TY - JOUR
A1 - Muldashev, Iskander A.
A1 - Sobolev, Stephan
T1 - What controls maximum magnitudes of giant subduction earthquakes?
JF - Geochemistry, geophysics, geosystems
N2 - Giant earthquakes with magnitudes above 8.5 occur only in subduction zones. Despite the developments made in observing large subduction zone earthquakes with geophysical instruments, the factors controlling the maximum size of these earthquakes are still poorly understood. Previous studies have suggested the importance of slab shape, roughness of the plate interface contact, state of the strain in the upper plate, thickness of sediments filling the trenches, and subduction rate. Here, we present 2-D cross-scale numerical models of seismic cycles for subduction zones with various geometries, subduction channel friction configurations, and subduction rates. We found that low-angle subduction and thick sediments in the subduction channel are the necessary conditions for generating giant earthquakes, while the subduction rate has a negligible effect. We suggest that these key parameters determine the maximum magnitude of a subduction earthquake by controlling the seismogenic zone width and smoothness of the subduction interface. This interpretation supports previous studies that are based upon observations and scaling laws. Our modeling results also suggest that low static friction in the sediment-filled subduction channel results in neutral or moderate compressive deformation in the overriding plate for low-angle subduction zones hosting giant earthquakes. These modeling results agree well with observations for the largest earthquakes. Based on our models we predict maximum magnitudes of subduction earthquakes worldwide, demonstrating the fit to magnitudes of all giant earthquakes of the 20th and 21st centuries and good agreement with the predictions based on statistical analyses of observations.
KW - giant earthquakes
KW - earthquake modeling
KW - subduction
Y1 - 2020
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1029/2020GC009145
SN - 1525-2027
VL - 21
IS - 9
PB - American Geophysical Union
CY - Washington
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Schuster, Dirk
T1 - Exclusive border crossing considerations on exclusive, inner-religious demarcations
JF - Interdisciplinary journal for religion and transformation in contemporary society : J-RaT
N2 - From 1933, the inner Protestant 'German Christians Church Movement' from Thuringia took control over some Protestant regional churches in Germany. For the German Christians the main motives of their agitation were the creation of a 'volkisch' belief system based on race, Christianity and 'dejudaization' (of Christianity).
Based on the theoretical considerations of spaces, boundaries and exclusion, the article uses the example of the German Christians to show under which conditions individuals are denied entry into an imaginary religious space. 'Exclusivist border crossings,' as this phenomena is named here on the theoretical perspective, can explain how religious arguments exclude people from entering a religious space such as salvation when the access criteria are linked to birth-related conditions.
KW - space
KW - border
KW - social imaginaries
KW - race
KW - Third Reich
KW - Protestantism
Y1 - 2020
U6 - https://doi.org/10.30965/23642807-00502009
SN - 2365-3140
SN - 2364-2807
VL - 5
IS - 2
SP - 469
EP - 492
PB - Brill
CY - Leiden
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Gross, Stephanie
A1 - Claus, Philip
A1 - Wohlsein, Peter
A1 - Kesselring, Tina
A1 - Lakemeyer, Jan
A1 - Reckendorf, Anja
A1 - Roller, Marco
A1 - Tiedemann, Ralph
A1 - Siebert, Ursula
T1 - Indication of lethal interactions between a solitary bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) and harbor porpoises (Phocoena phocoena) in the German Baltic Sea
JF - BMC zoology
N2 - Background Aggressive interactions between bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) and harbor porpoises (Phocoena phocoena) have been reported in different parts of the world since the late 1990s. In the Baltic Sea, harbor porpoises are the only native cetacean species, while bottlenose dolphins may appear there temporarily. In the fall of 2016, a solitary male photo-identified bottlenose dolphin stayed in the German Baltic Sea of Schleswig-Holstein for 3 months. During that time, the necropsies of the stranded harbor porpoises revealed types of trauma of varying degrees in six animals, which is unusual in this area. The purpose of this study was to determine if the appearance of the bottlenose dolphin could be linked to the trauma of the harbor porpoise carcasses. Results Pathological findings in these animals included subcutaneous, thoracic and abdominal hemorrhages, multiple, mainly bilateral, rib fractures, and one instance of lung laceration. These findings correspond with the previously reported dolphin-caused injuries in other regions. Moreover, public sighting reports showed a spatial and temporal correlation between the appearance of the dolphin and the stranding of fatally injured harbor porpoises. Conclusion Despite the fact that no attack has been witnessed in German waters to date, our findings indicate the first record of lethal interactions between a bottlenose dolphin and harbor porpoises in the German Baltic Sea. Furthermore, to our knowledge, this is the first report of porpoise aggression by a socially isolated bottlenose dolphin.
KW - Cetaceans
KW - Interspecific aggression
KW - Porpicide
KW - Blunt trauma
KW - Mortality
KW - Stranding
Y1 - 2020
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1186/s40850-020-00061-7
SN - 2056-3132
VL - 5
IS - 1
PB - BMC
CY - London
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Koonce, Michael
A1 - Tikhonenko, Irina
A1 - Gräf, Ralph
T1 - Dictyostelium cell fixation
BT - two simple tricks
JF - Methods and protocols
N2 - We share two simple modifications to enhance the fixation and imaging of relatively small, motile, and rounded model cells. These include cell centrifugation and the addition of trace amounts of glutaraldehyde to existing fixation methods. Though they need to be carefully considered in each context, they have been useful to our studies of the spatial relationships of the microtubule cytoskeletal system.
KW - Dictyostelium
KW - cell fixation
KW - microscopy
KW - microtubule
KW - cytoskeleton
Y1 - 2020
U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/mps3030047
SN - 2409-9279
VL - 3
IS - 3
PB - MDPI
CY - Basel
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Börnert-Ringleb, Moritz
A1 - Westphal, Andrea
A1 - Zaruba, Nicole
A1 - Gutmann, Franziska
A1 - Vock, Miriam
T1 - The relationship between attitudes toward inclusion, beliefs about teaching and learning, and subsequent automatic evaluations amongst student teachers
JF - Frontiers in education
N2 - Teachers' attitudes toward inclusion are frequently cited as being an important predictor of how successfully a given inclusive school system is implemented. At the same time, beliefs about the nature of teaching and learning are discussed as a possible predictor of attitudes toward inclusion. However, more recent research emphasizes the need of considering implicit processes, such as automatic evaluations, when describing attitudes and beliefs. Previous evidence on the association of attitudes toward inclusion and beliefs about teaching and learning is solely based on explicit reports. Therefore, this study aims to examine the relationship between attitudes toward inclusion, beliefs about teaching and learning, and the subsequent automatic evaluations of pre-service teachers (N = 197). The results revealed differences between pre-service teachers' explicit attitudes/beliefs and their subsequent automatic evaluations. Differences in the relationship between attitudes toward inclusion and beliefs about teaching and learning occur when teachers focus either on explicit measures or automatic evaluations. These differences might be due to different facets of the same attitude object being represented. Relying solely on either explicit measures or automatic evaluations at the exclusion of the other might lead to erroneous assumptions about the relation of attitudes toward inclusion and beliefs about teaching and learning.
KW - inclusion
KW - attitudes
KW - teaching
KW - automatic evaluation
KW - beliefs
KW - implicit
Y1 - 2020
U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2020.584464
SN - 2504-284X
VL - 5
PB - Frontiers Media
CY - Lausanne
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Hudson, Paul
A1 - Hagedoorn, Liselotte
A1 - Bubeck, Philip
T1 - Potential linkages between social capital, flood risk perceptions, and self-efficacy
JF - International journal of disaster risk science
N2 - A growing focus is being placed on both individuals and communities to adapt to flooding as part of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030. Adaptation to flooding requires sufficient social capital (linkages between members of society), risk perceptions (understanding of risk), and self-efficacy (self-perceived ability to limit disaster impacts) to be effective. However, there is limited understanding of how social capital, risk perceptions, and self-efficacy interact. We seek to explore how social capital interacts with variables known to increase the likelihood of successful adaptation. To study these linkages we analyze survey data of 1010 respondents across two communities in Thua Tien-Hue Province in central Vietnam, using ordered probit models. We find positive correlations between social capital, risk perceptions, and self-efficacy overall. This is a partly contrary finding to what was found in previous studies linking these concepts in Europe, which may be a result from the difference in risk context. The absence of an overall negative exchange between these factors has positive implications for proactive flood risk adaptation.
KW - flood risk
KW - protection motivation theory
KW - risk perceptions
KW - social
KW - capital
KW - self-efficacy
KW - Vietnam
Y1 - 2020
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s13753-020-00259-w
SN - 2095-0055
SN - 2192-6395
VL - 11
IS - 3
SP - 251
EP - 262
PB - Springer
CY - Berlin
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Kolyvushko, Oleksandr
A1 - Latzke, Juliane
A1 - Dahmani, Ismail
A1 - Osterrieder, Nikolaus
A1 - Chiantia, Salvatore
A1 - Azab, Walid
T1 - Differentially-charged liposomes interact with alphaherpesviruses and interfere with virus entry
JF - Pathogens
N2 - Exposure of phosphatidylserine (PS) in the outer leaflet of the plasma membrane is induced by infection with several members of the Alphaherpesvirinae subfamily. There is evidence that PS is used by the equine herpesvirus type 1 (EHV-1) during entry, but the exact role of PS and other phospholipids in the entry process remains unknown. Here, we investigated the interaction of differently charged phospholipids with virus particles and determined their influence on infection. Our data show that liposomes containing negatively charged PS or positively charged DOTAP (N-[1-(2,3-Dioleoyloxy)propyl]-N,N,N-trimethylammonium) inhibited EHV-1 infection, while neutral phosphatidylcholine (PC) had no effect. Inhibition of infection with PS was transient, decreased with time, and was dose dependent. Our findings indicate that both cationic and anionic phospholipids can interact with the virus and reduce infectivity, while, presumably, acting through different mechanisms. Charged phospholipids were found to have antiviral effects and may be used to inhibit EHV-1 infection.
KW - alphaherpesvirus
KW - EHV-1
KW - phosphatidylserine
KW - inhibition
KW - pathogen host
KW - interaction
Y1 - 2020
U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/pathogens9050359
SN - 2076-0817
VL - 9
IS - 5
PB - MDPI
CY - Basel
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Mendel, Ralf R.
A1 - Hercher, Thomas W.
