - long-term hydrological changes
KW  - historical maps
KW  - review of written
KW  - sources
KW  - preindustrial to industrial period
KW  - hydro-engineering history;
KW  - effects of global warming
KW  - drying trend
KW  - wetlands
KW  - drainage works to
KW  - create cropland
KW  - Lower Havel River Region
KW  - Brandenburg
KW  - Germany
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3390/w14030480
SN  - 2073-4441
VL  - 14
IS  - 3
PB  - MDPI
CY  - Basel
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Ring, Raphaela M.
A1  - Eisenmann, Clemens
A1  - Kandil, Farid
A1  - Steckhan, Nico
A1  - Demmrich, Sarah
A1  - Klatte, Caroline
A1  - Kessler, Christian S.
A1  - Jeitler, Michael
A1  - Boschmann, Michael
A1  - Michalsen, Andreas
A1  - Blakeslee, Sarah B.
A1  - Stöckigt, Barbara
A1  - Stritter, Wiebke
A1  - Koppold-Liebscher, Daniela A.
T1  - Mental and behavioural responses to Bahá’í fasting: Looking behind the scenes of a religiously motivated intermittent fast using a mixed methods approach
JF  - Nutrients
N2  - Background/Objective: Historically, fasting has been practiced not only for medical but also for religious reasons. Baha'is follow an annual religious intermittent dry fast of 19 days. We inquired into motivation behind and subjective health impacts of Baha'i fasting. Methods: A convergent parallel mixed methods design was embedded in a clinical single arm observational study. Semi-structured individual interviews were conducted before (n = 7), during (n = 8), and after fasting (n = 8). Three months after the fasting period, two focus group interviews were conducted (n = 5/n = 3). A total of 146 Baha'i volunteers answered an online survey at five time points before, during, and after fasting. Results: Fasting was found to play a central role for the religiosity of interviewees, implying changes in daily structures, spending time alone, engaging in religious practices, and experiencing social belonging. Results show an increase in mindfulness and well-being, which were accompanied by behavioural changes and experiences of self-efficacy and inner freedom. Survey scores point to an increase in mindfulness and well-being during fasting, while stress, anxiety, and fatigue decreased. Mindfulness remained elevated even three months after the fast. Conclusion: Baha'i fasting seems to enhance participants' mindfulness and well-being, lowering stress levels and reducing fatigue. Some of these effects lasted more than three months after fasting.
KW  - intermittent food restriction
KW  - mindfulness
KW  - self-efficacy
KW  - well-being
KW  - mixed methods
KW  - health behaviour
KW  - coping ability
KW  - religiously motivated
KW  - dry fasting
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3390/nu14051038
SN  - 2072-6643
VL  - 14
IS  - 5
PB  - MDPI
CY  - Basel
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Mkaouer, Bessem
A1  - Amara, Samiha
A1  - Bouguezzi, Raja
A1  - Ben Abderrahmen, Abderraouf
A1  - Chaabene, Helmi
T1  - Validity of a new sport-specific endurance test in artistic gymnastics
JF  - Frontiers in sports and active living
N2  - Introduction   General and particularly sport-specific testing is an integral aspect of performance optimization in artistic gymnastics. In artistic gymnastics, however, only non-specific field tests have been used to assess endurance performance (e.g., Multistage Shuttle Run Test; Cooper's Test).
Methods   This study aimed to examine the validity of a new sport-specific endurance test in artistic gymnastics. Fourteen elite-level gymnasts (i.e., eight males and six females) participated in this study. The newly developed artistic gymnastics-specific endurance test (AGSET) was conducted on two different occasions seven days apart to determine its reliability. To assess the concurrent validity of AGSET, participants performed the multistage shuttle run test (MSRT). Maximum oxygen uptake (VO2max) and respiratory exchange ratio (RER) were directly assessed using a portable gas analyzer system during both protocols. Additionally, the total time maintained (TTM) during the AGSET, maximum heart rate (HRmax), maximal aerobic speed (MAS), and blood lactate concentration (BLa) during the two protocols were collected.
Results   The main findings indicated that all variables derived from the AGSET (i.e., VO2max, MAS, HRmax, BLa, and RER) displayed very good relative (all intraclass correlation coefficients [ICC] > 0.90) and absolute (all typical errors of measurement [TEM] < 5%) reliability. Further, results showed that the ability of the AGSET to detect small changes in VO2max, MAS, BLa, and RER was good (smallest worthwhile change [SWC0.2] > TEM), except HRmax (SWC0.2 < TEM). Additionally, results showed a nearly perfect association between the VO2max values derived from the AGSET and MSRT (r = 0.985; coefficient of determination [R-2] = 97%) with no statistically significant differences (p>0.05). The mean (bias) +/- 95% limits of agreement between the two protocols were 0.28 +/- 0.55 mlminkg-1.
Discussion   AGSET seems to present very good reliability and concurrent validity for assessing endurance performance in elite artistic gymnastics. In addition, the newly developed protocol presents a good ability to detect small changes in performance.
KW  - artistic gymnastics
KW  - field test
KW  - aerobic endurance
KW  - validity
KW  - reliability
KW  - assessment
KW  - physical fitness
KW  - elite athletes
Y1  - 2023
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3389/fspor.2023.1159807
SN  - 2624-9367
VL  - 5
PB  - Frontiers Media
CY  - Lausanne
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Kamali, Bahareh
A1  - Jahanbakhshi, Farshid
A1  - Dogaru, Diana
A1  - Dietrich, Jörg
A1  - Nendel, Claas
A1  - AghaKouchak, Amir
T1  - Probabilistic modeling of crop-yield loss risk under drought: a spatial showcase for sub-Saharan Africa
JF  - Environmental research letters
N2  - Assessing the risk of yield loss in African drought-affected regions is key to identify feasible solutions for stable crop production. Recent studies have demonstrated that Copula-based probabilistic methods are well suited for such assessment owing to reasonably inferring important properties in terms of exceedance probability and joint dependence of different characterization. However, insufficient attention has been given to quantifying the probability of yield loss and determining the contribution of climatic factors. This study applies the Copula theory to describe the dependence between drought and crop yield anomalies for rainfed maize, millet, and sorghum crops in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The environmental policy integrated climate model, calibrated with Food and Agriculture Organization country-level yield data, was used to simulate yields across SSA (1980-2012). The results showed that the severity of yield loss due to drought had a higher magnitude than the severity of drought itself. Sensitivity analysis to identify factors contributing to drought and high-temperature stresses for all crops showed that the amount of precipitation during vegetation and grain filling was the main driver of crop yield loss, and the effect of temperature was stronger for sorghum than for maize and millet. The results demonstrate the added value of probabilistic methods for drought-impact assessment. For future studies, we recommend looking into factors influencing drought and high-temperature stresses as individual/concurrent climatic extremes.
KW  - Copula theory
KW  - crop model
KW  - drought stress
KW  - joint probability
KW  - risk
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac4ec1
SN  - 1748-9326
VL  - 17
IS  - 2
PB  - IOP Publishing
CY  - Bristol
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Geirhos, Agnes
A1  - Domhardt, Matthias
A1  - Lunkenheimer, Frederike
A1  - Temming, Svenja
A1  - Holl, Reinhard
A1  - Minden, Kirsten
A1  - Warschburger, Petra
A1  - Meissner, Thomas
A1  - Mueller-Stierlin, Annabel S.
