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This paper addresses the lithosphere-scale subduction-collision history of the eastern termination of the Aegean retreating subduction system, i.e. western Anatolia. Although there is some general consensus on the protracted subduction evolution of the Aegean since the early Cenozoic at least, correlation with western Anatolia has been widely debated for more than several decades. In western Anatolia, three main tectonic configurations have been envisaged in the past years to reconstruct slab dynamics during the closure of the Neotethyan oceanic realm since the Late Cretaceous. Some authors have suggested an Aegean-type scenario, with the continuous subduction of a single lithospheric slab, punctuated by episodic slab roll-back and trench retreat, whereas others assumed a discontinuous subduction history marked by intermittent slab break-off during either the Campanian (ca. 75 Ma) or the Early Eocene (ca. 55-50 Ma). The third view implies three partly contemporaneous subduction zones. Our review of these models points to key debated aspects that can be re-evaluated in the light of multidisciplinary constraints from the literature. Our discussion leads us to address the timing of subduction initiation, the existence of hypothetical ocean basins, the number of intervening subduction zones between the Taurides and the Pontides, the palaeogeographic origin of tectonic units and the possibility for slab break-off during either the Campanian or the Early Eocene. Thence, we put forward a favoured tectonic scenario featuring two successive phases of subduction of a single lithospheric slab and episodic accretion of two continental domains separated by a continental trough, representing the eastern end of the Cycladic Ocean of the Aegean. The lack of univocal evidence for slab break-off in western Anatolia and southward-younging HP/LT metamorphism in continental tectonic units (from similar to 85, 70 to 50 Ma) in the Late Cretaceous-Palaeogene period suggests continuous subduction since similar to 110 Ma, marked by roll-back episodes in the Palaeocene and the Oligo-Miocene, and slab tearing below western Anatolia during the Miocene.
A unique assemblage including kumdykolite and kokchetavite, polymorphs of albite and K-feldspar, respectively, together with cristobalite, micas, and calcite has been identified in high-pressure granulites of the Orlica-Snieznik dome (Bohemian Massif) as the product of partial melt crystallization in preserved nanogranites. Previous reports of both kumdykolite and kokchetavite in natural rocks are mainly from samples that passed through the diamond stability field. However, because the maximum pressure recorded in these host rocks is <3 GPa, our observations indicate that high pressure is not required for the formation of kumdykolite and kokchetavite, and their presence is not therefore an indicator of ultrahigh-pressure conditions. Detailed microstructural and microchemical investigation of these inclusions indicates that such phases should instead be regarded as (1) a direct mineralogical criteria to identify former melt inclusions with preserved original compositions, including H2O and CO2 contents and (2) indicators of rapid cooling of the host rocks. Thus, the present study provides novel criteria for the interpretation of melt inclusions in natural rocks and allows a more rigorous characterization of partial melts during deep subduction to mantle depth as well as their behavior on exhumation.
The ground-state classical path approximation is utilized to compute molecular absorption spectra in a mixed quantum-classical frame. To improve the description for high-frequency vibrational satellites, related quantum correction factors are introduced. The improved method is demonstrated for the Q(y),and Q(x)-bands of pheophorbide a. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Catalytic amounts of a weak base are sufficient to induce the decomposition of anthracene endoperoxides to anthraquinone. The mechanism has been elucidated by isolation of intermediates in combination with DFT calculations. The whole process is suitable for the convenient generation of hydrogen peroxide under very mild conditions.
Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) can cause endocrine disruption, cancer, immunosuppression, or reproductive failure in animals. We used an individual-based model to explore whether and how PCB-associated reproductive failure could affect the dynamics of a hypothetical polar bear (Ursus maritimus) population exposed to PCBs to the same degree as the East Greenland subpopulation. Dose-response data from experimental studies on a surrogate species, the mink (Mustela vision), were used in the absence of similar data for polar bears. Two alternative types of reproductive failure in relation to maternal sum-PCB concentrations were considered: increased abortion rate and increased cub mortality. We found that the quantitative impact of PCB-induced reproductive failure on population growth rate depended largely on the actual type of reproductive failure involved. Critical potencies of the dose-response relationship for decreasing the population growth rate were established for both modeled types of reproductive failure. Comparing the model predictions of the age-dependent trend of sum-PCBs concentrations in females with actual field measurements from East Greenland indicated that it was unlikely that PCB exposure caused a high incidence of abortions in the subpopulation. However, on the basis of this analysis, it could not be excluded that PCB exposure contributes to higher cub mortality. Our results highlight the necessity for further research on the possible influence of PCBs on polar bear reproduction regarding their physiological pathway. This includes determining the exact cause of reproductive failure, i.e., in utero exposure versus lactational exposure of offspring; the timing of offspring death; and establishing the most relevant reference metrics for the dose-response relationship.