A1 - Zupok, Arkadiusz
A1 - Hasnat, Muhammad Abrar
A1 - Leimkühler, Silke
T1 - The requirement of inorganic Fe-S clusters for the biosynthesis of the organometallic molybdenum cofactor
JF - Inorganics : open access journal
N2 - Iron-sulfur (Fe-S) clusters are essential protein cofactors. In enzymes, they are present either in the rhombic [2Fe-2S] or the cubic [4Fe-4S] form, where they are involved in catalysis and electron transfer and in the biosynthesis of metal-containing prosthetic groups like the molybdenum cofactor (Moco). Here, we give an overview of the assembly of Fe-S clusters in bacteria and humans and present their connection to the Moco biosynthesis pathway. In all organisms, Fe-S cluster assembly starts with the abstraction of sulfur froml-cysteine and its transfer to a scaffold protein. After formation, Fe-S clusters are transferred to carrier proteins that insert them into recipient apo-proteins. In eukaryotes like humans and plants, Fe-S cluster assembly takes place both in mitochondria and in the cytosol. Both Moco biosynthesis and Fe-S cluster assembly are highly conserved among all kingdoms of life. Moco is a tricyclic pterin compound with molybdenum coordinated through its unique dithiolene group. Moco biosynthesis begins in the mitochondria in a Fe-S cluster dependent step involving radical/S-adenosylmethionine (SAM) chemistry. An intermediate is transferred to the cytosol where the dithiolene group is formed, to which molybdenum is finally added. Further connections between Fe-S cluster assembly and Moco biosynthesis are discussed in detail.
KW - Moco biosynthesis
KW - Fe-S cluster assembly
KW - l-cysteine desulfurase
KW - ISC
KW - SUF
KW - NIF
KW - iron
KW - molybdenum
KW - sulfur
Y1 - 2020
U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/inorganics8070043
SN - 2304-6740
VL - 8
IS - 7
PB - MDPI
CY - Basel
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Levy, Jessica
A1 - Mussack, Dominic
A1 - Brunner, Martin
A1 - Keller, Ulrich
A1 - Cardoso-Leite, Pedro
A1 - Fischbach, Antoine
T1 - Contrasting classical and machine learning approaches in the estimation of value-added scores in large-scale educational data
JF - Frontiers in psychology
N2 - There is no consensus on which statistical model estimates school value-added (VA) most accurately. To date, the two most common statistical models used for the calculation of VA scores are two classical methods: linear regression and multilevel models. These models have the advantage of being relatively transparent and thus understandable for most researchers and practitioners. However, these statistical models are bound to certain assumptions (e.g., linearity) that might limit their prediction accuracy. Machine learning methods, which have yielded spectacular results in numerous fields, may be a valuable alternative to these classical models. Although big data is not new in general, it is relatively new in the realm of social sciences and education. New types of data require new data analytical approaches. Such techniques have already evolved in fields with a long tradition in crunching big data (e.g., gene technology). The objective of the present paper is to competently apply these "imported" techniques to education data, more precisely VA scores, and assess when and how they can extend or replace the classical psychometrics toolbox. The different models include linear and non-linear methods and extend classical models with the most commonly used machine learning methods (i.e., random forest, neural networks, support vector machines, and boosting). We used representative data of 3,026 students in 153 schools who took part in the standardized achievement tests of the Luxembourg School Monitoring Program in grades 1 and 3. Multilevel models outperformed classical linear and polynomial regressions, as well as different machine learning models. However, it could be observed that across all schools, school VA scores from different model types correlated highly. Yet, the percentage of disagreements as compared to multilevel models was not trivial and real-life implications for individual schools may still be dramatic depending on the model type used. Implications of these results and possible ethical concerns regarding the use of machine learning methods for decision-making in education are discussed.
KW - value-added modeling
KW - school effectiveness
KW - machine learning
KW - model
KW - comparison
KW - longitudinal data
Y1 - 2020
U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.02190
SN - 1664-1078
VL - 11
PB - Frontiers Research Foundation
CY - Lausanne
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Cavael, Ulrike
A1 - Diehl, Katharina
A1 - Lentzsch, Peter
T1 - Assessment of growth suppression in apple production with replant soils
JF - Ecological indicators : integrating monitoring, assessment and management
N2 - Apple replant disease (ARD) is a specific apple-related form of soil fertility loss due to unidentified causes and is also known as soil fatigue. The effect typically appears in monoculture production sites and leads to production decreases of up to 50%, even though the cultivation practice remains the same. However, an indication of replant disease is challenged by the lack of specification of the particular microbial group responsible for ARD. The objective of this study was to establish an algorithm for estimating growth suppression in orchards irrespective of the unknowns in the complex causal relationship by assessing plant-soil interaction in the orchard several years after planting. Based on a comparison between no-replant and replant soils, the Alternaria group (Ag) was identified as a soil-fungal population responding to replant with abundance. The trunk cross-sectional area (CSA) was found to be a practical and robust parameter representing below-ground and above-ground tree performance. Suppression of tree vigour was therefore calculated by dividing the two inversely related parameters, Q = ln(Ag)/CSA, as a function of soil-fungal proportions and plant responses at the single-tree level. On this basis, five clusters of tree vigour suppression (Q) were defined: (1) no tree vigour suppression/vital (0%), (2) escalating (- 38%), (3) strong (- 53%), (4) very strong (- 62%), and (5) critical (- 74%). By calculating Q at the level of the single tree, trees were clustered according to tree vigour suppression. The weighted frequency of clusters in the field allowed replant impact to be quantified at field level. Applied to a case study on sandy brown, dry diluvial soils in Brandenburg, Germany, the calculated tree vigour suppression was 46% compared to the potential tree vigour on no-replant soil in the same field. It is highly likely that the calculated growth suppression corresponds to ARD-impact This result is relevant for identifying functional changes in soil and for monitoring the economic effects of soil fatigue in apple orchards, particularly where long-period crop rotation or plot exchange are improbable.
KW - orchard management
KW - trunk cross-sectional area
KW - alternaria group
KW - apple
KW - production
KW - soil fatigue
KW - apple replant disease
Y1 - 2020
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2019.105846
SN - 1470-160X
SN - 1872-7034
VL - 109
PB - Elsevier Science
CY - Amsterdam
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Ozcelikay, Goksu
A1 - Kurbanoglu, Sevinc
A1 - Yarman, Aysu
A1 - Scheller, Frieder W.
A1 - Ozkan, Sibel A.
T1 - Au-Pt nanoparticles based molecularly imprinted nanosensor for electrochemical detection of the lipopeptide antibiotic drug Daptomycin
JF - Sensors and actuators : B, Chemical
N2 - In this work, a novel electrochemical molecularly imprinted polymer (MIP) sensor for the detection of the lipopeptide antibiotic Daptomycin (DAP) is presented which integrates gold decorated platinum nanoparticles (Au-Pt NPs) into the nanocomposite film. The sensor was prepared by electropolymerization of o-phenylenediamine (o-PD) in the presence of DAP using cyclic voltammetry. Cyclic voltammetry and differential pulse voltammetry were applied to follow the changes in the MIP-layer related to rebinding and removal of the target DAP by using the redox marker [Fe(CN)(6)](3-/4-). Under optimized operational conditions, the MIP/Au-Pt NPs/ GCE nanosensor exhibits a linear response in the range of 1-20 pM towards DAP. The limit of detection and limit of quantification were determined to be 0.161pM +/- 0.012 and 0.489pM +/- 0.012, respectively. The sensitivity towards the antibiotics Vancomycin and Erythromycin and the amino acids glycine and tryptophan was below 7 percent as compared with DAP. Moreover, the nanosensor was also successfully used for the detection of DAP in deproteinated human serum samples.
KW - molecularly imprinted polymer
KW - Daptomycin
KW - platinum nanoparticles
KW - gold
KW - nanoparticles
KW - modified electrodes
Y1 - 2020
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.snb.2020.128285
SN - 0925-4005
VL - 320
PB - Elsevier Science
CY - Amsterdam
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Schroedter, Linda
A1 - Schneider, Roland
A1 - Remus, Lisa
A1 - Venus, Joachim
T1 - L-(+)-lactic acid from reed
BT - comparing various resources for the nutrient provision of B. coagulans
JF - Resources
N2 - Biotechnological production of lactic acid (LA) is based on the so-called first generation feedstocks, meaning sugars derived from food and feed crops such as corn, sugarcane and cassava. The aim of this study was to exploit the potential of a second generation resource: Common reed (Phragmites australis) is a powerfully reproducing sweet grass which grows in wetlands and creates vast monocultural populations. This lignocellulose biomass bears the possibility to be refined to value-added products, without competing with agro industrial land. Besides utilizing reed as a renewable and inexpensive substrate, low-cost nutritional supplementation was analyzed for the fermentation of thermophilicBacilluscoagulans.Various nutritional sources such as baker's and brewer's yeast, lucerne green juice and tryptone were investigated for the replacement of yeast extract. The structure of the lignocellulosic material was tackled by chemical treatment (1% NaOH) and enzymatic hydrolysis (Cellic(R)CTec2).B.coagulansDSM ID 14-300 was employed for the homofermentative conversion of the released hexose and pentose sugars to polymerizable L-(+)-LA of over 99.5% optical purity. The addition of autolyzed baker's yeast led to the best results of fermentation, enabling an LA titer of 28.3 g L(-1)and a yield of 91.6%.
KW - lignocellulose
KW - reed
KW - Phragmites australis
KW - lactic acid
KW - Bacillus
KW - coagulans
Y1 - 2020
U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/resources9070089
SN - 2079-9276
VL - 9
IS - 7
PB - MDPI
CY - Basel
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Stich, Daniel
A1 - Martin, Rosa
A1 - Morales, Jose
A1 - Lopez-Comino, Jose Angel
A1 - Mancilla, Flor de Lis
T1 - Slip partitioning in the 2016 Alboran Sea earthquake sequence (western Mediterranean)
JF - Frontiers in Earth Science
N2 - AM(W)= 5.1 earthquake on January 21st, 2016 marked the beginning of a significant seismic sequence in the southern Alboran Sea, culminating in aM(W)= 6.3 earthquake on January 25th, and continuing with further moderate magnitude earthquakes until March. We use data from 35 seismic broadband stations in Spain, Morocco and Portugal to relocate the seismicity, estimate seismic moment tensors, and isolate regional apparent source time functions for the main earthquake. Relocation and regional moment tensor inversion consistently yield very shallow depths for the majority of events. We obtain 50 moment tensors for the sequence, showing a mixture of strike-slip faulting for the foreshock and the main event and reverse faulting for the major aftershocks. The leading role of reverse focal mechanisms among the aftershocks may be explained by the geometry of the fault network. The mainshock nucleates at a bend along the left-lateral Al-Idrisi fault, introducing local transpression within the transtensional Alboran Basin. The shallow depths of the 2016 Alboran Sea earthquakes may favor slip-partitioning on the involved faults. Apparent source durations for the main event suggest a similar to 21 km long, asymmetric rupture that propagates primarily toward NE into the restraining fault segment, with fast rupture speed of similar to 3.0 km/s. Consistently, the inversion for laterally variable fault displacement situates the main slip in the restraining segment. The partitioning into strike-slip rupture and dip-slip aftershocks confirms a non-optimal orientation of this segment, and suggests that the 2016 event settled a slip deficit from previous ruptures that could not propagate into the stronger restraining segment.