A1  - Baumeister, Harald
T1  - Feasibility and potential efficacy of a guided internet- and mobile-based CBT for adolescents and young adults with chronic medical conditions and comorbid depression or anxiety symptoms (youthCOACH(CD)): a randomized controlled pilot trial
JF  - BMC pediatrics
N2  - Background: Adolescents and young adults (AYA) with a chronic medical condition show an increased risk for developing mental comorbidities compared to their healthy peers. Internet- and mobile-based cognitive behavioral therapy (iCBT) might be a low-threshold treatment to support affected AYA. In this randomized controlled pilot trial, the feasibility and potential efficacy of youthCOACH(CD), an iCBT targeting symptoms of anxiety and depression in AYA with chronic medical conditions, was evaluated. Methods: A total of 30 AYA (M-age 16.13; SD= 2.34; 73% female), aged 12-21 years either suffering from cystic fibrosis, juvenile idiopathic arthritis or type 1 diabetes, were randomly assigned to either a guided version of the iCBT youthCOACH(CD) (IC, n=15) or to a waitlist control group (CG, n=15), receiving an unguided version of the iCBT six months post-randomization. Participants of the IG and the CG were assessed before (t0), twelve weeks after (t1) and six months after (t2) randomization. Primary outcome was the feasibility of the iCBT. Different parameters of feasibility e.g. acceptance, client satisfaction or potential side effects were evaluated. First indications of the possible efficacy with regard to the primary efficacy outcome, the Patient Health Questionnaire Anxiety and Depression Scale, and further outcome variables were evaluated using linear regression models, adjusting for baseline values. Results: Regarding feasibility, intervention completion was 60%; intervention satisfaction (M = 25.42, SD = 5.85) and perceived therapeutic alliance (M = 2.83, SD = 1.25) were moderate and comparable to other iCBTs. No patterns emerged regarding subjective and objective negative side effects due to participation in youthCOACH(CD). Estimates of potential efficacy showed between group differences, with a potential medium-term benefit of youthCOACH(CD) (beta = -0.55, 95%Cl: -1.17; 0.07), but probably not short-term (beta = 0.20, 95%Cl: -0.47; 0.88). Conclusions: Our results point to the feasibility of youthCOACH(CD) and the implementation of a future definitive randomized controlled trial addressing its effectiveness and cost-effectiveness. Due to the small sample size, conclusions are premature, however, further strategies to foster treatment adherence should be considered.
KW  - Chronic medical condition
KW  - Depression
KW  - Anxiety
KW  - Internet- and mobile
KW  - based intervention
KW  - Cognitive behavioral therapy
KW  - Randomized controlled
KW  - pilot trial
KW  - Type 1 diabetes
KW  - Cystic fibrosis
KW  - Juvenile idiopathic
KW  - arthritis
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1186/s12887-022-03134-3
SN  - 1471-2431
VL  - 22
IS  - 1
PB  - Springer Nature
CY  - London
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Wiemker, Veronika
A1  - Bunova, Anna
A1  - Neufeld, Maria
A1  - Gornyi, Boris
A1  - Yurasova, Elena
A1  - Konigorski, Stefan
A1  - Kalinina, Anna
A1  - Kontsevaya, Anna
A1  - Ferreira-Borges, Carina
A1  - Probst, Charlotte
T1  - Pilot study to evaluate usability and acceptability of the 'Animated Alcohol Assessment Tool' in Russian primary healthcare
JF  - Digital health
N2  - Background and aims: Accurate and user-friendly assessment tools quantifying alcohol consumption are a prerequisite to effective prevention and treatment programmes, including Screening and Brief Intervention. Digital tools offer new potential in this field. We developed the ‘Animated Alcohol Assessment Tool’ (AAA-Tool), a mobile app providing an interactive version of the World Health Organization's Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) that facilitates the description of individual alcohol consumption via culturally informed animation features. This pilot study evaluated the Russia-specific version of the Animated Alcohol Assessment Tool with regard to (1) its usability and acceptability in a primary healthcare setting, (2) the plausibility of its alcohol consumption assessment results and (3) the adequacy of its Russia-specific vessel and beverage selection. Methods: Convenience samples of 55 patients (47% female) and 15 healthcare practitioners (80% female) in 2 Russian primary healthcare facilities self-administered the Animated Alcohol Assessment Tool and rated their experience on the Mobile Application Rating Scale – User Version. Usage data was automatically collected during app usage, and additional feedback on regional content was elicited in semi-structured interviews. Results: On average, patients completed the Animated Alcohol Assessment Tool in 6:38 min (SD = 2.49, range = 3.00–17.16). User satisfaction was good, with all subscale Mobile Application Rating Scale – User Version scores averaging >3 out of 5 points. A majority of patients (53%) and practitioners (93%) would recommend the tool to ‘many people’ or ‘everyone’. Assessed alcohol consumption was plausible, with a low number (14%) of logically impossible entries. Most patients reported the Animated Alcohol Assessment Tool to reflect all vessels (78%) and all beverages (71%) they typically used. Conclusion: High acceptability ratings by patients and healthcare practitioners, acceptable completion time, plausible alcohol usage assessment results and perceived adequacy of region-specific content underline the Animated Alcohol Assessment Tool's potential to provide a novel approach to alcohol assessment in primary healthcare. After its validation, the Animated Alcohol Assessment Tool might contribute to reducing alcohol-related harm by facilitating Screening and Brief Intervention implementation in Russia and beyond.
KW  - Alcohol use assessment
KW  - Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test
KW  - screening tools
KW  - digital health
KW  - mobile applications
KW  - Russia
KW  - primary healthcare
KW  - usability
KW  - acceptability
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1177/20552076211074491
SN  - 2055-2076
VL  - 8
PB  - Sage Publications
CY  - London
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Hoang, Yen
A1  - Gryzik, Stefanie
A1  - Hoppe, Ines
A1  - Rybak, Alexander
A1  - Schädlich, Martin
A1  - Kadner, Isabelle
A1  - Walther, Dirk
A1  - Vera, Julio
A1  - Radbruch, Andreas
A1  - Groth, Detlef
A1  - Baumgart, Sabine
A1  - Baumgrass, Ria
T1  - PRI: Re-analysis of a public mass cytometry dataset reveals patterns of effective tumor treatments
JF  - Frontiers in immunology
N2  - Recently, mass cytometry has enabled quantification of up to 50 parameters for millions of cells per sample. It remains a challenge to analyze such high-dimensional data to exploit the richness of the inherent information, even though many valuable new analysis tools have already been developed. We propose a novel algorithm "pattern recognition of immune cells (PRI)" to tackle these high-dimensional protein combinations in the data. PRI is a tool for the analysis and visualization of cytometry data based on a three or more-parametric binning approach, feature engineering of bin properties of multivariate cell data, and a pseudo-multiparametric visualization. Using a publicly available mass cytometry dataset, we proved that reproducible feature engineering and intuitive understanding of the generated bin plots are helpful hallmarks for re-analysis with PRI. In the CD4(+)T cell population analyzed, PRI revealed two bin-plot patterns (CD90/CD44/CD86 and CD90/CD44/CD27) and 20 bin plot features for threshold-independent classification of mice concerning ineffective and effective tumor treatment. In addition, PRI mapped cell subsets regarding co-expression of the proliferation marker Ki67 with two major transcription factors and further delineated a specific Th1 cell subset. All these results demonstrate the added insights that can be obtained using the non-cluster-based tool PRI for re-analyses of high-dimensional cytometric data.
KW  - multi-parametric analysis
KW  - re-analysis
KW  - combinatorial protein
KW  - expression
KW  - high-dimensional cytometry data
KW  - mass cytometry data
KW  - pattern perception
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3389/fimmu.2022.849329
SN  - 1664-3224
VL  - 13
PB  - Frontiers Media
CY  - Lausanne
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Weber, Stephanie
A1  - Puta, Christian
A1  - Lesinski, Melanie
A1  - Gabriel, Brunhild
A1  - Steidten, Thomas
A1  - Bär, Karl-Jürgen
A1  - Herbsleb, Marco
A1  - Granacher, Urs
A1  - Gabriel, Holger H. W.