Objectives: To reanalyze the between-population variance in height, weight, and body mass index (BMI), and to provide a globally applicable technique for generating synthetic growth reference charts. Methods: Using a baseline set of 196 female and 197 male growth studies published since 1831, common factors of height, weight, and BMI are extracted via Principal Components separately for height, weight, and BMI. Combining information from single growth studies and the common factors using in principle a Bayesian rationale allows for provision of completed reference charts. Results: The suggested approach can be used for generating synthetic growth reference charts with LMS values for height, weight, and BMI, from birth to maturity, from any limited set of height and weight measurements of a given population. Conclusion: Generating synthetic growth reference charts by incorporating information from a large set of reference growth studies seems suitable for populations with no autochthonous references at hand yet. (C) 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Natural vision is characterized by alternating sequences of rapid gaze shifts (saccades) and fixations. During fixations, microsaccades and slower drift movements occur spontaneously, so that the eye is never motionless. Theoretical models of fixational eye movements predict that microsaccades are dynamically coupled to slower drift movements generated immediately before microsaccades, which might be used as a criterion to distinguish microsaccades from small voluntary saccades. Here we investigate a sequential scanning task, where participants generate goal-directed saccades and microsaccades with overlapping amplitude distributions. We show that properties of microsaccades are correlated with precursory drift motion, while amplitudes of goal-directed saccades do not dependent on previous drift epochs. We develop and test a mathematical model that integrates goal-directed and fixational eye movements, including microsaccades. Using model simulations, we reproduce the experimental finding of correlations within fixational eye movement components (i.e., between physiological drift and microsaccades) but not between goal-directed saccades and fixational drift motion. These results lend support to a functional difference between microsaccades and goal-directed saccades, while, at the same time, both types of behavior may be part of an oculomotor continuum that is quantitatively described by our mathematical model. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
We introduce a novel double-hydrophilic hydroxyethylmethacrylate (HEMA) based diblock glycopolymer which self-assembles into homogeneous spherical micellar structures in water. The micellar structure renders surface-oriented N-acetylglucocosamine (GlcNAc) sugar moieties for strong multivalent glycan-mediated lectin binding. Structural analysis and lectin binding is performed by microscopy methods, dynamic light scattering (DLS) and two-focus fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (2fFCS), revealing a novel micellar type of multivalent sugar binding scaffold with high potential for biomedical applications.
Abstract
By combining high-throughput sequencing with target enrichment (‘hybridization capture’), researchers are able to obtain molecular data from genomic regions of interest for projects that are otherwise constrained by sample quality (e.g. degraded and contamination-rich samples) or a lack of a priori sequence information (e.g. studies on nonmodel species). Despite the use of hybridization capture in various fields of research for many years, the impact of enrichment conditions on capture success is not yet thoroughly understood. We evaluated the impact of a key parameter – hybridization temperature – on the capture success of mitochondrial genomes across the carnivoran family Felidae. Capture was carried out for a range of sample types (fresh, archival, ancient) with varying levels of sequence divergence between bait and target (i.e. across a range of species) using pools of individually indexed libraries on Agilent SureSelect™ arrays. Our results suggest that hybridization capture protocols require specific optimization for the sample type that is being investigated. Hybridization temperature affected the proportion of on-target sequences following capture: for degraded samples, we obtained the best results with a hybridization temperature of 65 °C, while a touchdown approach (65 °C down to 50 °C) yielded the best results for fresh samples. Evaluation of capture performance at a regional scale (sliding window approach) revealed no significant improvement in the recovery of DNA fragments with high sequence divergence from the bait at any of the tested hybridization temperatures, suggesting that hybridization temperature may not be the critical parameter for the enrichment of divergent fragments.
Das Anliegen der vorliegenden Studie ist es, zu prüfen, inwiefern eine differenzierende Unterrichtspraxis in den Fächern Mathematik und Deutsch im Zusammenhang mit der Wahrnehmung von Leistungsheterogenität und der Diagnosegenauigkeit von Lehrkräften steht. Der Untersuchung lagen Leistungsdaten aus den Vergleichsarbeiten (VERA-8) und Lehrerurteile über N = 1803 Schüler/innen der achten Jahrgangsstufe an Gymnasien im Land Brandenburg zugrunde sowie Schülereinschätzungen zur Differenzierung im Unterricht. Hierarchische Regressionsanalysen zeigen, dass Mathematiklehrkräfte aus Sicht der Schüler/innen umso stärker differenzierend unterrichten, je besser sie die Leistungsstände der Schüler/innen einschätzen können. Im Fach Deutsch findet differenzierender Unterricht in geringerem Umfang statt und es zeigen sich keine Zusammenhänge mit der Diagnosegenauigkeit.