KW - slip partitioning
KW - fault bend
KW - moment tensor
KW - source time function
KW - shallow earthquakes
Y1 - 2020
U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/feart.2020.587356
SN - 2296-6463
VL - 8
PB - Frontiers Media
CY - Lausanne
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Crisologo, Irene
A1 - Heistermann, Maik
T1 - Using ground radar overlaps to verify the retrieval of calibration bias estimates from spaceborne platforms
JF - Atmospheric measurement techniques : an interactive open access journal of the European Geosciences Union
N2 - Many institutions struggle to tap into the potential of their large archives of radar reflectivity: these data are often affected by miscalibration, yet the bias is typically unknown and temporally volatile. Still, relative calibration techniques can be used to correct the measurements a posteriori. For that purpose, the usage of spaceborne reflectivity observations from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) and Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) platforms has become increasingly popular: the calibration bias of a ground radar (GR) is estimated from its average reflectivity difference to the spaceborne radar (SR). Recently, Crisologo et al. (2018) introduced a formal procedure to enhance the reliability of such estimates: each match between SR and GR observations is assigned a quality index, and the calibration bias is inferred as a quality-weighted average of the differences between SR and GR. The relevance of quality was exemplified for the Subic S-band radar in the Philippines, which is greatly affected by partial beam blockage. The present study extends the concept of quality-weighted averaging by accounting for path-integrated attenuation (PIA) in addition to beam blockage. This extension becomes vital for radars that operate at the C or X band. Correspondingly, the study setup includes a C-band radar that substantially overlaps with the S-band radar. Based on the extended quality-weighting approach, we retrieve, for each of the two ground radars, a time series of calibration bias estimates from suitable SR overpasses. As a result of applying these estimates to correct the ground radar observations, the consistency between the ground radars in the region of overlap increased substantially. Furthermore, we investigated if the bias estimates can be interpolated in time, so that ground radar observations can be corrected even in the absence of prompt SR overpasses. We found that a moving average approach was most suitable for that purpose, although limited by the absence of explicit records of radar maintenance operations.
Y1 - 2020
U6 - https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-13-645-2020
SN - 1867-1381
SN - 1867-8548
VL - 13
IS - 2
SP - 645
EP - 659
PB - Copernicus
CY - Göttingen
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Pauly, Dennis Nikolas
A1 - Nottbusch, Guido
T1 - The Influence of the German Capitalization Rules on Reading
JF - Frontiers in Communication
N2 - German orthography systematically marks all nouns (even other nominalized word classes) by capitalizing their first letter. It is often claimed that readers benefit from the uppercase-letter syntactic and semantic information, which makes the processing of sentences easier (e.g., Bock et al., 1985, 1989). In order to test this hypothesis, we asked 54 German readers to read single sentences systematically manipulated by a target word (N). In the experimental condition (EXP), we used semantic priming (in the following example: sick -> cold) in order to build up a strong expectation of a noun, which was actually an attribute for the following noun (N+1) (translated to English e.g., "The sick writer had a cold (N) nose (N+1) ..."). The sentences in the control condition were built analogously, but word N was purposefully altered (keeping word length and frequency constant) to make its interpretation as a noun extremely unlikely (e.g., "The sick writer had a blue (N) nose (N+1) ..."). In both conditions, the sentences were presented either following German standard orthography (Cap) or in lowercase spelling (NoCap). The capitalized nouns in the EXP/Cap condition should then prevent garden-path parsing, as capital letters can be recognized parafoveally. However, in the EXP/NoCap condition, we expected a garden-path effect on word N+1 affecting first-pass fixations and the number of regressions, as the reader realizes that word N is instead an adjective. As the control condition does not include a garden-path, we expected to find (small) effects of the violation of the orthographic rule in the CON/NoCap condition, but no garden-path effect. As a global result, it can be stated that reading sentences in which nouns are not marked by a majuscule slows a native German reader down significantly, but from an absolute point of view, the effect is small. Compared with other manipulations (e.g., transpositions or substitutions), a lowercase letter still represents the correct allograph in the correct position without affecting phonology. Furthermore, most German readers do have experience with other alphabetic writing systems that lack consistent noun capitalization, and in (private) digital communication lowercase nouns are quite common. Although our garden-path sentences did not show the desired effect, we found an indication of grammatical pre-processing enabled by the majuscule in the regularly spelled sentences: In the case of high noun frequency, we post hoc located parafovea-on-fovea effects, i.e., longer fixation durations, on the attributive adjective (word N). These benefits of capitalization could only be detected under specific circumstances. In other cases, we conclude that longer reading durations are mainly the result of disturbance in readers' habituation when the expected capitalization is missing.
KW - orthography
KW - eye-tracking
KW - reading
KW - noun
KW - parafoveal and foveal
KW - processing
Y1 - 2020
U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomm.2020.00015
SN - 2297-900X
VL - 5
PB - Frontiers Media
CY - Lausanne
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Sanchez Garcia, Maria Clemencia
T1 - Las unidades fraseológicas del parlache como elementos evocadores de la oralidad ficcional en la novela Rosario Tijeras, de Jorge Franco y su traducción al alemán
T1 - Phraseological units of the parlache as evocative elements of the fictional orality in the German translation of Jorge Franco’s 'Rosario Tijeras'
JF - Lingüística y literatura
N2 - Este estudioanalizócómose evoca la oralidad ficcional en la novela Rosario Tijerasa través de la variación lingüística. Para ello, se analizóun corpus de veinteunidades fraseológicas presentes en la novela y su traducción al alemán. En esta novela negra, el autor recurrióa un lenguaje coloquial llamado parlache. Este artículo, por tanto,se pretenderá establecer cómo estas unidades fraseológicas típicas del parlachecontribuyerona la construcción de un diálogo hablado verosímil, además de determinar las divergencias de traducción y profundizar en la descripción de la variación lingüística a través de las unidades fraseológicas.
N2 - This study analysed how fictive orality is evoked, through linguistic variation, in the novel Rosario Tijeras, through a corpus analysis of 20 phraseological units belonging to the novel and their German translation. In this thriller, Franco used a colloquial language called parlache. Thus, this article will attempt to establish how these parlache’s phraseological units contributed to the construction of a believable spoken dialogue and will also analyze translation divergences and the description of linguistic variation in literary translation.
KW - oralidad ficcional
KW - parlache
KW - unidad fraseológica
KW - variación lingüística
KW - novela negra
Y1 - 2020
U6 - https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.lyl.n77a17
SN - 0120-5587
SN - 2422-3174
VL - 41
IS - 77
SP - 385
EP - 409
PB - Universidad de Antioquia
CY - Medellín
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Maoutsa, Dimitra
A1 - Reich, Sebastian
A1 - Opper, Manfred
T1 - Interacting particle solutions of Fokker–Planck equations through gradient–log–density estimation
JF - Entropy
N2 - Fokker-Planck equations are extensively employed in various scientific fields as they characterise the behaviour of stochastic systems at the level of probability density functions. Although broadly used, they allow for analytical treatment only in limited settings, and often it is inevitable to resort to numerical solutions. Here, we develop a computational approach for simulating the time evolution of Fokker-Planck solutions in terms of a mean field limit of an interacting particle system. The interactions between particles are determined by the gradient of the logarithm of the particle density, approximated here by a novel statistical estimator. The performance of our method shows promising results, with more accurate and less fluctuating statistics compared to direct stochastic simulations of comparable particle number. Taken together, our framework allows for effortless and reliable particle-based simulations of Fokker-Planck equations in low and moderate dimensions. The proposed gradient-log-density estimator is also of independent interest, for example, in the context of optimal control.
KW - stochastic systems
KW - Fokker-Planck equation
KW - interacting particles
KW - multiplicative noise
KW - gradient flow
KW - stochastic differential equations
Y1 - 2020
U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/e22080802
SN - 1099-4300
VL - 22
IS - 8
PB - MDPI
CY - Basel
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Krasotkina, Anna
A1 - Götz, Antonia
A1 - Höhle, Barbara
A1 - Schwarzer, Gudrun
T1 - Infants’ gaze patterns for same-race and other-race faces, and the other-race effect
JF - Brain Sciences
N2 - The other-race effect (ORE) can be described as difficulties in discriminating between faces of ethnicities other than one's own, and can already be observed at approximately 9 months of age. Recent studies also showed that infants visually explore same-and other-race faces differently. However, it is still unclear whether infants' looking behavior for same- and other-race faces is related to their face discrimination abilities. To investigate this question we conducted a habituation-dishabituation experiment to examine Caucasian 9-month-old infants' gaze behavior, and their discrimination of same- and other-race faces, using eye-tracking measurements. We found that infants looked longer at the eyes of same-race faces over the course of habituation, as compared to other-race faces. After habituation, infants demonstrated a clear other-race effect by successfully discriminating between same-race faces, but not other-race faces. Importantly, the infants' ability to discriminate between same-race faces significantly correlated with their fixation time towards the eyes of same-race faces during habituation. Thus, our findings suggest that for infants old enough to begin exhibiting the ORE, gaze behavior during habituation is related to their ability to differentiate among same-race faces, compared to other-race faces.
KW - eye-tracking
KW - infancy
KW - habituation
KW - other-race effect
KW - face
KW - discrimination
Y1 - 2020
U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci10060331
SN - 2076-3425
VL - 10
IS - 6
PB - Brain Sciences
CY - Basel
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Perera, Upeksha
A1 - Böckmann, Christine
T1 - Solutions of Sturm-Liouville problems
JF - Mathematics
N2 - This paper further improves the Lie group method with Magnus expansion proposed in a previous paper by the authors, to solve some types of direct singular Sturm-Liouville problems. Next, a concrete implementation to the inverse Sturm-Liouville problem algorithm proposed by Barcilon (1974) is provided. Furthermore, computational feasibility and applicability of this algorithm to solve inverse Sturm-Liouville problems of higher order (for n=2,4) are verified successfully. It is observed that the method is successful even in the presence of significant noise, provided that the assumptions of the algorithm are satisfied. In conclusion, this work provides a method that can be adapted successfully for solving a direct (regular/singular) or inverse Sturm-Liouville problem (SLP) of an arbitrary order with arbitrary boundary conditions.
KW - Sturm-Liouville problems of higher order
KW - singular Sturm-Liouville
KW - problems
KW - inverse Sturm-Liouville problems
Y1 - 2020
U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/math8112074
SN - 2227-7390
VL - 8
IS - 11
PB - MDPI
CY - Basel
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Schenke, Maren
A1 - Schjeide, Brit-Maren
A1 - Püschel, Gerhard Paul
A1 - Seeger, Bettina
T1 - Analysis of motor neurons differentiated from human induced pluripotent stem cells for the use in cell-based Botulinum neurotoxin activity assays
JF - Toxins
N2 - Botulinum neurotoxins (BoNTs) are potent neurotoxins produced by bacteria, which inhibit neurotransmitter release, specifically in their physiological target known as motor neurons (MNs). For the potency assessment of BoNTs produced for treatment in traditional and aesthetic medicine, the mouse lethality assay is still used by the majority of manufacturers, which is ethically questionable in terms of the 3Rs principle. In this study, MNs were differentiated from human induced pluripotent stem cells based on three published protocols. The resulting cell populations were analyzed for their MN yield and their suitability for the potency assessment of BoNTs. MNs produce specific gangliosides and synaptic proteins, which are bound by BoNTs in order to be taken up by receptor-mediated endocytosis, which is followed by cleavage of specific soluble N-ethylmaleimide-sensitive-factor attachment receptor (SNARE) proteins required for neurotransmitter release. The presence of receptors and substrates for all BoNT serotypes was demonstrated in MNs generated in vitro. In particular, the MN differentiation protocol based on Du et al. yielded high numbers of MNs in a short amount of time with high expression of BoNT receptors and targets. The resulting cells are more sensitive to BoNT/A1 than the commonly used neuroblastoma cell line SiMa. MNs are, therefore, an ideal tool for being combined with already established detection methods.