T1  - Symptoms of anxiety and depression in young athletes using the hospital anxiety and depression scale
JF  - Frontiers in physiology
N2  - Elite young athletes have to cope with multiple psychological demands such as training volume, mental and physical fatigue, spatial separation of family and friends or time management problems may lead to reduced mental and physical recovery. While normative data regarding symptoms of anxiety and depression for the general population is available (Hinz and Brahler, 2011), hardly any information exists for adolescents in general and young athletes in particular. Therefore, the aim of this study was to assess overall symptoms of anxiety and depression in young athletes as well as possible sex differences. The survey was carried out within the scope of the study "Resistance Training in Young Athletes" (KINGS-Study). Between August 2015 and September 2016, 326 young athletes aged (mean +/- SD) 14.3 +/- 1.6 years completed the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HAD Scale). Regarding the analysis of age on the anxiety and depression subscales, age groups were classified as follows: late childhood (12-14 years) and late adolescence (15-18 years). The participating young athletes were recruited from Olympic weight lifting, handball, judo, track and field athletics, boxing, soccer, gymnastics, ice speed skating, volleyball, and rowing. Anxiety and depression scores were (mean +/- SD) 4.3 +/- 3.0 and 2.8 +/- 2.9, respectively. In the subscale anxiety, 22 cases (6.7%) showed subclinical scores and 11 cases (3.4%) showed clinical relevant score values. When analyzing the depression subscale, 31 cases (9.5%) showed subclinical score values and 12 cases (3.7%) showed clinically important values. No significant differences were found between male and female athletes (p >= 0.05). No statistically significant differences in the HADS scores were found between male athletes of late childhood and late adolescents (p >= 0.05). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report describing questionnaire based indicators of symptoms of anxiety and depression in young athletes. Our data implies the need for sports medical as well as sports psychiatric support for young athletes. In addition, our results demonstrated that the chronological classification concerning age did not influence HAD Scale outcomes. Future research should focus on sports medical and sports psychiatric interventional approaches with the goal to prevent anxiety and depression as well as teaching coping strategies to young athletes.
KW  - youth athletes
KW  - anxiety
KW  - depression
KW  - gender differences
KW  - late childhood
KW  - adolescents
Y1  - 2018
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2018.00182
SN  - 1664-042X
VL  - 9
PB  - Frontiers Research Foundation
CY  - Lausanne
ER  - 
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  - 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  - Cesca, Simone
A1  - Sugan, Monica
A1  - Rudzinski, Lukasz
A1  - Vajedian, Sanaz
A1  - Niemz, Peter
A1  - Plank, Simon
A1  - Petersen, Gesa
A1  - Deng, Zhiguo
A1  - Rivalta, Eleonora
A1  - Vuan, Alessandro
A1  - Linares, Milton Percy Plasencia
A1  - Heimann, Sebastian
A1  - Dahm, Torsten
T1  - Massive earthquake swarm driven by magmatic intrusion at the Bransfield Strait, Antarctica
JF  - Communications earth and environment
N2  - An earthquake swarm affected the Bransfield Strait, Antarctica, a unique rift basin in transition from intra-arc rifting to ocean spreading. The swarm, counting similar to 85,000 volcano-tectonic earthquakes since August 2020, is located close to the Orca submarine volcano, previously considered inactive. Simultaneously, geodetic data reported up to similar to 11 cm north-westward displacement over King George Island. We use a broad variety of geophysical data and methods to reveal the complex migration of seismicity, accompanying the intrusion of 0.26-0.56 km(3) of magma. Strike-slip earthquakes mark the intrusion at depth, while shallower normal faulting the similar to 20 km long lateral growth of a dike. Seismicity abruptly decreased after a Mw 6.0 earthquake, suggesting the magmatic dike lost pressure with the slipping of a large fault. A seafloor eruption is likely, but not confirmed by sea surface temperature anomalies. The unrest documents episodic magmatic intrusion in the Bransfield Strait, providing unique insights into active continental rifting.
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-022-00418-5
SN  - 2662-4435
VL  - 3
IS  - 1
PB  - Springer Nature
CY  - London
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Fehr, Jana
A1  - Piccininni, Marco
A1  - Kurth, Tobias
A1  - Konigorski, Stefan
T1  - Assessing the transportability of clinical prediction models for cognitive impairment using causal models
JF  - BMC medical research methodology
N2  - Background
Machine learning models promise to support diagnostic predictions, but may not perform well in new settings. Selecting the best model for a new setting without available data is challenging. We aimed to investigate the transportability by calibration and discrimination of prediction models for cognitive impairment in simulated external settings with different distributions of demographic and clinical characteristics.

Methods
We mapped and quantified relationships between variables associated with cognitive impairment using causal graphs, structural equation models, and data from the ADNI study. These estimates were then used to generate datasets and evaluate prediction models with different sets of predictors. We measured transportability to external settings under guided interventions on age, APOE & epsilon;4, and tau-protein, using performance differences between internal and external settings measured by calibration metrics and area under the receiver operating curve (AUC).

Results
Calibration differences indicated that models predicting with causes of the outcome were more transportable than those predicting with consequences. AUC differences indicated inconsistent trends of transportability between the different external settings. Models predicting with consequences tended to show higher AUC in the external settings compared to internal settings, while models predicting with parents or all variables showed similar AUC.

Conclusions
We demonstrated with a practical prediction task example that predicting with causes of the outcome results in better transportability compared to anti-causal predictions when considering calibration differences. We conclude that calibration performance is crucial when assessing model transportability to external settings.
KW  - Alzheimer's Disease
KW  - Clinical risk prediction
KW  - DAG
KW  - Causality;
KW  - Transportability
Y1  - 2023
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1186/s12874-023-02003-6
SN  - 1471-2288
VL  - 23
IS  - 1
PB  - BMC
CY  - London
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Lupien, Rachel L.
A1  - Russell, James M.
A1  - Pearson, Emma J.
A1  - Castaneda, Isla S.
A1  - Asrat, Asfawossen
A1  - Förster, Verena
A1  - Lamb, Henry F.
A1  - Roberts, Helen M.
A1  - Schäbitz, Frank
A1  - Trauth, Martin H.
A1  - Beck, Catherine C.
A1  - Feibel, Craig S.
A1  - Cohen, Andrew S.
T1  - Orbital controls on eastern African hydroclimate in the Pleistocene
JF  - Scientific reports
N2  - Understanding eastern African paleoclimate is critical for contextualizing early human evolution, adaptation, and dispersal, yet Pleistocene climate of this region and its governing mechanisms remain poorly understood due to the lack of long, orbitally-resolved, terrestrial paleoclimate records. Here we present leaf wax hydrogen isotope records of rainfall from paleolake sediment cores from key time windows that resolve long-term trends, variations, and high-latitude effects on tropical African precipitation. Eastern African rainfall was dominantly controlled by variations in low-latitude summer insolation during most of the early and middle Pleistocene, with little evidence that glacial-interglacial cycles impacted rainfall until the late Pleistocene. We observe the influence of high-latitude-driven climate processes emerging from the last interglacial (Marine Isotope Stage 5) to the present, an interval when glacial-interglacial cycles were strong and insolation forcing was weak. Our results demonstrate a variable response of eastern African rainfall to low-latitude insolation forcing and high-latitude-driven climate change, likely related to the relative strengths of these forcings through time and a threshold in monsoon sensitivity. We observe little difference in mean rainfall between the early, middle, and late Pleistocene, which suggests that orbitally-driven climate variations likely played a more significant role than gradual change in the relationship between early humans and their environment.
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-06826-z
SN  - 2045-2322
VL  - 12
IS  - 1
PB  - Macmillan Publishers Limited
CY  - London
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Essen, Anna
A1  - Stern, Ariel Dora
A1  - Haase, Christoffer Bjerre
A1  - Car, Josip
A1  - Greaves, Felix
A1  - Paparova, Dragana
A1  - Vandeput, Steven
A1  - Wehrens, Rik
A1  - Bates, David W.
T1  - Health app policy
BT  - international comparison of nine countries' approaches
JF  - npj digital medicine
N2  - An abundant and growing supply of digital health applications (apps) exists in the commercial tech-sector, which can be bewildering for clinicians, patients, and payers. A growing challenge for the health care system is therefore to facilitate the identification of safe and effective apps for health care practitioners and patients to generate the most health benefit as well as guide payer coverage decisions. Nearly all developed countries are attempting to define policy frameworks to improve decision-making, patient care, and health outcomes in this context. This study compares the national policy approaches currently in development/use for health apps in nine countries. We used secondary data, combined with a detailed review of policy and regulatory documents, and interviews with key individuals and experts in the field of digital health policy to collect data about implemented and planned policies and initiatives. We found that most approaches aim for centralized pipelines for health app approvals, although some countries are adding decentralized elements. While the countries studied are taking diverse paths, there is nevertheless broad, international convergence in terms of requirements in the areas of transparency, health content, interoperability, and privacy and security. The sheer number of apps on the market in most countries represents a challenge for clinicians and patients. Our analyses of the relevant policies identified challenges in areas such as reimbursement, safety, and privacy and suggest that more regulatory work is needed in the areas of operationalization, implementation and international transferability of approvals. Cross-national efforts are needed around regulation and for countries to realize the benefits of these technologies.