The aim of the present study is to examine in how far a differentiating teaching practice in Math and German lessons is linked with the perception of heterogeneity in student performance and with the teachers´ diagnostic accuracy. The study is based on performance data from comparative tests (VERA-8) and teacher assessments of N = 1803 students attending 8th grade at grammar schools in the federal state of Brandenburg and on student assessments on differentiation in teaching. Hierarchical regression analyses show that, from the students´ perspective, Math teachers differentiate the more in their teaching the better they are able to assess the students´ performance level. In German lessons, differentiating forms of teaching are less often applied and there are no links with diagnostic accuracy.
Synthetic promoters are important for temporal and spatial gene expression in transgenic plants. To identify novel microbe-associated molecular pattern (MAMP)-responsive cis-regulatory sequences for synthetic promoter design, a combination of bioinformatics and experimental approaches was employed. One cis-sequence was identified which confers strong MAMP-responsive reporter gene activity with low background activity. The 35-bp-long cis-sequence was identified in the promoter of the Arabidopsis thaliana DJ1E gene, a homologue of the human oncogene DJ1. In this study, this cis-sequence is shown to be a tripartite cis-regulatory module (CRM). A synthetic promoter with four copies of the CRM linked to a minimal promoter increases MAMP-responsive reporter gene expression compared to the wild-type DJ1E promoter. The CRM consists of two WT-boxes (GGACTTTT and GGACTTTG) and a variant of the GCC-box (GCCACC), all required for MAMP and salicylic acid (SA) responsivity. Yeast one-hybrid screenings using a transcription factor (TF)-only prey library identified two AP2/ERFs, ORA59 and ERF10, interacting antagonistically with the CRM. ORA59 activates reporter gene activity and requires the consensus core sequence GCCNCC for gene expression activation. ERF10 down-regulates MAMP-responsive gene expression. No TFs interacting with the WT-boxes GGACTTTT and GGACTTTG were selected in yeast onehybrid screenings with the TF-only prey library. In transgenic Arabidopsis, the synthetic promoter confers strong and specific reporter gene activity in response to biotrophs and necrotrophs as well as SA.
In this paper two new methods for the design of fault-tolerant pipelined sequential and combinational circuits, called Error Detection and Partial Error Correction (EDPEC) and Full Error Detection and Correction (FEDC), are described. The proposed methods are based on an Error Detection Logic (EDC) in the combinational circuit part combined with fault tolerant memory elements implemented using fault tolerant master-slave flip-flops. If a transient error, due to a transient fault in the combinational circuit part is detected by the EDC, the error signal controls the latching stage of the flip-flops such that the previous correct state of the register stage is retained until the transient error disappears. The system can continue to work in its previous correct state and no additional recovery procedure (with typically reduced clock frequency) is necessary. The target applications are dataflow processing blocks, for which software-based recovery methods cannot be easily applied. The presented architectures address both single events as well as timing faults of arbitrarily long duration. An example of this architecture is developed and described, based on the carry look-ahead adder. The timing conditions are carefully investigated and simulated up to the layout level. The enhancement of the baseline architecture is demonstrated with respect to the achieved fault tolerance for the single event and timing faults. It is observed that the number of uncorrected single events is reduced by the EDPEC architecture by 2.36 times compared with previous solution. The FEDC architecture further reduces the number of uncorrected events to zero and outperforms the Triple Modular Redundancy (TMR) with respect to correction of timing faults. The power overhead of both new architectures is about 26-28% lower than the TMR. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Individuals with agrammatic Broca's aphasia experience difficulty when processing reversible non-canonical sentences. Different accounts have been proposed to explain this phenomenon. The Trace Deletion account (Grodzinsky, 1995, 2000, 2006) attributes this deficit to an impairment in syntactic representations, whereas others (e.g., Caplan, Waters, Dede, Michaud, & Reddy, 2007; Haarmann, Just, & Carpenter, 1997) propose that the underlying structural representations are unimpaired, but sentence comprehension is affected by processing deficits, such as slow lexical activation, reduction in memory resources, slowed processing and/or intermittent deficiency, among others. We test the claims of two processing accounts, slowed processing and intermittent deficiency, and two versions of the Trace Deletion Hypothesis (TDH), in a computational framework for sentence processing (Lewis & Vasishth, 2005) implemented in ACT-R (Anderson, Byrne, Douglass, Lebiere, & Qin, 2004). The assumption of slowed processing is operationalized as slow procedural memory, so that each processing action is performed slower than normal, and intermittent deficiency as extra noise in the procedural memory, so that the parsing steps are more noisy than normal. We operationalize the TDH as an absence of trace information in the parse tree. To test the predictions of the models implementing these theories, we use the data from a German sentence—picture matching study reported in Hanne, Sekerina, Vasishth, Burchert, and De Bleser (2011). The data consist of offline (sentence-picture matching accuracies and response times) and online (eye fixation proportions) measures. From among the models considered, the model assuming that both slowed processing and intermittent deficiency are present emerges as the best model of sentence processing difficulty in aphasia. The modeling of individual differences suggests that, if we assume that patients have both slowed processing and intermittent deficiency, they have them in differing degrees.