KW - Botulinum neurotoxin
KW - motor neurons
KW - cell-based in vitro assay
KW - potency
KW - assessment
KW - induced pluripotent stem cells
Y1 - 2020
U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/toxins12050276
SN - 2072-6651
VL - 12
IS - 5
PB - MDPI
CY - Basel
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Kellis, Eleftherios
A1 - Ellinoudis, Athanasios
A1 - Intziegianni, Konstantina
A1 - Kofotolis, Nikolaos
T1 - Muscle thickness during core stability exercises in children and adults
JF - Journal of human kinetics
N2 - Core stability exercises are regular part of exercise programs for asymptomatic individuals across ages. The purpose of this study was to examine deep abdominal and multifidus muscle thickness in children and adults and to determine reliability of the rehabilitative ultrasound (RUSI) imaging. Transversus abdominis and lumbar multifidus thickness at rest and during core stability exercise were examined in pre-pubertal children (N = 23), adolescents (N = 20), young adults (N = 21) and middle-aged adults (N = 22). Thirty-nine participants were re-tested one week after to establish reliability. Muscle thickness at rest was lower in children and adolescents compared with young and middle-aged adults (p < 0.008). Young adults displayed the highest relative transversus abdominis thickness upon contraction (p < 0.008). Lumbar multfidus contraction thickness was greater in young-adults than middle-aged adults and prepubertal children (p < 0.008), but it was similar between young-adults and adolescents (p > 0.008). Reliability was high for both muscles (ICC3,3 = 0.76 - 0.99). The age-related differences in muscle thickness indicate that core stability exercises may be beneficial for children and middle-aged adults.
KW - childhood
KW - musculoskeletal ultrasound
KW - repeatability
KW - core exercise
KW - core stability
Y1 - 2020
U6 - https://doi.org/10.2478/hukin-2019-0079
SN - 1640-5544
SN - 1899-7562
VL - 71
IS - 1
SP - 131
EP - 144
PB - Academy of Physical Education
CY - Katowice
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Wieczorek, Mareike
A1 - Herzschuh, Ulrike
T1 - Compilation of relative pollen productivity (RPP) estimates and taxonomically harmonised RPP datasets for single continents and Northern Hemisphere extratropics
JF - Earth system science data : ESSD
N2 - Relative pollen productivity (RPP) estimates are fractionate values, often in relation to Poaceae, that allow vegetation cover to be estimated from pollen counts with the help of models. RPP estimates are especially used in the scientific community in Europe and China, with a few studies in North America. Here we present a comprehensive compilation of available northern hemispheric RPP studies and their results arising from 51 publications with 60 sites and 131 taxa. This compilation allows scientists to identify data gaps in need of further RPP analyses but can also aid them in finding an RPP set for their study region. We also present a taxonomically harmonised, unified RPP dataset for the Northern Hemisphere and subsets for North America (including Greenland), Europe (including arctic Russia), and China, which we generated from the available studies. The unified dataset gives the mean RPP for 55 harmonised taxa as well as fall speeds, which are necessary to reconstruct vegetation cover from pollen counts and RPP values. Data are openly available at https://doi.org/10.1594/PANGAEA.922661 (Wieczorek and Herzschuh, 2020).
Y1 - 2020
U6 - https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-12-3515-2020
SN - 1866-3508
SN - 1866-3516
VL - 12
IS - 4
SP - 3515
EP - 3528
PB - Copernicus
CY - Göttingen
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Trounson, Karl M.
A1 - Busch, Aglaja
A1 - Collier, Neil French
A1 - Robertson, Samuel
T1 - Effects of acute wearable resistance loading on overground running lower body kinematics
JF - PLoS one
N2 - Field-based sports require athletes to run sub-maximally over significant distances, often while contending with dynamic perturbations to preferred coordination patterns. The ability to adapt movement to maintain performance under such perturbations appears to be trainable through exposure to task variability, which encourages movement variability. The aim of the present study was to investigate the extent to which various wearable resistance loading magnitudes alter coordination and induce movement variability during running. To investigate this, 14 participants (three female and 11 male) performed 10 sub-maximal velocity shuttle runs with either no weight, 1%, 3%, or 5% of body weight attached to the lower limbs. Sagittal plane lower limb joint kinematics from one complete stride cycle in each run were assessed using functional data analysis techniques, both across the participant group and within-individuals. At the group-level, decreases in ankle plantarflexion following toe-off were evident in the 3% and 5% conditions, while increased knee flexion occurred during weight acceptance in the 5% condition compared with unloaded running. At the individual-level, between-run joint angle profiles varied, with six participants exhibiting increased joint angle variability in one or more loading conditions compared with unloaded running. Loading of 5% decreased between-run ankle joint variability among two individuals, likely in accordance with the need to manage increased system load or the novelty of the task. In terms of joint coordination, the most considerable alterations to coordination occurred in the 5% loading condition at the hip-knee joint pair, however, only a minority of participants exhibited this tendency. Coaches should prescribe wearable resistance individually to perturb preferred coordination patterns and encourage movement variability without loading to the extent that movement options become limited.
KW - movement patterns
KW - external perturbations
KW - australian football
KW - performance
KW - variability
KW - coordination
KW - freedom
KW - leg
KW - identification
KW - adaptations
Y1 - 2020
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0244361
SN - 1932-6203
VL - 15
IS - 12
PB - PLoS
CY - San Francisco, California, US
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Natho, Stephanie
A1 - Tschikof, Martin
A1 - Bondar-Kunze, Elisabeth
A1 - Hein, Thomas
T1 - Modeling the effect of enhanced lateral connectivity on nutrient retention capacity in large river floodplains
BT - how much connected floodplain do we need?
JF - Frontiers in Environmental Science
N2 - Floodplains have been degraded in Central Europe for centuries, resulting in less dynamic and less diverse ecosystems than in the past. They provide essential ecosystem services like nutrient retention to improve overall water quality and thus fulfill naturally what EU legislation demands, but this service is impaired by reduced connectivity patterns. Along the second-longest river in Europe, the Danube, restoration measures have been carried out and are planned for the near future in the Austrian Danube Floodplain National Park in accordance with navigation purposes. We investigated nutrient retention capacity in seven currently differently connected side arms and the effects of proposed restoration measures using two complementary modeling approaches. We modeled nutrient retention capacity in two scenarios considering different hydrological conditions, as well as the consequences of planned restoration measures for side arm connectivity. With existing monitoring data on hydrology, nitrate, and total phosphorus concentrations for three side arms, we applied a statistical model and compared these results to a semi-empirical retention model. The latter was originally developed for larger scales, based on transferable causalities of retention processes and set up for this floodplain with publicly available data. Both model outcomes are in a comparable range for NO3-N (77-198 kg ha(-1)yr(-1)) and TP (1.4-5.7 kg ha(-1)yr(-1)) retention and agree in calculating higher retention in floodplains, where reconnection allows more frequent inundation events. However, the differences in the model results are significant for specific aspects especially during high flows, where the semi-empirical model complements the statistical model. On the other hand, the statistical model complements the semi-empirical model when taking into account nutrient retention at times of no connection between the remaining water bodies left in the floodplain. Overall, both models show clearly that nutrient retention in the Danube floodplains can be enhanced by restoring lateral hydrological reconnection and, for all planned measures, a positive effect on the overall water quality of the Danube River is expected. Still, a frequently hydrologically connected stretch of national park is insufficient to improve the water quality of the whole Upper Danube, and more functional floodplains are required.
KW - floodplain
KW - lateral hydrological connectivity
KW - Danube
KW - restoration
KW - reconnection
KW - inundation
KW - nutrient retention
KW - modeling
Y1 - 2020
U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fenvs.2020.00074
SN - 2296-665X
VL - 8
PB - Frontiers Media
CY - Lausanne
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Matthias, Katja
A1 - Rissling, Olesja
A1 - Pieper, Dawid Aleksander
A1 - Morche, Johannes
A1 - Nocon, Marc
A1 - Jacobs, Anja
A1 - Wegewitz, Uta Elke
A1 - Schirm, Jaqueline
A1 - Lorenz, Robert C.
T1 - The methodological quality of systematic reviews on the treatment of adult major depression needs improvement according to AMSTAR 2
BT - a cross-sectional study
JF - Heliyon
N2 - Background:
Several standards have been developed to assess methodological quality of systematic reviews (SR). One widely used tool is the AMSTAR. A recent update -AMSTAR 2 -is a 16 item evaluation tool that enables a detailed assessment of SR that include randomised (RCT) or non-randomised studies (NRS) of healthcare interventions.
Methods:
A cross-sectional study of SR on pharmacological or psychological interventions in major depression in adults was conducted. SR published during 2012-2017 were sampled from MEDLINE, EMBASE and the Cochrane Database of SR. Methodological quality was assessed using AMSTAR 2. Potential predictive factors associated with quality were examined.
Results:
In rating overall confidence in the results of 60 SR four reviews were rated "high", two were "moderate", one was "low" and 53 were "critically low". The mean AMSTAR 2 percentage score was 45.3% (standard deviation 22.6%) in a wide range from 7.1% to 93.8%. Predictors of higher quality were: type of review (higher quality in Cochrane Reviews), SR including only randomized trials and higher journal impact factor.
Limitations:
AMSTAR 2 is not intended to be used for the generation of a percentage score.
Conclusions:
According to AMSTAR 2 the overall methodological quality of SR on the treatment of adult major depression needs improvement. Although there is a high need for summarized information in the field of mental health, this work demonstrates the need to critically assess SR before using their findings. Better adherence to established reporting guidelines for SR is needed.
KW - public health
KW - epidemiology
KW - psychiatry
KW - depression
KW - evidence-based
KW - medicine
KW - AMSTAR 2
KW - methodological quality
KW - risk of bias
KW - systematic
KW - review
KW - major depression
Y1 - 2020
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2020.e04776
SN - 2405-8440
VL - 6
IS - 9
PB - Elsevier
CY - London [u.a.]