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41746-022-00573-1
SN  - 2398-6352
VL  - 5
IS  - 1
PB  - Macmillan Publishers Limited
CY  - Basingstoke
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Esmaeilishirazifard, Elham
A1  - Usher, Louise
A1  - Trim, Carol
A1  - Denise, Hubert
A1  - Sangal, Vartul
A1  - Tyson, Gregory H.
A1  - Barlow, Axel
A1  - Redway, Keith F.
A1  - Taylor, John D.
A1  - Kremyda-Vlachou, Myrto
A1  - Davies, Sam
A1  - Loftus, Teresa D.
A1  - Lock, Mikaella M. G.
A1  - Wright, Kstir
A1  - Dalby, Andrew
A1  - Snyder, Lori A. S.
A1  - Wuster, Wolfgang
A1  - Trim, Steve
A1  - Moschos, Sterghios A.
T1  - Bacterial adaptation to venom in snakes and arachnida
JF  - Microbiology spectrum
N2  - Notwithstanding their 3 to 5% mortality, the 2.7 million envenomation-related injuries occurring annually-predominantly across Africa, Asia, and Latin America-are also major causes of morbidity. Venom toxin-damaged tissue will develop infections in some 75% of envenomation victims, with E. faecalis being a common culprit of disease; however, such infections are generally considered to be independent of envenomation. 
Animal venoms are considered sterile sources of antimicrobial compounds with strong membrane-disrupting activity against multidrug-resistant bacteria. 
However, venomous bite wound infections are common in developing nations. Investigating the envenomation organ and venom microbiota of five snake and two spider species, we observed venom community structures that depend on the host venomous animal species and evidenced recovery of viable microorganisms from black-necked spitting cobra (Naja nigricollis) and Indian ornamental tarantula (Poecilotheria regalis) venoms. Among the bacterial isolates recovered from N. nigricollis, we identified two venom-resistant, novel sequence types of Enterococcus faecalis whose genomes feature 16 virulence genes, indicating infectious potential, and 45 additional genes, nearly half of which improve bacterial membrane integrity. 
Our findings challenge the dogma of venom sterility and indicate an increased primary infection risk in the clinical management of venomous animal bite wounds. IMPORTANCE Notwithstanding their 3 to 5% mortality, the 2.7 million envenomation-related injuries occurring annually-predominantly across Africa, Asia, and Latin America-are also major causes of morbidity. Venom toxin-damaged tissue will develop infections in some 75% of envenomation victims, with E. faecalis being a common culprit of disease; however, such infections are generally considered to be independent of envenomation. Here, we provide evidence on venom microbiota across snakes and arachnida and report on the convergent evolution mechanisms that can facilitate adaptation to black-necked cobra venom in two independent E. faecalis strains, easily misidentified by biochemical diagnostics. 
Therefore, since inoculation with viable and virulence gene-harboring bacteria can occur during envenomation, acute infection risk management following envenomation is warranted, particularly for immunocompromised and malnourished victims in resource-limited settings. 
These results shed light on how bacteria evolve for survival in one of the most extreme environments on Earth and how venomous bites must be also treated for infections.
KW  - drug resistance evolution
KW  - extremophiles
KW  - genome analysis
KW  - microbiome
KW  - multidrug resistance
KW  - venom
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1128/spectrum.02408-21
SN  - 2165-0497
VL  - 10
IS  - 3
PB  - American Society for Microbiology
CY  - Birmingham, Ala.
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Kelley, Kristin
A1  - Hipp, Lena
A1  - Protsch, Paula
T1  - Organizational commitments to equality change how people view women’s and men’s professional success
JF  - Scientific reports
N2  - To address women’s underrepresentation in high-status positions, many organizations have committed to gender equality. But is women’s professional success viewed less positively when organizations commit to women’s advancement? Do equality commitments have positive effects on evaluations of successful men? We fielded a survey experiment with a national probability sample in Germany (N = 3229) that varied employees’ gender and their organization’s commitment to equality. Respondents read about a recently promoted employee and rated how decisive of a role they thought intelligence and effort played in getting the employee promoted from 1 “Not at all decisive” to 7 “Very decisive” and the fairness of the promotion from 1 “Very unfair” to 7 “Very fair.” When organizations committed to women’s advancement rather than uniform performance standards, people believed intelligence and effort were less decisive in women’s promotions, but that intelligence was more decisive in men’s promotions. People viewed women’s promotions as least fair and men’s as most fair in organizations committed to women’s advancement. However, women’s promotions were still viewed more positively than men’s in all conditions and on all outcomes, suggesting people believed that organizations had double standards for success that required women to be smarter and work harder to be promoted, especially in organizations that did not make equality commitments.
KW  - human behaviour
KW  - psychology
Y1  - 2024
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-56829-1
SN  - 2045-2322
VL  - 14
IS  - 1
PB  - Macmillan Publishers Limited, part of Springer Nature
CY  - London
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Vences, Miguel
A1  - Köhler, Jörn
A1  - Crottini, Angelica
A1  - Hofreiter, Michael
A1  - Hutter, Carl R.
A1  - du Preez, Louis
A1  - Preick, Michaela
A1  - Rakotoarison, Andolalao
A1  - Rancilhac, Loïs
A1  - Raselimanana, Achille P.
A1  - Rosa, Gonçalo M.
A1  - Scherz, Mark D.
A1  - Glaw, Frank
T1  - An integrative taxonomic revision and redefinition of Gephyromantis (Laurentomantis) malagasius based on archival DNA analysis reveals four new mantellid frog species from Madagascar
JF  - Vertebrate zoology
N2  - The subgenus Laurentomantis in the genus Gephyromantis contains some of the least known amphibian species of Madagascar. The six currently valid nominal species are rainforest frogs known from few individuals, hampering a full understanding of the species diversity of the clade. We assembled data on specimens collected during field surveys over the past 30 years and integrated analysis of mitochondrial and nuclear-encoded genes of 88 individuals, a comprehensive bioacoustic analysis, and morphological comparisons to delimit a minimum of nine species-level lineages in the subgenus. To clarify the identity of the species Gephyromantis malagasius, we applied a target-enrichment approach to a sample of the 110 year old holotype of Microphryne malagasia Methuen and Hewitt, 1913 to assign this specimen to a lineage based on a mitochondrial DNA barcode. The holotype clustered unambiguously with specimens previously named G. ventrimaculatus. Consequently we propose to consider Trachymantis malagasia ventrimaculatus Angel, 1935 as a junior synonym of Gephyromantis malagasius. Due to this redefinition of G. malagasius, no scientific name is available for any of the four deep lineages of frogs previously subsumed under this name, all characterized by red color ventrally on the hindlimbs. These are here formally named as Gephyromantis fiharimpe sp. nov., G. matsilo sp. nov., G. oelkrugi sp. nov., and G. portonae sp. nov. The new species are distinguishable from each other by genetic divergences of >4% uncorrected pairwise distance in a fragment of the 16S rRNA marker and a combination of morphological and bioacoustic characters. Gephyromantis fiharimpe and G. matsilo occur, respectively, at mid-elevations and lower elevations along a wide stretch of Madagascar's eastern rainforest band, while G. oelkrugi and G. portonae appear to be more range-restricted in parts of Madagascar's North East and Northern Central East regions. Open taxonomic questions surround G. horridus, to which we here assign specimens from Montagne d'Ambre and the type locality Nosy Be; and G. ranjomavo, which contains genetically divergent populations from Marojejy, Tsaratanana, and Ampotsidy.