Arf-like proteins (ARLs) are ubiquitously expressed small G proteins of the RAS superfamily. In photoreceptors, ARL2 and ARL3 participate in the trafficking of lipidated membrane-associated proteins and colocalize in the inner segment with UNC119A and PDE delta. UNC119A and PDE delta are acyl-and prenyl-binding proteins, respectively, involved in trafficking of acylated (transducin-alpha subunit, nephrocystin NPHP3) and prenylated proteins (GRK1, PDE6). Germline Arl3 knockout mice do not survive beyond postnatal day 21 and display ciliary defects in multiple organs (kidney, liver and pancreas) as well as retinal degeneration. Conditional knockouts will be necessary to delineate mechanisms of protein transport in retina disease.
Flower development is controlled by the action of key regulatory transcription factors of the MADS-domain family. The function of these factors appears to be highly conserved among species based on mutant phenotypes. However, the conservation of their downstream processes is much less well understood, mostly because the evolutionary turnover and variation of their DNA-binding sites (BSs) among plant species have not yet been experimentally determined. Here, we performed comparative ChIP (chromatin immunoprecipitation)-seq experiments of the MADS-domain transcription factor SEPALLATA3 (SEP3) in two closely related Arabidopsis species: Arabidopsis thaliana and A. lyrata which have very similar floral organ morphology. We found that BS conservation is associated with DNA sequence conservation, the presence of the CArG-box BS motif and on the relative position of the BS to its potential target gene. Differences in genome size and structure can explain that SEP3 BSs in A. lyrata can be located more distantly to their potential target genes than their counterparts in A. thaliana. In A. lyrata, we identified transposition as a mechanism to generate novel SEP3 binding locations in the genome. Comparative gene expression analysis shows that the loss/gain of BSs is associated with a change in gene expression. In summary, this study investigates the evolutionary dynamics of DNA BSs of a floral key-regulatory transcription factor and explores factors affecting this phenomenon.
For point processes we establish a link between integration-by-parts-and splitting-formulas which can also be considered as integration-by-parts-formulas of a new type. First we characterize finite Papangelou processes in terms of their splitting kernels. The main part then consists in extending these results to the case of infinitely extended Papangelou and, in particular, Polya and Gibbs processes. (C) 2015 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim
Toxic Cr(III) which poses environmental hazard to flora and fauna was efficiently abstracted by low-cost Nauclea diderrichii seed biomass (NDS) with good sequestral capacity for this metal was investigated in this study. The NDS surface analyses showed that it has a specific surface area of 5.36 m(2)/g and pHpzc of 4.90. Thermogravimetric analysis of NDS showed three consecutive weight losses from 50-200 degrees C (ca. 5%), 200-400 C (ca. 35%), >400 degrees C (ca. 10%), corresponding to external water molecules, structural water molecules and heat induced condensation reactions respectively. Differential thermogram of NDS presented a large endothermic peak between 20-510 degrees C suggesting bond breakage and dissociation with the ultimate release of small molecules. The experimental data showed kinetically fast biosorption with increased initial Cr(III) concentrations, indicating the role of external mass transfer mechanism as the rate controlling mechanism in this adsorption process. The Langmuir biosorption capacity of NDS was 483.81 mg/g. The use of the corrected Akaike Information Criterion tool for ranking equilibrium models suggested that the Freundlich model best described the experimental data, which is an indication of the heterogeneous nature of the active sites on the surface of NDS. N. diderrichii seed biomass is an easily sourced, cheap and environmental friendly biosorbent which will serve as a good and cost effective alternative to activated carbon for the treatment of polluted water and industrial effluents. (C) 2012 King Saud University. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
A very general cosmological consideration suggests that, along with galactic dark matter halos, much smaller dark matter structures may exist. These structures are usually called `clumps', and their mass extends to 10−6 M ⊙ or even lower. The clumps should give the main contribution into the signal of dark matter annihilation, provided that they have survived until the present time. Recent observations favor a cored profile for low-mass astrophysical halos. We consider cored clumps and show that they are significantly less firm than the standard NFW ones. In contrast to the standard scenario, the cored clumps should have been completely destroyed inside ~ 20 kpc from the Milky Way center. The dwarf spheroidals should not contain any dark matter clumps. On the other hand, even under the most pessimistic assumption about the clump structure, the clumps should have survived in the Milky Way at a distance exceeding 50 kpc from the center, as well as in low-density cosmic structures. There they significantly boost the dark matter annihilation. We show that at least 70% of the clumps endured the primordial structure formation should still exist untouched in the present-day Universe.