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Ette, Ottmar
T1 - Mi primera lectura académica
T1 - My first academic lecture
BT - Mimesis, de Erich Auerbach
BT - Mimesis by Erich Auerbach
JF - Álabe : Revista de Investigación sobre Lectura y Escritura
Y1 - 2020
U6 - https://doi.org/10.15645/Alabe2020.22.13
SN - 2171-9624
IS - 22
PB - Universidad de Almería
CY - Almería
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Wetzel, Maria
A1 - Kempka, Thomas
A1 - Kühn, Michael
T1 - Hydraulic and mechanical impacts of pore space alterations within a sandstone quantified by a flow velocity-dependent precipitation approach
JF - Materials
N2 - Geochemical processes change the microstructure of rocks and thereby affect their physical behaviour at the macro scale. A micro-computer tomography (micro-CT) scan of a typical reservoir sandstone is used to numerically examine the impact of three spatial alteration patterns on pore morphology, permeability and elastic moduli by correlating precipitation with the local flow velocity magnitude. The results demonstrate that the location of mineral growth strongly affects the permeability decrease with variations by up to four orders in magnitude. Precipitation in regions of high flow velocities is characterised by a predominant clogging of pore throats and a drastic permeability reduction, which can be roughly described by the power law relation with an exponent of 20. A continuous alteration of the pore structure by uniform mineral growth reduces the permeability comparable to the power law with an exponent of four or the Kozeny-Carman relation. Preferential precipitation in regions of low flow velocities predominantly affects smaller throats and pores with a minor impact on the flow regime, where the permeability decrease is considerably below that calculated by the power law with an exponent of two. Despite their complete distinctive impact on hydraulics, the spatial precipitation patterns only slightly affect the increase in elastic rock properties with differences by up to 6.3% between the investigated scenarios. Hence, an adequate characterisation of the spatial precipitation pattern is crucial to quantify changes in hydraulic rock properties, whereas the present study shows that its impact on elastic rock parameters is limited. The calculated relations between porosity and permeability, as well as elastic moduli can be applied for upscaling micro-scale findings to reservoir-scale models to improve their predictive capabilities, what is of paramount importance for a sustainable utilisation of the geological subsurface.
KW - Bentheim sandstone
KW - digital rock physics
KW - micro-CT
KW - elastic properties
KW - permeability
KW - precipitation
Y1 - 2020
U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/ma13143100
SN - 1996-1944
VL - 13
IS - 14
PB - MDPI
CY - Basel
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Marzetz, Vanessa
A1 - Spijkerman, Elly
A1 - Striebel, Maren
A1 - Wacker, Alexander
T1 - Phytoplankton community responses to interactions between light intensity, light variations, and phosphorus supply
JF - Frontiers in Environmental Science
N2 - In a changing world, phytoplankton communities face a large variety of challenges including altered light regimes. These alterations are caused by more pronounced stratification due to rising temperatures, enhanced eutrophication, and browning of lakes. Community responses toward these effects can emerge as alterations in physiology, biomass, biochemical composition, or diversity. In this study, we addressed the combined effects of changes in light and nutrient conditions on community responses. In particular, we investigated how light intensity and variability under two nutrient conditions influence (1) fast responses such as adjustments in photosynthesis, (2) intermediate responses such as pigment adaptation and (3) slow responses such as changes in community biomass and species composition. Therefore, we exposed communities consisting of five phytoplankton species belonging to different taxonomic groups to two constant and two variable light intensity treatments combined with two levels of phosphorus supply. The tested phytoplankton communities exhibited increased fast reactions of photosynthetic processes to light variability and light intensity. The adjustment of their light harvesting mechanisms via community pigment composition was not affected by light intensity, variability, or nutrient supply. However, pigment specific effects of light intensity, light variability, and nutrient supply on the proportion of the respective pigments were detected. Biomass was positively affected by higher light intensity and nutrient concentrations while the direction of the effect of variability was modulated by light intensity. Light variability had a negative impact on biomass at low, but a positive impact at high light intensity. The effects on community composition were species specific. Generally, the proportion of green algae was higher under high light intensity, whereas the cyanobacterium performed better under low light conditions. In addition to that, the diatom and the cryptophyte performed better with high nutrient supply while the green algae as well as the cyanobacterium performed better at low nutrient conditions. This shows that light intensity, light variability, and nutrient supply interactively affect communities. Furthermore, the responses are highly species and pigment specific, thus to clarify the effects of climate change a deeper understanding of the effects of light variability and species interactions within communities is important.
KW - phytoplankton communities
KW - light variability
KW - photosynthetic rate
KW - climate change
KW - resource competition
KW - light intensity (irradiance)
KW - pigment composition
KW - nutrient supply
Y1 - 2020
U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fenvs.2020.539733
SN - 2296-665X
VL - 8
PB - Frontiers Media
CY - Lausanne
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Cheng, Chaojie
A1 - Milsch, Harald
T1 - Evolution of fracture aperture in quartz sandstone under hydrothermal conditions
BT - mechanical and chemical effects
JF - Minerals
N2 - Fractures efficiently affect fluid flow in geological formations, and thereby determine mass and energy transport in reservoirs, which are not least exploited for economic resources. In this context, their response to mechanical and thermal changes, as well as fluid-rock interactions, is of paramount importance. In this study, a two-stage flow-through experiment was conducted on a pure quartz sandstone core of low matrix permeability, containing one single macroscopic tensile fracture. In the first short-term stage, the effects of mechanical and hydraulic aperture on pressure and temperature cycles were investigated. The purpose of the subsequent intermittent-flow long-term (140 days) stage was to constrain the evolution of the geometrical and hydraulic fracture properties resulting from pressure solution. Deionized water was used as the pore fluid, and permeability, as well as the effluent Si concentrations, were systematically measured. Overall, hydraulic aperture was shown to be significantly less affected by pressure, temperature and time, in comparison to mechanical aperture. During the long-term part of the experiment at 140 degrees C, the effluent Si concentrations likely reached a chemical equilibrium state within less than 8 days of stagnant flow, and exceeded the corresponding hydrostatic quartz solubility at this temperature. This implies that the pressure solution was active at the contacting fracture asperities, both at 140 degrees C and after cooling to 33 degrees C. The higher temperature yielded a higher dissolution rate and, consequently, a faster attainment of chemical equilibrium within the contact fluid. X-ray mu CT observations evidenced a noticeable increase in fracture contact area ratio, which, in combination with theoretical considerations, implies a significant decrease in mechanical aperture. In contrast, the sample permeability, and thus the hydraulic fracture aperture, virtually did not vary. In conclusion, pressure solution-induced fracture aperture changes are affected by the degree of time-dependent variations in pore fluid composition. In contrast to the present case of a quasi-closed system with mostly stagnant flow, in an open system with continuous once-through fluid flow, the activity of the pressure solution may be amplified due to the persistent fluid-chemical nonequilibrium state, thus possibly enhancing aperture and fracture permeability changes.
KW - flow-through experiment
KW - fracture aperture
KW - pressure solution
KW - mass
KW - transfer
KW - silica concentration
KW - permeability
KW - quartz sandstone
Y1 - 2020
U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/min10080657
SN - 2075-163X
VL - 10
IS - 8
PB - MDPI
CY - Basel
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Gehre, Christian
A1 - Flechner, Marie
A1 - Kammerer, Sarah
A1 - Küpper, Jan-Heiner
A1 - Coleman, Charles Dominic
A1 - Püschel, Gerhard Paul
A1 - Uhlig, Katja
A1 - Duschl, Claus
T1 - Real time monitoring of oxygen uptake of hepatocytes in a microreactor using optical microsensors
JF - Scientific reports
N2 - Most in vitro test systems for the assessment of toxicity are based on endpoint measurements and cannot contribute much to the establishment of mechanistic models, which are crucially important for further progress in this field. Hence, in recent years, much effort has been put into the development of methods that generate kinetic data. Real time measurements of the metabolic activity of cells based on the use of oxygen sensitive microsensor beads have been shown to provide access to the mode of action of compounds in hepatocytes. However, for fully exploiting this approach a detailed knowledge of the microenvironment of the cells is required. In this work, we investigate the cellular behaviour of three types of hepatocytes, HepG2 cells, HepG2-3A4 cells and primary mouse hepatocytes, towards their exposure to acetaminophen when the availability of oxygen for the cell is systematically varied. We show that the relative emergence of two modes of action, one NAPQI dependent and the other one transient and NAPQI independent, scale with expression level of CYP3A4. The transient cellular response associated to mitochondrial respiration is used to characterise the influence of the initial oxygen concentration in the wells before exposure to acetaminophen on the cell behaviour. A simple model is presented to describe the behaviour of the cells in this scenario. It demonstrates the level of control over the role of oxygen supply in these experiments. This is crucial for establishing this approach into a reliable and powerful method for the assessment of toxicity.
Y1 - 2020
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-70785-6
SN - 2045-2322
VL - 10
IS - 1
PB - Macmillan Publishers Limited, part of Springer Nature
CY - [London]
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Stojkoski, Viktor
A1 - Sandev, Trifce
A1 - Basnarkov, Lasko
A1 - Kocarev, Ljupco
A1 - Metzler, Ralf
T1 - Generalised geometric Brownian motion
BT - theory and applications to option pricing
JF - Entropy
N2 - Classical option pricing schemes assume that the value of a financial asset follows a geometric Brownian motion (GBM). However, a growing body of studies suggest that a simple GBM trajectory is not an adequate representation for asset dynamics, due to irregularities found when comparing its properties with empirical distributions. As a solution, we investigate a generalisation of GBM where the introduction of a memory kernel critically determines the behaviour of the stochastic process. We find the general expressions for the moments, log-moments, and the expectation of the periodic log returns, and then obtain the corresponding probability density functions using the subordination approach. Particularly, we consider subdiffusive GBM (sGBM), tempered sGBM, a mix of GBM and sGBM, and a mix of sGBMs. We utilise the resulting generalised GBM (gGBM) in order to examine the empirical performance of a selected group of kernels in the pricing of European call options. Our results indicate that the performance of a kernel ultimately depends on the maturity of the option and its moneyness.
KW - geometric Brownian motion
KW - Fokker– Planck equation
KW - Black– Scholes model
KW - option pricing
Y1 - 2020
U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/e22121432
SN - 1099-4300
VL - 22
IS - 12
PB - MDPI
CY - Basel
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Herzog, Stefan M.
A1 - Jenny, Mirjam A.
A1 - Nickel, Christian
A1 - Ortega, Ricardo Nieves
A1 - Bingisser, Roland
T1 - Emergency department patients with weakness or fatigue
BT - can physicians predict their outcomes at the front door? A prospective observational study
JF - PLOS ONE
N2 - Background
Generalized weakness and fatigue are underexplored symptoms in emergency medicine. Triage tools often underestimate patients presenting to the emergency department (ED) with these nonspecific symptoms (Nemec et al., 2010). At the same time, physicians' disease severity rating (DSR) on a scale from 0 (not sick at all) to 10 (extremely sick) predicts key outcomes in ED patients (Beglinger et al., 2015; Rohacek et al., 2015). Our goals were (1) to characterize ED patients with weakness and/or fatigue (W|F); to explore (2) to what extent physicians' DSR at triage can predict five key outcomes in ED patients with W|F; (3) how well DSR performs relative to two commonly used benchmark methods, the Emergency Severity Index (ESI) and the Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI); (4) to what extent DSR provides predictive information beyond ESI, CCI, or their linear combination, i.e., whether ESI and CCI should be used alone or in combination with DSR; and (5) to what extent ESI, CCI, or their linear combination provide predictive information beyond DSR alone, i.e., whether DSR should be used alone or in combination with ESI and / or CCI.