KW  - Amphibia
KW  - Anura
KW  - archival DNA
KW  - Mantellidae
KW  - new species
KW  - phylogeography
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3897/vz.72.e78830
SN  - 1864-5755
SN  - 2625-8498
VL  - 72
SP  - 271
EP  - 309
PB  - Senckenberg Gesellschaft für Naturforschung
CY  - Frankfurt am Main
ER  - 
TY  - GEN
A1  - Caesar, Levke
A1  - Rahmstorf, Stefan
A1  - Feulner, Georg
T1  - Reply to comment on 'On the relationship between Atlantic meridional overturning circulation slowdown and global surface warming'
T2  - Environmental research letters
N2  - In their comment on our paper (Caesar et al 2020 Environ. Res. Lett. 15 024003), Chen and Tung (hereafter C&T) argue that our analysis, showing that over the last decades Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) strength and global mean surface temperature (GMST) were positively correlated, is incorrect. Their claim is mainly based on two arguments, neither of which is justified: first, C&T claim that our analysis is based on 'established evidence' that was only true for preindustrial conditions-this is not the case. Using data from the modern period (1947-2012), we show that the established understanding (i.e. deep-water formation in the North Atlantic cools the deep ocean and warms the surface) is correct, but our analysis is not based on this fact. Secondly, C&T claim that our results are based on a statistical analysis of only one cycle of data which was furthermore incorrectly detrended. This, too, is not true. Our conclusion that a weaker AMOC delays the current surface warming rather than enhances it, is based on several independent lines of evidence. The data we show to support this covers more than one cycle and the detrending (which was performed to avoid spurious correlations due to a common trend) does not affect our conclusion: the correlation between AMOC strength and GMST is positive. We do not claim that this is strong evidence that the two time series are in phase, but rather that this means that the two time series are not anti-correlated.
KW  - Atlantic meridional overturning circulation
KW  - global surface warming
KW  - ocean heat uptake
Y1  - 2021
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/abc776
SN  - 1748-9326
VL  - 16
IS  - 3
PB  - IOP Publ. Ltd.
CY  - Bristol
ER  - 
TY  - GEN
A1  - Lemke, Tristan
T1  - Übergewinnsteuer durch die Hintertür
T2  - Verfassungsblog : on matters constitutional
KW  - Deutschland
KW  - Finanzverfassung
KW  - Sonderabgabe
KW  - Umlageverfahren
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.17176/20220909-230727-0
SN  - 2366-7044
PB  - Max Steinbeis Verfassungsblog gGmbH
CY  - Berlin
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Kupfer, Thomas
A1  - Bauer, Evan B.
A1  - van Roestel, Jan
A1  - Bellm, Eric C.
A1  - Bildsten, Lars
A1  - Fuller, Jim
A1  - Prince, Thomas A.
A1  - Heber, Ulrich
A1  - Geier, Stephan
A1  - Green, Matthew J.
A1  - Kulkarni, Shrinivas R.
A1  - Bloemen, Steven
A1  - Laher, Russ R.
A1  - Rusholme, Ben
A1  - Schneider, David
T1  - Discovery of a Double-detonation Thermonuclear Supernova Progenitor
JF  - The astrophysical journal : an international review of spectroscopy and astronomical physics ; Part 2, Letters
N2  - We present the discovery of a new double-detonation progenitor system consisting of a hot subdwarf B (sdB) binary with a white dwarf companion with a P (orb) = 76.34179(2) minutes orbital period. Spectroscopic observations are consistent with an sdB star during helium core burning residing on the extreme horizontal branch. Chimera light curves are dominated by ellipsoidal deformation of the sdB star and a weak eclipse of the companion white dwarf. Combining spectroscopic and light curve fits, we find a low-mass sdB star, M (sdB) = 0.383 +/- 0.028 M (circle dot) with a massive white dwarf companion, M (WD) = 0.725 +/- 0.026 M (circle dot). From the eclipses we find a blackbody temperature for the white dwarf of 26,800 K resulting in a cooling age of approximate to 25 Myr whereas our MESA model predicts an sdB age of approximate to 170 Myr. We conclude that the sdB formed first through stable mass transfer followed by a common envelope which led to the formation of the white dwarf companion approximate to 25 Myr ago. Using the MESA stellar evolutionary code we find that the sdB star will start mass transfer in approximate to 6 Myr and in approximate to 60 Myr the white dwarf will reach a total mass of 0.92 M (circle dot) with a thick helium layer of 0.17 M (circle dot). This will lead to a detonation that will likely destroy the white dwarf in a peculiar thermonuclear supernova. PTF1 J2238+7430 is only the second confirmed candidate for a double-detonation thermonuclear supernova. Using both systems we estimate that at least approximate to 1% of white dwarf thermonuclear supernovae originate from sdB+WD binaries with thick helium layers, consistent with the small number of observed peculiar thermonuclear explosions.
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/ac48f1
SN  - 2041-8205
SN  - 2041-8213
VL  - 925
IS  - 2
PB  - IOP Publ. Ltd.
CY  - Bristol
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Palmer, Matthew D.
A1  - Gregory, Jonathan
A1  - Bagge, Meike
A1  - Calvert, Daley
A1  - Hagedoorn, Jan Marius
A1  - Howard, Tom
A1  - Klemann, Volker
A1  - Lowe, Jason A.
A1  - Roberts, Chris
A1  - Slangen, Aimee B. A.
A1  - Spada, Giorgio
T1  - Exploring the drivers of global and local sea‐level change over the 21st century and beyond
JF  - Earth's future
N2  - We present a new set of global and local sea‐level projections at example tide gauge locations under the RCP2.6, RCP4.5, and RCP8.5 emissions scenarios. Compared to the CMIP5‐based sea‐level projections presented in IPCC AR5, we introduce a number of methodological innovations, including (i) more comprehensive treatment of uncertainties, (ii) direct traceability between global and local projections, and (iii) exploratory extended projections to 2300 based on emulation of individual CMIP5 models. Combining the projections with observed tide gauge records, we explore the contribution to total variance that arises from sea‐level variability, different emissions scenarios, and model uncertainty. For the period out to 2300 we further breakdown the model uncertainty by sea‐level component and consider the dependence on geographic location, time horizon, and emissions scenario. Our analysis highlights the importance of local variability for sea‐level change in the coming decades and the potential value of annual‐to‐decadal predictions of local sea‐level change. Projections to 2300 show a substantial degree of committed sea‐level rise under all emissions scenarios considered and highlight the reduced future risk associated with RCP2.6 and RCP4.5 compared to RCP8.5. Tide gauge locations can show large ( > 50%) departures from the global average, in some cases even reversing the sign of the change. While uncertainty in projections of the future Antarctic ice dynamic response tends to dominate post‐2100, we see substantial differences in the breakdown of model variance as a function of location, time scale, and emissions scenario.
KW  - climate change
KW  - CMIP5 models
KW  - RCP scenarios
KW  - sea-level projections
KW  - tide gauge observations
Y1  - 2020
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1029/2019EF001413
SN  - 2328-4277
VL  - 8
IS  - 9
SP  - 1
EP  - 25
PB  - Wiley-Blackwell
CY  - Hoboken
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Garbulowski, Mateusz
A1  - Smolinska, Karolina
A1  - Çabuk, Uğur
A1  - Yones, Sara A.
A1  - Celli, Ludovica
A1  - Yaz, Esma Nur
A1  - Barrenas, Fredrik
A1  - Diamanti, Klev
A1  - Wadelius, Claes
A1  - Komorowski, Jan
T1  - Machine learning-based analysis of glioma grades reveals co-enrichment
JF  - Cancers
N2  - Simple Summary Gliomas are heterogenous types of cancer, therefore the therapy should be personalized and targeted toward specific pathways. We developed a methodology that corrected strong batch effects from The Cancer Genome Atlas datasets and estimated glioma grade-specific co-enrichment mechanisms using machine learning. Our findings created hypotheses for annotations, e.g., pathways, that should be considered as therapeutic targets. Gliomas develop and grow in the brain and central nervous system. Examining glioma grading processes is valuable for improving therapeutic challenges. One of the most extensive repositories storing transcriptomics data for gliomas is The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA). However, such big cohorts should be processed with caution and evaluated thoroughly as they can contain batch and other effects. Furthermore, biological mechanisms of cancer contain interactions among biomarkers. Thus, we applied an interpretable machine learning approach to discover such relationships. This type of transparent learning provides not only good predictability, but also reveals co-predictive mechanisms among features. In this study, we corrected the strong and confounded batch effect in the TCGA glioma data. We further used the corrected datasets to perform comprehensive machine learning analysis applied on single-sample gene set enrichment scores using collections from the Molecular Signature Database. Furthermore, using rule-based classifiers, we displayed networks of co-enrichment related to glioma grades. Moreover, we validated our results using the external glioma cohorts. We believe that utilizing corrected glioma cohorts from TCGA may improve the application and validation of any future studies. Finally, the co-enrichment and survival analysis provided detailed explanations for glioma progression and consequently, it should support the targeted treatment.