Using data from the Berlin Speed Dating Study, we tested rival hypotheses concerning the effects of self-enhancement of attractiveness on dating outcomes. Three hundred eighty-two participants took part in one of the 17 speed-dating sessions. After each speed-dating interaction, participants indicated how interesting they found the respective person as a long-term and short-term partner. Using social relations analyses, we computed perceiver effects (being more or less choosy) and target effects (being rated as more or less interesting) of long-term and short-term partner ratings. Self-enhancement was operationalized as the discrepancy between self-rated attractiveness and four components of actual attractiveness (observer-rated facial and vocal attractiveness, height and body mass index). Results indicated that self-enhancers were less choosy with respect to their interest for short-term partners, which was especially true for men, but more choosy with respect to long-term partners. With regard to popularity as a mate, potential partners indicated that they found self-enhancers more interesting as short-term partners but not as long-term partners. As self-enhancement is a key component of narcissism, these results are consistent with findings that narcissists perceive many sexual affairs as an achievement, while preferring selected ‘trophy’ long-term partners, and narcissists have a charming appeal for short-term, but not lasting, social relationships.
The phenylidenepyridine (ppy) palladacycles [PdCl(ppy)(IMes)] (4) [IMes = 1,3-bis(mesityl) imidazol-2-ylidene] and [PdCl(ppy){(CN)(2)IMes}] (6) [(CN)(2)IMes = 4,5-dicyano-1,3-bis(mesityl) imidazol-2-ylidene] were prepared by facile two step syntheses, starting with the reaction of palladium(II) chloride with 2-phenylpyridine followed by subsequent addition of the NHC ligand to the precatalyst precursor [PdCl(ppy)](2). Suitable crystals for the X-ray analysis of the complexes 4 and 6 were obtained. It was shown that 6 has a shorter NHC-palladium bond than the IMes complex 4. The difference of the palladium carbene bond lengths based on the higher pi-acceptor strength of (CN)(2)IMes in comparison to IMes. Thus, (CN)(2)IMes should stabilize the catalytically active central palladium atom better than IMes. As a measure for the pi-acceptor strength of (CN)(2)IMes compared to IMes, the selone (CN)(2)IMes center dot Se (7) was prepared and characterized by Se-77-NMR spectroscopy. The pi-acceptor strength of 7 was illuminated by the shift of its Se-77-NMR signal. The Se-77-NMR signal of 7 was shifted to much higher frequencies than the Se-77-NMR signal of IMes center dot Se. Catalytic experiments using the Mizoroki-Heck reaction of aryl chlorides with n-butyl acrylate showed that 6 is the superior performer in comparison to 4. Using complex 6, an extensive substrate screening of 26 different aryl bromides with n-butyl acrylate was performed. Complex 6 is a suitable precatalyst for para-substituted aryl bromides. The catalytically active species was identified by mercury poisoning experiments to be palladium nanoparticles.
The South American Andes are frequently exposed to intense rainfall events with varying moisture sources and precipitation-forming processes. In this study, we assess the spatiotemporal characteristics and geographical origins of rainfall over the South American continent. Using high-spatiotemporal resolution satellite data (TRMM 3B42 V7), we define four different types of rainfall events based on their (1) high magnitude, (2) long temporal extent, (3) large spatial extent, and (4) high magnitude, long temporal and large spatial extent combined. In a first step, we analyze the spatiotemporal characteristics of these events over the entire South American continent and integrate their impact for the main Andean hydrologic catchments. Our results indicate that events of type 1 make the overall highest contributions to total seasonal rainfall (up to 50%). However, each consecutive episode of the infrequent events of type 4 still accounts for up to 20% of total seasonal rainfall in the subtropical Argentinean plains. In a second step, we employ complex network theory to unravel possibly non-linear and long-ranged climatic linkages for these four event types on the high-elevation Altiplano-Puna Plateau as well as in the main river catchments along the foothills of the Andes. Our results suggest that one to two particularly large squall lines per season, originating from northern Brazil, indirectly trigger large, long-lasting thunderstorms on the Altiplano Plateau. In general, we observe that extreme rainfall in the catchments north of approximately 20 degrees S typically originates from the Amazon Basin, while extreme rainfall at the eastern Andean foothills south of 20 degrees S and the Puna Plateau originates from southeastern South America.