Methods
Prospective observational study between 2013-2015 (analysis in 2018-2020, study team blinded to hypothesis) conducted at a single center. We study an all-comer cohort of 3,960 patients (48% female patients, median age = 51 years, 94% completed 1-year follow-up). We looked at two primary outcomes (acute morbidity (Bingisser et al., 2017; Weigel et al., 2017) and all-cause 1- year mortality) and three secondary outcomes (in-hospital mortality, hospitalization and transfer to ICU). We assessed the predictive power (i.e., resolution, measured as the Area under the ROC Curve, AUC) of the scores and, using logistic regression, their linear combinations.
Findings
Compared to patients without W|F (n = 3,227), patients with W|F (n = 733) showed higher prevalences for all five outcomes, reported more symptoms across both genders, and received higher DSRs (median = 4; interquartile range (IQR) = 3-6 vs. median = 3; IQR = 2-5). DSR predicted all five outcomes well above chance (i.e., AUCs > similar to 0.70), similarly well for both patients with and without W|F, and as good as or better than ESI and CCI in patients with and without W|F (except for 1-year mortality where CCI performs better). For acute morbidity, hospitalization, and transfer to ICU there is clear evidence that adding DSR to ESI and/or CCI improves predictions for both patient groups; for 1-year mortality and in-hospital mortality this holds for most, but not all comparisons. Adding ESI and/or CCI to DSR generally did not improve performance or even decreased it.
Conclusions
The use of physicians' disease severity rating has never been investigated in patients with generalized weakness and fatigue. We show that physicians' prediction of acute morbidity, mortality, hospitalization, and transfer to ICU through their DSR is also accurate in these patients. Across all patients, DSR is less predictive of acute morbidity for female than male patients, however. Future research should investigate how emergency physicians judge their patients' clinical state at triage and how this can be improved and used in simple decision aids.
Y1 - 2020
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0239902
SN - 1932-6203
VL - 15
IS - 11
PB - Public Library of Science
CY - San Francisco, California, US
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Wagner, Birgit
A1 - Hofmann, Laura
A1 - Maaß, Ulrike
T1 - Online-group intervention after suicide bereavement through the use of webinars
BT - study protocol for a randomized controlled trial
JF - Trials
N2 - Introduction:
The death of a significant person through suicide is a very difficult experience and can have long-term impact on an individual's psychosocial and physical functioning. However, there are only few studies that have examined the effects of interventions in suicide survivors. In the present study, we examine an online-group intervention for people bereaved by suicide using a group-webinar.
Methods:
The intervention was developed based on focus groups with the target group. The cognitive-behavioral 12-module webinar-based group intervention focuses on suicide bereavement-related themes such as feelings of guilt, stigmatization, meaning reconstruction and the relationship to the deceased. Further, the webinar includes testimonial videos and psychoeducation. The suicide survivors are randomized to the intervention or the waiting list in a group-cluster randomized controlled trial. Primary outcomes are suicidality (Beck Scale for Suicide Ideation) and depression (Beck Depression Inventory-II) and secondary outcomes are symptoms of prolonged grief disorder (Inventory of Complicated Grief-German Version ), posttraumatic stress disorder ( Revised Impact of Event Scale ), stigmatization (Stigma of Suicide and Suicide Survivor ) and posttraumatic cognitions (Posttraumatic Cognitions Inventory).
Discussion:
Previous studies of Internet-based interventions for the bereaved were based on writing interventions showing large treatment effects. Little is known about the use of webinars as group interventions. Advantages and challenges of this novel approach of psychological interventions will be discussed.
KW - Suicide bereavement
KW - grief
KW - group intervention
KW - webinar
KW - suicidality
KW - prolonged grief disorder
KW - randomized controlled trial
Y1 - 2020
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1186/s13063-019-3891-5
SN - 1468-6694
SN - 1745-6215
VL - 21
IS - 1
PB - BioMed Central
CY - London
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Schneeberger, Karin
A1 - Röder, Gregory
A1 - Taborsky, Michael
T1 - The smell of hunger
BT - Norway rats provision social partners based on odour cues of need
JF - PLoS biology
N2 - When individuals exchange helpful acts reciprocally, increasing the benefit of the receiver can enhance its propensity to return a favour, as pay-offs are typically correlated in iterated interactions. Therefore, reciprocally cooperating animals should consider the relative benefit for the receiver when deciding to help a conspecific. Norway rats (Rattus norvegicus) exchange food reciprocally and thereby take into account both the cost of helping and the potential benefit to the receiver. By using a variant of the sequential iterated prisoner's dilemma paradigm, we show that rats may determine the need of another individual by olfactory cues alone. In an experimental food-exchange task, test subjects were provided with odour cues from hungry or satiated conspecifics located in a different room. Our results show that wild-type Norway rats provide help to a stooge quicker when they receive odour cues from a hungry rather than from a satiated conspecific. Using chemical analysis by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), we identify seven volatile organic compounds that differ in their abundance between hungry and satiated rats. Combined, this "smell of hunger" can apparently serve as a reliable cue of need in reciprocal cooperation, which supports the hypothesis of honest signalling.
Y1 - 2020
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000628
SN - 1544-9173
SN - 1545-7885
VL - 18
IS - 3
PB - PLoS
CY - San Fransisco
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Deutschmann, Claudia
A1 - Roggenbuck, Dirk
A1 - Schierack, Peter
A1 - Rödiger, Stefan
T1 - Autoantibody testing by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay-a case in which the solid phase decides on success and failure
JF - Heliyon
N2 - Background: The enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) is an indispensable tool for clinical diagnostics to identify or differentiate diseases such as autoimmune illnesses, but also to monitor their progression or control the efficacy of drugs. One use case of ELISA is to differentiate between different states (e.g. healthy vs. diseased). Another goal is to quantitatively assess the biomarker in question, like autoantibodies. Thus, the ELISA technology is used for the discovery and verification of new autoantibodies, too. Of key interest, however, is the development of immunoassays for the sensitive and specific detection of such biomarkers at early disease stages. Therefore, users have to deal with many parameters, such as buffer systems or antigen-autoantibody interactions, to successfully establish an ELISA. Often, fine-tuning like testing of several blocking substances is performed to yield high signal-to-noise ratios.
Methods: We developed an ELISA to detect IgA and IgG autoantibodies against chitinase-3-like protein 1 (CHI3L1), a newly identified autoantigen in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), in the serum of control and disease groups (n = 23, respectively). Microwell plates with different surface modifications (PolySorp and MaxiSorp coating) were tested to detect reproducibility problems.
Results: We found a significant impact of the surface properties of the microwell plates. IgA antibody reactivity was significantly lower, since it was in the range of background noise, when measured on MaxiSorp coated plates (p < 0.0001). The IgG antibody reactivity did not differ on the diverse plates, but the plate surface had a significant influence on the test result (p = 0.0005).
Conclusion: With this report, we want to draw readers' attention to the properties of solid phases and their effects on the detection of autoantibodies by ELISA. We want to sensitize the reader to the fact that the choice of the wrong plate can lead to a false negative test result, which in turn has serious consequences for the discovery of autoantibodies.
KW - biochemistry
KW - coatings
KW - surface chemistry
KW - immunology
KW - proteins
KW - laboratory medicine
KW - clinical research
KW - enzyme-linked immunosorbent
KW - assay
KW - biomarker discovery
KW - reproducibility
KW - solid-phase
KW - autoantibody
Y1 - 2020
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2020.e03270
SN - 2405-8440
VL - 6
IS - 1
PB - Elsevier
CY - London [u.a.]
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Baes, Marzieh
A1 - Sobolev, Stephan
A1 - Gerya, Taras V.
A1 - Brune, Sascha
T1 - Plume-induced subduction initiation
BT - single-slab or multi-slab subduction?
JF - Geochemistry, geophysics, geosystems
N2 - Initiation of subduction following the impingement of a hot buoyant mantle plume is one of the few scenarios that allow breaking the lithosphere and recycling a stagnant lid without requiring any preexisting weak zones. Here, we investigate factors controlling the number and shape of retreating subducting slabs formed by plume-lithosphere interaction. Using 3-D thermomechanical models we show that the deformation regime, which defines formation of single-slab or multi-slab subduction, depends on several parameters such as age of oceanic lithosphere, thickness of the crust and large-scale lithospheric extension rate. Our model results indicate that on present-day Earth multi-slab plume-induced subduction is initiated only if the oceanic lithosphere is relatively young (<30-40 Myr, but >10 Myr), and the crust has a typical thickness of 8 km. In turn, development of single-slab subduction is facilitated by older lithosphere and pre-imposed extensional stresses. In early Earth, plume-lithosphere interaction could have led to formation of either episodic short-lived circular subduction when the oceanic lithosphere was young or to multi-slab subduction when the lithosphere was old.
KW - subduction zone
KW - plume
KW - numerical model
KW - singleslab
KW - multi-slab
Y1 - 2020
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1029/2019GC008663
SN - 1525-2027
VL - 21
IS - 2
PB - American Geophysical Union
CY - Washington
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Baes, Marzieh
A1 - Sobolev, Stephan V.
A1 - Gerya, Taras V.
A1 - Brune, Sascha
T1 - Subduction initiation by Plume-Plateau interaction
BT - insights from numerical models
JF - Geochemistry, geophysics, geosystems
N2 - It has recently been demonstrated that the interaction of a mantle plume with sufficiently old oceanic lithosphere can initiate subduction. However, the existence of large lithospheric heterogeneities, such as a buoyant plateau, in proximity to a rising plume head may potentially hinder the formation of a new subduction zone. Here, we investigate this scenario by means of 3-D numerical thermomechanical modeling. We explore how plume-lithosphere interaction is affected by lithospheric age, relative location of plume head and plateau border, and the strength of the oceanic crust. Our numerical experiments suggest four different geodynamic regimes: (a) oceanic trench formation, (b) circular oceanic-plateau trench formation, (c) plateau trench formation, and (d) no trench formation. We show that regardless of the age and crustal strength of the oceanic lithosphere, subduction can initiate when the plume head is either below the plateau border or at a distance less than the plume radius from the plateau edge. Crustal heterogeneity facilitates subduction initiation of old oceanic lithosphere. High crustal strength hampers the formation of a new subduction zone when the plume head is located below a young lithosphere containing a thick and strong plateau. We suggest that plume-plateau interaction in the western margin of the Caribbean could have resulted in subduction initiation when the plume head impinged onto the oceanic lithosphere close to the border between plateau and oceanic crust.
KW - subduction zone
KW - plume
KW - plateau
KW - numerical modeling
KW - plume-induced
KW - subduction initiation (PISI)
Y1 - 2020
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1029/2020GC009119
SN - 1525-2027
VL - 21
IS - 8
PB - American Geophysical Union
CY - Washington
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Eberhard, Julius
A1 - Schaik, N. Loes M. B.