KW  - glioma
KW  - machine learning
KW  - batch effect
KW  - TCGA
KW  - co-enrichment
KW  - rough sets
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3390/cancers14041014
SN  - 2072-6694
VL  - 14
IS  - 4
PB  - MDPI
CY  - Basel
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Nwosu, Ebuka Canisius
A1  - Roeser, Patricia Angelika
A1  - Yang, Sizhong
A1  - Ganzert, Lars
A1  - Dellwig, Olaf
A1  - Pinkerneil, Sylvia
A1  - Brauer, Achim
A1  - Dittmann, Elke
A1  - Wagner, Dirk
A1  - Liebner, Susanne
T1  - From water into sediment-tracing freshwater cyanobacteria via DNA analyses
JF  - Microorganisms : open access journal
N2  - Sedimentary ancient DNA-based studies have been used to probe centuries of climate and environmental changes and how they affected cyanobacterial assemblages in temperate lakes. Due to cyanobacteria containing potential bloom-forming and toxin-producing taxa, their approximate reconstruction from sediments is crucial, especially in lakes lacking long-term monitoring data. To extend the resolution of sediment record interpretation, we used high-throughput sequencing, amplicon sequence variant (ASV) analysis, and quantitative PCR to compare pelagic cyanobacterial composition to that in sediment traps (collected monthly) and surface sediments in Lake Tiefer See. Cyanobacterial composition, species richness, and evenness was not significantly different among the pelagic depths, sediment traps and surface sediments (p > 0.05), indicating that the cyanobacteria in the sediments reflected the cyanobacterial assemblage in the water column. However, total cyanobacterial abundances (qPCR) decreased from the metalimnion down the water column. The aggregate-forming (Aphanizomenon) and colony-forming taxa (Snowella) showed pronounced sedimentation. In contrast, Planktothrix was only very poorly represented in sediment traps (meta- and hypolimnion) and surface sediments, despite its highest relative abundance at the thermocline (10 m water depth) during periods of lake stratification (May-October). We conclude that this skewed representation in taxonomic abundances reflects taphonomic processes, which should be considered in future DNA-based paleolimnological investigations.
KW  - Aphanizomenon
KW  - Planktothrix
KW  - Snowella
KW  - cyanobacteria sedimentation
KW  - lake monitoring
KW  - sedimentary ancient DNA
KW  - sediment traps
KW  - environmental reconstruction
Y1  - 2021
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms9081778
SN  - 2076-2607
VL  - 9
IS  - 8
PB  - MDPI
CY  - Basel
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Nwosu, Ebuka Canisius
A1  - Roeser, Patricia Angelika
A1  - Yang, Sizhong
A1  - Pinkerneil, Sylvia
A1  - Ganzert, Lars
A1  - Dittmann, Elke
A1  - Brauer, Achim
A1  - Wagner, Dirk
A1  - Liebner, Susanne
T1  - Species-level spatio-temporal dynamics of cyanobacteria in a hard-water temperate lake in the Southern Baltics
JF  - Frontiers in microbiology
N2  - Cyanobacteria are important primary producers in temperate freshwater ecosystems. However, studies on the seasonal and spatial distribution of cyanobacteria in deep lakes based on high-throughput DNA sequencing are still rare. In this study, we combined monthly water sampling and monitoring in 2019, amplicon sequence variants analysis (ASVs; a proxy for different species) and quantitative PCR targeting overall cyanobacteria abundance to describe the seasonal and spatial dynamics of cyanobacteria in the deep hard-water oligo-mesotrophic Lake Tiefer See, NE Germany. We observed significant seasonal variation in the cyanobacterial community composition (p < 0.05) in the epi- and metalimnion layers, but not in the hypolimnion. In winter-when the water column is mixed-picocyanobacteria (Synechococcus and Cyanobium) were dominant. With the onset of stratification in late spring, we observed potential niche specialization and coexistence among the cyanobacteria taxa driven mainly by light and nutrient dynamics. Specifically, ASVs assigned to picocyanobacteria and the genus Planktothrix were the main contributors to the formation of deep chlorophyll maxima along a light gradient. While Synechococcus and different Cyanobium ASVs were abundant in the epilimnion up to the base of the euphotic zone from spring to fall, Planktothrix mainly occurred in the metalimnetic layer below the euphotic zone where also overall cyanobacteria abundance was highest in summer. Our data revealed two potentially psychrotolerant (cold-adapted) Cyanobium species that appear to cope well under conditions of lower hypolimnetic water temperature and light as well as increasing sediment-released phosphate in the deeper waters in summer. The potential cold-adapted Cyanobium species were also dominant throughout the water column in fall and winter. Furthermore, Snowella and Microcystis-related ASVs were abundant in the water column during the onset of fall turnover. Altogether, these findings suggest previously unascertained and considerable spatiotemporal changes in the community of cyanobacteria on the species level especially within the genus Cyanobium in deep hard-water temperate lakes.
KW  - Cyanobium
KW  - picocyanobacteria diversity
KW  - amplicon sequencing
KW  - lake monitoring
KW  - ecological succession
KW  - lake stratification
KW  - psychrotolerant
Y1  - 2021
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2021.761259
SN  - 1664-302X
VL  - 12
PB  - Frontiers Media
CY  - Lausanne
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Köhler, Raphael H.
A1  - Handorf, Dörthe
A1  - Jaiser, Ralf
A1  - Dethloff, Klaus
A1  - Zängl, Günther
A1  - Majewski, Detlev
A1  - Rex, Markus
T1  - Improved circulation in the Northern hemisphere by adjusting gravity wave drag parameterizations in seasonal experiments with ICON-NWP
JF  - Earth and Space Science : ESS
N2  - The stratosphere is one of the main potential sources for subseasonal to seasonal predictability in midlatitudes in winter. The ability of an atmospheric model to realistically simulate the stratospheric dynamics is essential in order to move forward in the field of seasonal predictions in midlatitudes. Earlier studies with the ICOsahedral Nonhydrostatic atmospheric model (ICON) point out that stratospheric westerlies in ICON are underestimated. This is the first extensive study on the evaluation of Northern Hemisphere stratospheric winter circulation with ICON in numerical weather prediction (NWP) mode. Seasonal experiments with the default setup are able to reproduce the basic climatology of the stratospheric polar vortex. However, westerlies are too weak and major stratospheric warmings too frequent in ICON. Both a reduction of the nonorographic, and a reduction of the orographic gravity wave and wake drag lead to a strengthening of the stratospheric vortex and a bias reduction, in particular in January. However, the effect of the nonorographic gravity wave drag scheme on the stratosphere is stronger. Stratosphere-troposphere coupling is intensified and more realistic due to a reduced gravity wave drag. Furthermore, an adjustment of the subgrid-scale orographic drag parameterization leads to a significant error reduction in the mean sea level pressure. As a result of these findings, we present our current suggested improved setup for seasonal experiments with ICON-NWP. <br /> Plain Language Summary Although seasonal forecasts for midlatitudes have the potential to be highly beneficial to the public sector, they are still characterized by a large amount of uncertainty. Exact simulations of the circulation in the stratosphere can help to improve tropospheric predictability on seasonal time scales. For this reason, we investigate how well the new German atmospheric model is able to simulate the stratospheric circulation. The model reproduces the basic behavior of the Northern Hemisphere stratospheric polar vortex, but the westerly circulation in winter is underestimated. The stratospheric circulation is influenced by gravity waves that exert drag on the flow. These processes are only partly physically represented in the model, but are very important and are hence parameterized. By adjusting the parameterizations for the gravity wave drag, the stratospheric polar vortex is strengthened, thereby yielding a more realistic stratospheric circulation. In addition, the altered parameterizations improve the simulated surface pressure pattern. Based upon this, we present our current suggested improved model setup for seasonal experiments.
Y1  - 2021
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1029/2021EA001676
SN  - 2333-5084
VL  - 8
IS  - 3
PB  - American Geophysical Union
CY  - Malden, Mass.