Herein we present an efficient synthesis of a biomimetic probe with modular construction that can be specifically bound by the mannose binding FimH protein - a surface adhesion protein of E. coli bacteria. The synthesis combines the new and interesting DBD dye with the carbohydrate ligand mannose via a Click reaction. We demonstrate the binding to E. coli bacteria over a large concentration range and also present some special characteristics of those molecules that are of particular interest for the application as a biosensor. In particular, the mix-and-measure ability and the very good photo-stability should be highlighted here.
Freshwater ostracods (Crustacea, Ostracoda) are valuable biological indicators. In Arctic environments, their habitat conditions are barely known and the abundance and diversity of ostracods is documented only in scattered records with incomplete ecological characterization. To determine the taxonomic range of ostracod assemblages and their habitat conditions in polygon ponds in the Indigirka Lowland, north-east Siberia, we collected more than 100 living ostracod individuals per site with a plankton net (mesh size 65 mm) and an exhaustor system from 27 water bodies and studied them in the context of substrate and hydrochemical data. During the summer of 2011, a single pond site and its ostracod population was selected for special study. This first record of the ostracod fauna in the Indigirka Lowland comprises eight species and three additional taxa. Fabaeformiscandona krochini and F. groenlandica were documented for the first time in continental Siberia. Repeated sampling of a low-centre polygon pond yielded insights into the population dynamics of F. pedata. We identified air temperature and precipitation as the main external drivers of water temperatures, water levels, ion concentrations and water stable isotope composition on diurnal and seasonal scales.
We consider a system of three interacting van der Pol oscillators with reactive coupling. Phase equations are derived, using proper order of expansion over the coupling parameter. The dynamics of the system is studied by means of the bifurcation analysis and with the method of Lyapunov exponent charts. Essential and physically meaningful features of the reactive coupling are discussed.
Are a personal messiah and the expectation of his arrival or the concept of the messianic age yet central ideas in contemporary Judaism? The article deals with the question of the contexts in which the messianic concept may have a role in modern times. Does it still contribute adequately to describe the relationship between God and humankind in contemporary Jewish thought?
Messianic expectations derive directly from images of society which human groups strive for, and from hopes for benefits that such ideal social structures would bring. All these were dependent on the different anthropological conceptions, their related ideas of human bliss and duties. This is the reason for the different messianic expectations existing from the very beginning in Judaism which are depicted here.
In this paper two groups supporting different views on the mechanism of light induced polymer deformation argue about the respective underlying theoretical conceptions, in order to bring this interesting debate to the attention of the scientific community. The group of Prof. Nicolae Hurduc supports the model claiming that the cyclic isomerization of azobenzenes may cause an athermal transition of the glassy azobenzene containing polymer into a fluid state, the so-called photo-fluidization concept. This concept is quite convenient for an intuitive understanding of the deformation process as an anisotropic flow of the polymer material. The group of Prof. Svetlana Santer supports the re-orientational model where the mass-transport of the polymer material accomplished during polymer deformation is stated to be generated by the light-induced re-orientation of the azobenzene side chains and as a consequence of the polymer backbone that in turn results in local mechanical stress, which is enough to irreversibly deform an azobenzene containing material even in the glassy state. For the debate we chose three polymers differing in the glass transition temperature, 32 degrees C, 87 degrees C and 95 degrees C, representing extreme cases of flexible and rigid materials. Polymer film deformation occurring during irradiation with different interference patterns is recorded using a homemade set-up combining an optical part for the generation of interference patterns and an atomic force microscope for acquiring the kinetics of film deformation. We also demonstrated the unique behaviour of azobenzene containing polymeric films to switch the topography in situ and reversibly by changing the irradiation conditions. We discuss the results of reversible deformation of three polymers induced by irradiation with intensity (IIP) and polarization (PIP) interference patterns, and the light of homogeneous intensity in terms of two approaches: the re-orientational and the photo-fluidization concepts. Both agree in that the formation of opto-mechanically induced stresses is a necessary prerequisite for the process of deformation. Using this argument, the deformation process can be characterized either as a flow or mass transport.