A1 - Schibalski, Anett
A1 - Gräff, Thomas
T1 - Simulating future salinity dynamics in a coastal marshland under different climate scenarios
JF - Vadose zone journal
N2 - Salinization is a well-known problem in agricultural areas worldwide. In the last 20-30 yr, rising salinity in the upper, unconfined aquifer has been observed in the Freepsumer Meer, a grassland near the German North Sea coast. For investigating long-term development of salinity and water balance during 1961-2099, the one-dimensional Soil-Water-Atmosphere-Plant (SWAP) model was set up and calibrated for a soil column in the area. The model setup involves a deep aquifer as the source of salt through upward seepage. In the vertical salt transport equation, dispersion and advection are included. Six different regional outputs of statistical downscaling methods were used as climate scenarios. These comprise different rates of increasing surface temperature and different trends in seasonal rainfall. The simulation results exhibit opposing salinity trends for topsoil and deeper layers. Although projections of some scenarios entail decreasing salinities near the surface, most of them project a rise in subsoil salinity, with the strongest trends of up to +0.9 mg cm(-3) 100 yr(-1) at -65 cm. The results suggest that topsoil salinity trends in the study area are affected by the magnitude of winter rainfall trends, whereas high subsoil salinities correspond to low winter rainfall and high summer temperature. How these projected trends affect the vegetation and thereby future land use will depend on the future management of groundwater levels in the area.
Y1 - 2020
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1002/vzj2.20008
SN - 1539-1663
VL - 19
IS - 1
PB - Wiley
CY - Hoboken
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Linke, Christian
A1 - Wösle, Markus
A1 - Harder, Anja
T1 - Anti-cancer agent 3-bromopyruvate reduces growth of MPNST and inhibits metabolic pathways in a representative in-vitro model
JF - BMC cancer
N2 - Background
Anticancer compound 3-bromopyruvate (3-BrPA) suppresses cancer cell growth via targeting glycolytic and mitochondrial metabolism. The malignant peripheral nerve sheath tumor (MPNST), a very aggressive, therapy resistant, and Neurofibromatosis type 1 associated neoplasia, shows a high metabolic activity and affected patients may therefore benefit from 3-BrPA treatment. To elucidate the specific mode of action, we used a controlled cell model overexpressing proteasome activator (PA) 28, subsequently leading to p53 inactivation and oncogenic transformation and therefore reproducing an important pathway in MPNST and overall tumor pathogenesis.
Methods
Viability of MPNST cell lines S462, NSF1, and T265 in response to increasing doses (0-120 mu M) of 3-BrPA was analyzed by CellTiter-Blue (R) assay. Additionally, we investigated viability, reactive oxygen species (ROS) production (dihydroethidium assay), nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide dehydrogenase activity (NADH-TR assay) and lactate production (lactate assay) in mouse B8 fibroblasts overexpressing PA28 in response to 3-BrPA application. For all experiments normal and nutrient deficient conditions were tested. MPNST cell lines were furthermore characterized immunohistochemically for Ki67, p53, bcl2, bcl6, cyclin D1, and p21.
Results
MPNST significantly responded dose dependent to 3-BrPA application, whereby S462 cells were most responsive. Human control cells showed a reduced sensitivity. In PA28 overexpressing cancer cell model 3-BrPA application harmed mitochondrial NADH dehydrogenase activity mildly and significantly failed to inhibit lactate production. PA28 overexpression was associated with a functional glycolysis as well as a partial resistance to stress provoked by nutrient deprivation. 3-BrPA treatment was not associated with an increase of ROS. Starvation sensitized MPNST to treatment.
Conclusions
Aggressive MPNST cells are sensitive to 3-BrPA therapy in-vitro with and without starvation. In a PA28 overexpression cancer cell model leading to p53 inactivation, thereby reflecting a key molecular feature in human NF1 associated MPNST, known functions of 3-BrPA to block mitochondrial activity and glycolysis were reproduced, however oncogenic cells displayed a partial resistance. To conclude, 3-BrPA was sufficient to reduce NF1 associated MPNST viability potentially due inhibition of glycolysis which should lead to the initiation of further studies and promises a potential benefit for NF1 patients.
KW - MPNST
KW - NF1
KW - 3-BrPA
KW - glycolysis
KW - mitochondrial respiration
KW - p53
KW - starvation
KW - cell cycle
KW - PA28
KW - B8 fibroblasts
Y1 - 2020
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1186/s12885-020-07397-w
SN - 1471-2407
VL - 20
IS - 1
PB - BioMed Central
CY - London
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Borremans, An
A1 - Bußler, Sara
A1 - Sagu Tchewonpi, Sorel
A1 - Rawel, Harshadrai Manilal
A1 - Schlüter, Oliver K.
A1 - Leen, Van Campenhout
T1 - Effect of blanching plus fermentation on selected functional properties of mealworm (Tenebrio molitor) powders
JF - Foods : open access journal
N2 - The aim of this study was to determine the effect of blanching followed by fermentation of mealworms (Tenebrio molitor) with commercial meat starter cultures on the functional properties of powders produced from the larvae. Full fat and defatted powder samples were prepared from non-fermented and fermented mealworm pastes. Then the crude protein, crude fat, and dry matter contents, pH, bulk density, colour, water and oil binding capacity, foaming capacity and stability, emulsion capacity and stability, protein solubility, quantity of free amino groups, and protein composition of the powders were evaluated. Regardless of the starter culture used, the blanching plus fermentation process reduced the crude and soluble protein contents of the full fat powders and in general impaired their water and oil binding, foaming, and emulsifying properties. Defatting of the powders improved most functional properties studied. The o-phthaldialdehyde assay revealed that the amount of free amino groups was higher in the fermented powders while sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis demonstrated that the soluble proteins of the fermented powders were composed of molecules of lower molecular mass compared to non-fermented powders. As molecular sizes of the soluble proteins decreased, it was clear that the protein structure was also modified by the fermentation process, which in turn led to changes in functional properties. In general, it was concluded that fermentation of mealworms with blanching as a pre-treatment does not contribute to the functional properties studied in this work. Nevertheless, the results confirmed that the properties of non-fermented powders are comparable to other food protein sources.
KW - mealworm
KW - fermentation
KW - functional properties
KW - insect proteins
KW - SDS-PAGE
Y1 - 2020
U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/foods9070917
SN - 2304-8158
VL - 9
IS - 7
PB - MDPI
CY - Basel
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Wright, Stephanie L.
A1 - Ulke, Jannis
A1 - Font, Anna
A1 - Chan, Ka Lung Andrew
A1 - Kelly, Frank J.
T1 - Atmospheric microplastic deposition in an urban environment and an evaluation of transport
JF - Environment international
N2 - Microplastics are a global environmental issue contaminating aquatic and terrestrial environments. They have been reported in atmospheric deposition, and indoor and outdoor air, raising concern for public health due to the potential for exposure. Moreover, the atmosphere presents a new vehicle for microplastics to enter the wider environment, yet our knowledge of the quantities, characteristics and pathways of airborne microplastics is sparse. Here we show microplastics in atmospheric deposition in a major population centre, central London. Microplastics were found in all samples, with deposition rates ranging from 575 to 1008 microplastics/m(2)/d. They were found in various shapes, of which fibrous microplastics accounted for the great majority (92%). Across all samples, 15 different petrochemical-based polymers were identified. Bivariate polar plots indicated dependency on wind, with different source areas for fibrous and non-fibrous airborne microplastics. This is the first evidence of airborne microplastics in London and confirms the need to include airborne pathways when consolidating microplastic impacts on the wider environment and human health.
KW - microplastics
KW - atmospheric deposition
KW - air pollution
KW - urban
Y1 - 2020
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envint.2019.105411
SN - 0160-4120
SN - 1873-6750
VL - 136
PB - Elsevier, Pergamon Press
CY - New York, NY [u.a.]
ER -
TY - GEN
A1 - des Aulnois, Maxime Georges
A1 - Réveillon, Damien
A1 - Robert, Elise
A1 - Caruana, Amandine
A1 - Briand, Enora
A1 - Guljamow, Arthur
A1 - Dittmann, Elke
A1 - Amzil, Zouher
A1 - Bormans, Myriam
T1 - Salt shock responses of Microcystis revealed through physiological, transcript, and metabolomic analyses
T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe
N2 - The transfer of Microcystis aeruginosa from freshwater to estuaries has been described worldwide and salinity is reported as the main factor controlling the expansion of M. aeruginosa to coastal environments. Analyzing the expression levels of targeted genes and employing both targeted and non-targeted metabolomic approaches, this study investigated the effect of a sudden salt increase on the physiological and metabolic responses of two toxic M. aeruginosa strains separately isolated from fresh and brackish waters, respectively, PCC 7820 and 7806. Supported by differences in gene expressions and metabolic profiles, salt tolerance was found to be strain specific. An increase in salinity decreased the growth of M. aeruginosa with a lesser impact on the brackish strain. The production of intracellular microcystin variants in response to salt stress correlated well to the growth rate for both strains. Furthermore, the release of microcystins into the surrounding medium only occurred at the highest salinity treatment when cell lysis occurred. This study suggests that the physiological responses of M. aeruginosa involve the accumulation of common metabolites but that the intraspecific salt tolerance is based on the accumulation of specific metabolites. While one of these was determined to be sucrose, many others remain to be identified. Taken together, these results provide evidence that M. aeruginosa is relatively salt tolerant in the mesohaline zone and microcystin (MC) release only occurs when the capacity of the cells to deal with salt increase is exceeded.
T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Reihe - 1130
KW - Microcystis aeruginosa
KW - microcystin
KW - salt stress
KW - metabolomic
KW - transcript
Y1 - 2020
U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-472405
SN - 1866-8372
IS - 1130
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Galka, Andreas
A1 - Moontaha, Sidratul
A1 - Siniatchkin, Michael
T1 - Constrained expectation maximisation algorithm for estimating ARMA models in state space representation
JF - EURASIP journal on advances in signal processing
N2 - This paper discusses the fitting of linear state space models to given multivariate time series in the presence of constraints imposed on the four main parameter matrices of these models. Constraints arise partly from the assumption that the models have a block-diagonal structure, with each block corresponding to an ARMA process, that allows the reconstruction of independent source components from linear mixtures, and partly from the need to keep models identifiable. The first stage of parameter fitting is performed by the expectation maximisation (EM) algorithm. Due to the identifiability constraint, a subset of the diagonal elements of the dynamical noise covariance matrix needs to be constrained to fixed values (usually unity). For this kind of constraints, so far, no closed-form update rules were available. We present new update rules for this situation, both for updating the dynamical noise covariance matrix directly and for updating a matrix square-root of this matrix. The practical applicability of the proposed algorithm is demonstrated by a low-dimensional simulation example. The behaviour of the EM algorithm, as observed in this example, illustrates the well-known fact that in practical applications, the EM algorithm should be combined with a different algorithm for numerical optimisation, such as a quasi-Newton algorithm.