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Romanowsky, Erik
A1  - Handorf, Dörthe
A1  - Jaiser, Ralf
A1  - Wohltmann, Ingo
A1  - Dorn, Wolfgang
A1  - Ukita, Jinro
A1  - Cohen, Judah
A1  - Dethloff, Klaus
A1  - Rex, Markus
T1  - The role of stratospheric ozone for Arctic-midlatitude linkages
JF  - Scientific reports
N2  - Arctic warming was more pronounced than warming in midlatitudes in the last decades making this region a hotspot of climate change. Associated with this, a rapid decline of sea-ice extent and a decrease of its thickness has been observed. Sea-ice retreat allows for an increased transport of heat and momentum from the ocean up to the tropo- and stratosphere by enhanced upward propagation of planetary-scale atmospheric waves. In the upper atmosphere, these waves deposit the momentum transported, disturbing the stratospheric polar vortex, which can lead to a breakdown of this circulation with the potential to also significantly impact the troposphere in mid- to late-winter and early spring. Therefore, an accurate representation of stratospheric processes in climate models is necessary to improve the understanding of the impact of retreating sea ice on the atmospheric circulation. By modeling the atmospheric response to a prescribed decline in Arctic sea ice, we show that including interactive stratospheric ozone chemistry in atmospheric model calculations leads to an improvement in tropo-stratospheric interactions compared to simulations without interactive chemistry. This suggests that stratospheric ozone chemistry is important for the understanding of sea ice related impacts on atmospheric dynamics.
Y1  - 2019
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-43823-1
SN  - 2045-2322
VL  - 9
PB  - Nature Publ. Group
CY  - London
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Crawford, Tim
A1  - Karamat, Fazeelat
A1  - Lehotai, Nóra
A1  - Rentoft, Matilda
A1  - Blomberg, Jeanette
A1  - Strand, Åsa
A1  - Björklund, Stefan
T1  - Specific functions for mediator complex subunits from different modules in the transcriptional response of arabidopsis thaliana to abiotic stress
JF  - Scientific reports
N2  - Adverse environmental conditions are detrimental to plant growth and development. Acclimation to abiotic stress conditions involves activation of signaling pathways which often results in changes in gene expression via networks of transcription factors (TFs). Mediator is a highly conserved co-regulator complex and an essential component of the transcriptional machinery in eukaryotes. Some Mediator subunits have been implicated in stress-responsive signaling pathways; however, much remains unknown regarding the role of plant Mediator in abiotic stress responses. Here, we use RNA-seq to analyze the transcriptional response of Arabidopsis thaliana to heat, cold and salt stress conditions. We identify a set of common abiotic stress regulons and describe the sequential and combinatorial nature of TFs involved in their transcriptional regulation. Furthermore, we identify stress-specific roles for the Mediator subunits MED9, MED16, MED18 and CDK8, and putative TFs connecting them to different stress signaling pathways. Our data also indicate different modes of action for subunits or modules of Mediator at the same gene loci, including a co-repressor function for MED16 prior to stress. These results illuminate a poorly understood but important player in the transcriptional response of plants to abiotic stress and identify target genes and mechanisms as a prelude to further biochemical characterization.
KW  - regulate gene expression
KW  - signal transduction
KW  - circadian clock
KW  - plant Mediator
KW  - salicylic-acid
KW  - activation
KW  - jasmonate
KW  - network
KW  - defense
KW  - MED16
Y1  - 2020
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-61758-w
SN  - 2045-2322
VL  - 10
IS  - 1
SP  - 1
EP  - 18
PB  - Macmillan Publishers Limited, part of Springer Nature
CY  - London
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Potente, Giacomo
A1  - Léveillé-Bourret, Étienne
A1  - Yousefi, Narjes
A1  - Choudhury, Rimjhim Roy
A1  - Keller, Barbara
A1  - Diop, Seydina Issa
A1  - Duijsings, Daniël
A1  - Pirovano, Walter
A1  - Lenhard, Michael
A1  - Szövényi, Péter
A1  - Conti, Elena
T1  - Comparative genomics elucidates the origin of a supergene controlling floral heteromorphism
JF  - Molecular biology and evolution : MBE
N2  - Supergenes are nonrecombining genomic regions ensuring the coinheritance of multiple, coadapted genes. Despite the importance of supergenes in adaptation, little is known on how they originate. A classic example of supergene is the S locus controlling heterostyly, a floral heteromorphism occurring in 28 angiosperm families. In Primula, heterostyly is characterized by the cooccurrence of two complementary, self-incompatible floral morphs and is controlled by five genes clustered in the hemizygous, ca. 300-kb S locus. Here, we present the first chromosome-scale genome assembly of any heterostylous species, that of Primula veris (cowslip). By leveraging the high contiguity of the P. veris assembly and comparative genomic analyses, we demonstrated that the S-locus evolved via multiple, asynchronous gene duplications and independent gene translocations. Furthermore, we discovered a new whole-genome duplication in Ericales that is specific to the Primula lineage. We also propose a mechanism for the origin of S-locus hemizygosity via nonhomologous recombination involving the newly discovered two pairs of CFB genes flanking the S locus. Finally, we detected only weak signatures of degeneration in the S locus, as predicted for hemizygous supergenes. The present study provides a useful resource for future research addressing key questions on the evolution of supergenes in general and the S locus in particular: How do supergenes arise? What is the role of genome architecture in the evolution of complex adaptations? Is the molecular architecture of heterostyly supergenes across angiosperms similar to that of Primula?
KW  - genome architecture
KW  - supergene
KW  - heterostyly
KW  - evolutionary genomics
KW  - chromosome-scale genome assembly
KW  - primula
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msac035
SN  - 0737-4038
SN  - 1537-1719
VL  - 39
IS  - 2
PB  - Oxford Univ. Press
CY  - Oxford
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Tran, Quan Hong
A1  - Bui, Ngoc Hong
A1  - Kappel, Christian
A1  - Dau, Nga Thi Ngoc
A1  - Nguyen, Loan Thi
A1  - Tran, Thuy Thi
A1  - Khanh, Tran Dang
A1  - Trung, Khuat Huu
A1  - Lenhard, Michael
A1  - Vi, Son Lang
T1  - Mapping-by-sequencing via MutMap identifies a mutation in ZmCLE7 underlying fasciation in a newly developed EMS mutant population in an elite tropical maize inbred
JF  - Genes
N2  - Induced point mutations are important genetic resources for their ability to create hypo- and hypermorphic alleles that are useful for understanding gene functions and breeding. However, such mutant populations have only been developed for a few temperate maize varieties, mainly B73 and W22, yet no tropical maize inbred lines have been mutagenized and made available to the public to date. We developed a novel Ethyl Methanesulfonate (EMS) induced mutation resource in maize comprising 2050 independent M2 mutant families in the elite tropical maize inbred ML10. By phenotypic screening, we showed that this population is of comparable quality with other mutagenized populations in maize. To illustrate the usefulness of this population for gene discovery, we performed rapid mapping-by-sequencing to clone a fasciated-ear mutant and identify a causal promoter deletion in ZmCLE7 (CLE7). Our mapping procedure does not require crossing to an unrelated parent, thus is suitable for mapping subtle traits and ones affected by heterosis. This first EMS population in tropical maize is expected to be very useful for the maize research community. Also, the EMS mutagenesis and rapid mapping-by-sequencing pipeline described here illustrate the power of performing forward genetics in diverse maize germplasms of choice, which can lead to novel gene discovery due to divergent genetic backgrounds.
KW  - EMS
KW  - MutMap
KW  - mutagenesis
KW  - CLE7
KW  - tropical maize
KW  - fasciation
KW  - mapping
Y1  - 2020
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3390/genes11030281
SN  - 2073-4425
VL  - 11
IS  - 3
SP  - 1
EP  - 14
PB  - MDPI
CY  - Basel
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Kappel, Christian
A1  - Illing, Nicola
A1  - Huu, Cuong Nguyen
A1  - Barger, Nichole N.
A1  - Cramer, Michael D.
A1  - Lenhard, Michael
A1  - Midgley, Jeremy J.