In this study, we examined the associations of intrinsic (i.e., involvement-oriented) and extrinsic (i.e., competition-oriented) reading motivation with reading amount and reading comprehension (at the word, sentence, and text level) in a sample of second- and third-grade elementary students (N = 1053). Cognitive ability and socioeconomic status were taken into account as control variables. Reading amount was assumed to mediate the relation between reading motivation and reading comprehension. Moreover, the potentially moderating role of gender was explored. Structural equation analyses revealed that involvement contributed significantly to reading comprehension, and this relationship was mediated through reading amount. Competition oriented reading motivation was directly and negatively related with reading comprehension. The predictive contributions of reading motivation were confirmed in an alternative model with text-level comprehension as the dependent variable and both word- and sentence-level comprehension as additional predictors. Finally, gender did not moderate the obtained relations. (C) 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
The importance of ciliates as herbivores and in biogeochemical cycles is increasingly recognized. An opportunity to observe the potential consequences of zooplankton dominated by ciliates arose when winter fish kills resulted in strong suppression of crustaceans by young planktivorous fish in two shallow lakes. On an annual average, ciliates made up 38-76% of the total zooplankton biomass in both lakes during two subsequent years. Consequently, ciliate biomass and their estimated grazing potential were extremely high compared with other lakes of various trophic states and depths. Grazing estimates based on abundance and size suggest that ciliates should have cleared the water column of small (<5 mu m) and intermediate (5-50 mu m) sized phytoplankton more than once a day. Especially, small feeders within the ciliates were important, likely exerting a strong top-down control on small phytoplankton. Particle-attached bacteria were presumably strongly suppressed by intermediate-sized ciliate feeders. In contrast to other lakes, large phytoplankton was proportionately very abundant. The phytoplankton community had a high evenness, which may be attributed to the feeding by numerous fast growing and selective ciliate species. Our study highlights ciliates as an important trophic link and adds to the growing awareness of the role of winter processes for plankton dynamics.
Molybdoenzymes are widespread in eukaryotic and prokaryotic organisms where they play crucial functions in detoxification reactions in the metabolism of humans and bacteria, in nitrate assimilation in plants and in anaerobic respiration in bacteria. To be fully active, these enzymes require complex molybdenum-containing cofactors, which are inserted into the apoenzymes after folding. For almost all the bacterial molybdoenzymes, molybdenum cofactor insertion requires the involvement of specific chaperones. In this review, an overview on the molybdenum cofactor biosynthetic pathway is given together with the role of specific chaperones dedicated for molybdenum cofactor insertion and maturation. Many bacteria are involved in geochemical cycles on earth and therefore have an environmental impact. The roles of molybdoenzymes in bioremediation and for environmental applications are presented.This review gives an overview of the diverse mechanisms leading to the insertion of the different forms of the molybdenum cofactor into the respective target enzymes and summarizes the roles of different molybdoenzymes in the environment.This review gives an overview of the diverse mechanisms leading to the insertion of the different forms of the molybdenum cofactor into the respective target enzymes and summarizes the roles of different molybdoenzymes in the environment.
Recent advances in high-throughput sequencing experiments and their theoretical descriptions have determined fast dynamics of the "chromatin and epigenetics" field, with new concepts appearing at high rate. This field includes but is not limited to the study of DNA-protein-RNA interactions, chromatin packing properties at different scales, regulation of gene expression and protein trafficking in the cell nucleus, binding site search in the crowded chromatin environment and modulation of physical interactions by covalent chemical modifications of the binding partners. The current special issue does not pretend for the full coverage of the field, but it rather aims to capture its development and provide a snapshot of the most recent concepts and approaches. Eighteen open-access articles comprising this issue provide a delicate balance between current theoretical and experimental biophysical approaches to uncover chromatin structure and understand epigenetic regulation, allowing free flow of new ideas and preliminary results.
Crowdsourcing platforms provide an affordable approach for recruiting large and diverse samples in a short time. Past research has shown that researchers can obtain reliable data from these sources, at least in domains of research that are not affectively involving. The goal of the present study was to test if crowdsourcing platforms can also be used to conduct experiments that incorporate the induction of aversive affective states. First, a laboratory experiment with German university students was conducted in which a frustrating task induced anger and aggressive behavior. This experiment was then replicated online using five crowdsourcing samples. The results suggest that participants in the online samples reacted very similarly to the anger manipulation as participants in the laboratory experiments. However, effect sizes were smaller in crowdsourcing samples with non-German participants while a crowdsourcing sample with exclusively German participants yielded virtually the same effect size as in the laboratory.
Optical biosensors based on porous silicon were fabricated by metal assisted chemical etching. Thereby double layered porous silicon structures were obtained consisting of porous pillars with large pores on top of a porous silicon layer with smaller pores. These structures showed a similar sensing performance in comparison to electrochemically produced porous silicon interferometric sensors.