KW - Kalman filtering
KW - state space modelling
KW - expectation maximisation algorithm
Y1 - 2020
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1186/s13634-020-00678-3
SN - 1687-6180
VL - 2020
IS - 1
PB - Springer
CY - Heidelberg
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Scherler, Dirk
A1 - Schwanghart, Wolfgang
T1 - Drainage divide networks
BT - Part 2: Response to perturbations
JF - Earth surface dynamics
N2 - Drainage divides are organized into tree-like networks that may record information about drainage divide mobility. However, views diverge about how to best assess divide mobility. Here, we apply a new approach of automatically extracting and ordering drainage divide networks from digital elevation models to results from landscape evolution model experiments. We compared landscapes perturbed by strike-slip faulting and spatiotemporal variations in erodibility to a reference model to assess which topographic metrics (hillslope relief, flow distance, and chi) are diagnostic of divide mobility. Results show that divide segments that are a minimum distance of similar to 5 km from river confluences strive to attain constant values of hillslope relief and flow distance to the nearest stream. Disruptions of such patterns can be related to mobile divides that are lower than stable divides, closer to streams, and often asymmetric in shape. In general, we observe that drainage divides high up in the network, i.e., at great distances from river confluences, are more susceptible to disruptions than divides closer to these confluences and are thus more likely to record disturbance for a longer time period. We found that across-divide differences in hillslope relief proved more useful for assessing divide migration than other tested metrics. However, even stable drainage divide networks exhibit across-divide differences in any of the studied topographic metrics. Finally, we propose a new metric to quantify the connectivity of divide junctions.
KW - dynamics
KW - landscape evolution
KW - low-relief
KW - patterns
KW - river
KW - scale
KW - tectonics
Y1 - 2020
U6 - https://doi.org/10.5194/esurf-8-261-2020
SN - 2196-6311
SN - 2196-632X
VL - 8
IS - 2
SP - 261
EP - 274
PB - Copernicus
CY - Göttingen
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Apriyanto, Ardha
A1 - Tambunan, Van Basten
T1 - The complete mitochondrial genome of oil palm pollinating weevil, Elaeidobius kamerunicus Faust
BT - (Coleoptera : Curculionidae)
JF - Mitochondrial DNA: Part B
N2 - Elaeidobius kamerunicusis the most important insect pollinator in oil palm plantations. In this study, the mitochondrial genome (mitogenome) ofE. kamerunicus(17.729 bp), a member of the Curculionidae family, will be reported. The mitogenome consisted of 13 protein-coding genes (PCGs), 22 transfer RNA genes (tRNAs), 2 ribosomal RNA genes (rRNAs), and a putative control region (CR). Phylogenetic analysis based on 13 protein-coding genes (PCGs) using maximum Likelihood (ML) methods indicated thatE. kamerunicusbelongs to the Curculionidae family. This mitochondrial genome provides essential information for understanding genetic populations, phylogenetics, molecular evolution, and other biological applications in this species.
KW - Mitogenome
KW - oil palm
KW - pollinator
KW - phylogeny
KW - weevil
Y1 - 2020
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1080/23802359.2020.1823899
SN - 2380-2359
VL - 5
IS - 3
SP - 3450
EP - 3452
PB - Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group
CY - Abingdon
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Barlow, Axel
A1 - Hartmann, Stefanie
A1 - Gonzalez, Javier
A1 - Hofreiter, Michael
A1 - Paijmans, Johanna L. A.
T1 - Consensify
BT - a method for generating pseudohaploid genome sequences from palaeogenomic datasets with reduced error rates
JF - Genes / Molecular Diversity Preservation International
N2 - A standard practise in palaeogenome analysis is the conversion of mapped short read data into pseudohaploid sequences, frequently by selecting a single high-quality nucleotide at random from the stack of mapped reads. This controls for biases due to differential sequencing coverage, but it does not control for differential rates and types of sequencing error, which are frequently large and variable in datasets obtained from ancient samples. These errors have the potential to distort phylogenetic and population clustering analyses, and to mislead tests of admixture using D statistics. We introduce Consensify, a method for generating pseudohaploid sequences, which controls for biases resulting from differential sequencing coverage while greatly reducing error rates. The error correction is derived directly from the data itself, without the requirement for additional genomic resources or simplifying assumptions such as contemporaneous sampling. For phylogenetic and population clustering analysis, we find that Consensify is less affected by artefacts than methods based on single read sampling. For D statistics, Consensify is more resistant to false positives and appears to be less affected by biases resulting from different laboratory protocols than other frequently used methods. Although Consensify is developed with palaeogenomic data in mind, it is applicable for any low to medium coverage short read datasets. We predict that Consensify will be a useful tool for future studies of palaeogenomes.
KW - palaeogenomics
KW - ancient DNA
KW - sequencing error
KW - error reduction
KW - D statistics
KW - bioinformatics
Y1 - 2020
U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/genes11010050
SN - 2073-4425
VL - 11
IS - 1
PB - MDPI
CY - Basel
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Ropp, Guillaume
A1 - Lesur, Vincent
A1 - Bärenzung, Julien
A1 - Holschneider, Matthias
T1 - Sequential modelling of the Earth’s core magnetic field
JF - Earth, Planets and Space
N2 - We describe a new, original approach to the modelling of the Earth's magnetic field. The overall objective of this study is to reliably render fast variations of the core field and its secular variation. This method combines a sequential modelling approach, a Kalman filter, and a correlation-based modelling step. Sources that most significantly contribute to the field measured at the surface of the Earth are modelled. Their separation is based on strong prior information on their spatial and temporal behaviours. We obtain a time series of model distributions which display behaviours similar to those of recent models based on more classic approaches, particularly at large temporal and spatial scales. Interesting new features and periodicities are visible in our models at smaller time and spatial scales. An important aspect of our method is to yield reliable error bars for all model parameters. These errors, however, are only as reliable as the description of the different sources and the prior information used are realistic. Finally, we used a slightly different version of our method to produce candidate models for the thirteenth edition of the International Geomagnetic Reference Field.
KW - geomagnetic field
KW - secular variation
KW - Kalman filter
KW - IGRF
Y1 - 2020
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1186/s40623-020-01230-1
SN - 1880-5981
VL - 72
IS - 1
PB - Springer
CY - New York
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Felisatti, Arianna
A1 - Aagten-Murphy, David
A1 - Laubrock, Jochen
A1 - Shaki, Samuel
A1 - Fischer, Martin H.
T1 - The brain’s asymmetric frequency tuning
BT - asymmetric behavior originates from asymmetric perception
JF - Symmetry / Molecular Diversity Preservation International (MDPI)
N2 - To construct a coherent multi-modal percept, vertebrate brains extract low-level features (such as spatial and temporal frequencies) from incoming sensory signals. However, because frequency processing is lateralized with the right hemisphere favouring low frequencies while the left favours higher frequencies, this introduces asymmetries between the hemispheres. Here, we describe how this lateralization shapes the development of several cognitive domains, ranging from visuo-spatial and numerical cognition to language, social cognition, and even aesthetic appreciation, and leads to the emergence of asymmetries in behaviour. We discuss the neuropsychological and educational implications of these emergent asymmetries and suggest future research approaches.
KW - asymmetry
KW - global
KW - local
KW - spatial frequencies
KW - temporal frequencies
KW - embodied cognition
Y1 - 2020
U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/sym12122083
SN - 2073-8994
VL - 12
IS - 12
PB - MDPI
CY - Basel
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Strauss, Volker
A1 - Wang, Huize
A1 - Delacroix, Simon
A1 - Ledendecker, Marc
A1 - Wessig, Pablo
T1 - Carbon nanodots revised
BT - the thermal citric acid/urea reaction
JF - Chemical science
N2 - Luminescent compounds obtained from the thermal reaction of citric acid and urea have been studied and utilized in different applications in the past few years. The identified reaction products range from carbon nitrides over graphitic carbon to distinct molecular fluorophores. On the other hand, the solid, non-fluorescent reaction product produced at higher temperatures has been found to be a valuable precursor for the CO2-laser-assisted carbonization reaction in carbon laser-patterning. This work addresses the question of structural identification of both, the fluorescent and non-fluorescent reaction products obtained in the thermal reaction of citric acid and urea. The reaction products produced during autoclave-microwave reactions in the melt were thoroughly investigated as a function of the reaction temperature and the reaction products were subsequently separated by a series of solvent extractions and column chromatography. The evolution of a green molecular fluorophore, namely HPPT, was confirmed and a full characterization study on its structure and photophysical properties was conducted. The additional blue fluorescence is attributed to oligomeric ureas, which was confirmed by complementary optical and structural characterization. These two components form strong hydrogen-bond networks which eventually react to form solid, semi-crystalline particles with a size of similar to 7 nm and an elemental composition of 46% C, 22% N, and 29% O. The structural features and properties of all three main components were investigated in a comprehensive characterization study.
Y1 - 2020
U6 - https://doi.org/10.1039/d0sc01605e
SN - 2041-6520
SN - 2041-6539
VL - 11
IS - 31
SP - 8256
EP - 8266
PB - Royal Society of Chemistry
CY - Cambridge
ER -
TY - JOUR
A1 - Lehr, Christian
A1 - Lischeid, Gunnar
T1 - Efficient screening of groundwater head monitoring data for anthropogenic effects and measurement errors
JF - Hydrology and Earth System Sciences
N2 - Groundwater levels are monitored by environmental agencies to support the sustainable use of groundwater resources. For this purpose continuous and spatially comprehensive monitoring in high spatial and temporal resolution is desired. This leads to large datasets that have to be checked for quality and analysed to distinguish local anthropogenic influences from natural variability of the groundwater level dynamics at each well. Both technical problems with the measurements as well as local anthropogenic influences can lead to local anomalies in the hydrographs. We suggest a fast and efficient screening method for the identification of well-specific peculiarities in hydrographs of groundwater head monitoring networks. The only information required is a set of time series of groundwater heads all measured at the same instants of time. For each well of the monitoring network a reference hydrograph is calculated, describing expected "normal" behaviour at the respective well as is typical for the monitored region. The reference hydrograph is calculated by multiple linear regression of the observed hydrograph with the "stable" principal components (PCs) of a principal component analysis of all groundwater head series of the network as predictor variables. The stable PCs are those PCs which were found in a random subsampling procedure to be rather insensitive to the specific selection of the analysed observation wells, i.e. complete series, and to the specific selection of measurement dates. Hence they can be considered to be representative for the monitored region in the respective period. The residuals of the reference hydrograph describe local deviations from the normal behaviour. Peculiarities in the residuals allow the data to be checked for measurement errors and the wells with a possible anthropogenic influence to be identified. The approach was tested with 141 groundwater head time series from the state authority groundwater monitoring network in northeastern Germany covering the period from 1993 to 2013 at an approximately weekly frequency of measurement.
KW - streamflow variability
KW - principal components
KW - united states
KW - time-seriesa
KW - water
KW - network
KW - nonstationarity
KW - fluctuations
KW - rotation
Y1 - 2020
U6 - https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-501-2020
SN - 1027-5606
SN - 1607-7938
VL - 24
IS - 2
SP - 501
EP - 513
PB - Copernicus
CY - Göttingen
ER -