T1  - Fairy circles in Namibia are assembled from genetically distinct grasses
JF  - Communications biology
N2  - Fairy circles are striking regularly sized and spaced, bare circles surrounded by Stipagrostis grasses that occur over thousands of square kilometres in Namibia. The mechanisms explaining their origin, shape, persistence and regularity remain controversial. One hypothesis for the formation of vegetation rings is based on the centrifugal expansion of a single individual grass plant, via clonal growth and die-back in the centre. Clonality could explain FC origin, shape and long-term persistence as well as their regularity, if one clone competes with adjacent clones. Here, we show that for virtually all tested fairy circles the periphery is not exclusively made up of genetically identical grasses, but these peripheral grasses belong to more than one unrelated genet. These results do not support a clonal explanation for fairy circles. Lack of clonality implies that a biological reason for their origin, shape and regularity must emerge from competition between near neighbor individuals within each fairy circle. Such lack of clonality also suggests a mismatch between longevity of fairy circles versus their constituent plants. Furthermore, our findings of lack of clonality have implications for some models of spatial patterning of fairy circles that are based on self-organization. Christian Kappel et al. examine the genetic composition of fairy circles, regular circular patterns of grasses in the Namib Desert, using ddRAD-seq. They find that these grasses are made up of multiple unrelated genets rather than genetically identical grasses, suggesting non-clonality.
Y1  - 2020
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-020-01431-0
SN  - 2399-3642
VL  - 3
IS  - 1
PB  - Springer Nature
CY  - London
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Chromik, Jonas
A1  - Kirsten, Kristina
A1  - Herdick, Arne
A1  - Kappattanavar, Arpita Mallikarjuna
A1  - Arnrich, Bert
T1  - SensorHub
BT  - Multimodal sensing in real-life enables home-based studies
JF  - Sensors
N2  - Observational studies are an important tool for determining whether the findings from controlled experiments can be transferred into scenarios that are closer to subjects' real-life circumstances. A rigorous approach to observational studies involves collecting data from different sensors to comprehensively capture the situation of the subject. However, this leads to technical difficulties especially if the sensors are from different manufacturers, as multiple data collection tools have to run simultaneously. We present SensorHub, a system that can collect data from various wearable devices from different manufacturers, such as inertial measurement units, portable electrocardiographs, portable electroencephalographs, portable photoplethysmographs, and sensors for electrodermal activity. Additionally, our tool offers the possibility to include ecological momentary assessments (EMAs) in studies. Hence, SensorHub enables multimodal sensor data collection under real-world conditions and allows direct user feedback to be collected through questionnaires, enabling studies at home. In a first study with 11 participants, we successfully used SensorHub to record multiple signals with different devices and collected additional information with the help of EMAs. In addition, we evaluated SensorHub's technical capabilities in several trials with up to 21 participants recording simultaneously using multiple sensors with sampling frequencies as high as 1000 Hz. We could show that although there is a theoretical limitation to the transmissible data rate, in practice this limitation is not an issue and data loss is rare. We conclude that with modern communication protocols and with the increasingly powerful smartphones and wearables, a system like our SensorHub establishes an interoperability framework to adequately combine consumer-grade sensing hardware which enables observational studies in real life.
KW  - multimodal sensing
KW  - home-based studies
KW  - activity recognition
KW  - sensor
KW  - systems
KW  - ecological momentary assessment
KW  - digital health
Y1  - 2022
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3390/s22010408
SN  - 1424-8220
VL  - 22
IS  - 1
PB  - MDPI
CY  - Basel
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - De Freitas, Jessica K.
A1  - Johnson, Kipp W.
A1  - Golden, Eddye
A1  - Nadkarni, Girish N.
A1  - Dudley, Joel T.
A1  - Böttinger, Erwin
A1  - Glicksberg, Benjamin S.
A1  - Miotto, Riccardo
T1  - Phe2vec
BT  - Automated disease phenotyping based on unsupervised embeddings from electronic health records
JF  - Patterns
N2  - Robust phenotyping of patients from electronic health records (EHRs) at scale is a challenge in clinical informatics. Here, we introduce Phe2vec, an automated framework for disease phenotyping from EHRs based on unsupervised learning and assess its effectiveness against standard rule-based algorithms from Phenotype KnowledgeBase (PheKB). Phe2vec is based on pre-computing embeddings of medical concepts and patients' clinical history. Disease phenotypes are then derived from a seed concept and its neighbors in the embedding space. Patients are linked to a disease if their embedded representation is close to the disease phenotype. Comparing Phe2vec and PheKB cohorts head-to-head using chart review, Phe2vec performed on par or better in nine out of ten diseases. Differently from other approaches, it can scale to any condition and was validated against widely adopted expert-based standards. Phe2vec aims to optimize clinical informatics research by augmenting current frameworks to characterize patients by condition and derive reliable disease cohorts.
Y1  - 2021
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.patter.2021.100337
SN  - 2666-3899
VL  - 2
IS  - 9
PB  - Elsevier
CY  - Amsterdam
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Grdseloff, Nastasja
A1  - Boulday, Gwenola
A1  - Roedel, Claudia J.
A1  - Otten, Cecile
A1  - Vannier, Daphne Raphaelle
A1  - Cardoso, Cecile
A1  - Faurobert, Eva
A1  - Dogra, Deepika
A1  - Tournier-Lasserve, Elisabeth
A1  - Abdelilah-Seyfried, Salim
T1  - Impaired retinoic acid signaling in cerebral cavernous malformations
JF  - Scientific reports
N2  - The capillary-venous pathology cerebral cavernous malformation (CCM) is caused by loss of CCM1/Krev interaction trapped protein 1 (KRIT1), CCM2/MGC4607, or CCM3/PDCD10 in some endothelial cells. Mutations of CCM genes within the brain vasculature can lead to recurrent cerebral hemorrhages. Pharmacological treatment options are urgently needed when lesions are located in deeply-seated and in-operable regions of the central nervous system. Previous pharmacological suppression screens in disease models of CCM led to the discovery that treatment with retinoic acid improved CCM phenotypes. This finding raised a need to investigate the involvement of retinoic acid in CCM and test whether it has a curative effect in preclinical mouse models. Here, we show that components of the retinoic acid synthesis and degradation pathway are transcriptionally misregulated across disease models of CCM. We complemented this analysis by pharmacologically modifying retinoic acid levels in zebrafish and human endothelial cell models of CCM, and in acute and chronic mouse models of CCM. Our pharmacological intervention studies in CCM2-depleted human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) and krit1 mutant zebrafish showed positive effects when retinoic acid levels were increased. However, therapeutic approaches to prevent the development of vascular lesions in adult chronic murine models of CCM were drug regiment-sensitive, possibly due to adverse developmental effects of this hormone. A treatment with high doses of retinoic acid even worsened CCM lesions in an adult chronic murine model of CCM. This study provides evidence that retinoic acid signaling is impaired in the CCM pathophysiology and suggests that modification of retinoic acid levels can alleviate CCM phenotypes.
KW  - Developmental biology
KW  - Molecular medicine
Y1  - 2023
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-31905-0
SN  - 2045-2322
VL  - 13
IS  - 1
PB  - Nature Portfolio
CY  - Berlin
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Smith, Taylor
A1  - Boers, Niklas
T1  - Global vegetation resilience linked to water availability and variability
JF  - Nature Communications
N2  - Quantifying the resilience of vegetated ecosystems is key to constraining both present-day and future global impacts of anthropogenic climate change. Here we apply both empirical and theoretical resilience metrics to remotely-sensed vegetation data in order to examine the role of water availability and variability in controlling vegetation resilience at the global scale. We find a concise global relationship where vegetation resilience is greater in regions with higher water availability. We also reveal that resilience is lower in regions with more pronounced inter-annual precipitation variability, but find less concise relationships between vegetation resilience and intra-annual precipitation variability. Our results thus imply that the resilience of vegetation responds differently to water deficits at varying time scales. In view of projected increases in precipitation variability, our findings highlight the risk of ecosystem degradation under ongoing climate change. 

Vegetation dynamics depend on both the amount of precipitation and its variability over time. Here, the authors show that vegetation resilience is greater where water availability is higher and where precipitation is more stable from year to year.
Y1  - 2023
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-36207-7
SN  - 2041-1723
VL  - 14
IS  - 1
PB  - Springer Nature
CY  - London
ER  -