Permafrost-related processes drive regional landscape dynamics in the Arctic terrestrial system. A better understanding of past periods indicative of permafrost degradation and aggradation is important for predicting the future response of Arctic landscapes to climate change. Here, we used a multi-proxy approach to analyse a4m long sediment core from a drained thermokarst lake basin on the northern Seward Peninsula in western Arctic Alaska (USA). Sedimentological, biogeochemical, geochronological, micropalaeontological (ostracoda, testate amoebae) and tephra analyses were used to determine the long-term environmental Early-Wisconsin to Holocene history preserved in our core for central Beringia. Yedoma accumulation dominated throughout the Early to Late-Wisconsin but was interrupted by wetland formation from 44.5 to 41.5ka BP. The latter was terminated by the deposition of 1m of volcanic tephra, most likely originating from the South Killeak Maar eruption at about 42ka BP. Yedoma deposition continued until 22.5ka BP and was followed by a depositional hiatus in the sediment core between 22.5 and 0.23ka BP. We interpret this hiatus as due to intense thermokarst activity in the areas surrounding the site, which served as a sediment source during the Late-Wisconsin to Holocene climate transition. The lake forming the modern basin on the upland initiated around 0.23ka BP and drained catastrophically in spring 2005. The present study emphasises that Arctic lake systems and periglacial landscapes are highly dynamic and that permafrost formation as well as degradation in central Beringia was controlled by regional to global climate patterns as well as by local disturbances. Copyright (c) 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
DNA origami nanostructures are a versatile tool to arrange metal nanostructures and other chemical entities with nanometer precision. In this way gold nanoparticle dimers with defined distance can be constructed, which can be exploited as novel substrates for surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS). We have optimized the size, composition and arrangement of Au/Ag nanoparticles to create intense SERS hot spots, with Raman enhancement up to 10(10), which is sufficient to detect single molecules by Raman scattering. This is demonstrated using single dye molecules (TAMRA and Cy3) placed into the center of the nanoparticle dimers. In conjunction with the DNA origami nanostructures novel SERS substrates are created, which can in the future be applied to the SERS analysis of more complex biomolecular targets, whose position and conformation within the SERS hot spot can be precisely controlled.
The new sediment record from the deep Dead Sea basin (ICDP core 5017-1) provides a unique archive for hydroclimatic variability in the Levant. Here, we present high-resolution sediment facies analysis and elemental composition by micro-X-ray fluorescence (mu XRF) scanning of core 5017-1 to trace lake levels and responses of the regional hydroclimatology during the time interval from ca. 117 to 75 ka, i. e. the transition between the last interglacial and the onset of the last glaciation. We distinguished six major micro-facies types and interpreted these and their alterations in the core in terms of relative lake level changes. The two end-member facies for highest and lowest lake levels are (a) up to several metres thick, greenish sediments of alternating aragonite and detrital marl laminae (aad) and (b) thick halite facies, respectively. Intermediate lake levels are characterised by detrital marls with varying amounts of aragonite, gypsum or halite, reflecting lower-amplitude, shorter-term variability. Two intervals of pronounced lake level drops occurred at similar to 110-108 +/- 5 and similar to 93-87 +/- 7 ka. They likely coincide with stadial conditions in the central Mediterranean (Melisey I and II pollen zones in Monticchio) and low global sea levels during Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 5d and 5b. However, our data do not support the current hypothesis of an almost complete desiccation of the Dead Sea during the earlier of these lake level low stands based on a recovered gravel layer. Based on new petrographic analyses, we propose that, although it was a low stand, this well-sorted gravel layer may be a vestige of a thick turbidite that has been washed out during drilling rather than an in situ beach deposit. Two intervals of higher lake stands at similar to 108-93 +/- 6 and similar to 87-75 +/- 7 ka correspond to interstadial conditions in the central Mediterranean, i. e. pollen zones St. Germain I and II in Monticchio, and Greenland interstadials (GI) 24+23 and 21 in Greenland, as well as to sapropels S4 and S3 in the Mediterranean Sea. These apparent correlations suggest a close link of the climate in the Levant to North Atlantic and Mediterranean climates during the time of the build-up of Northern Hemisphere ice shields in the early last glacial period.
We analyze a general class of difference operators H-epsilon = T-epsilon + V-epsilon on l(2)(((epsilon)Z)(d)), where V-epsilon is a multi-well potential and epsilon is a small parameter. We construct approximate eigenfunctions in neighbourhoods of the different wells and give weighted l(2)-estimates for the difference of these and the exact eigenfunctions of the associated Dirichlet-operators.
Der verbreiteten Annahme einer ständigen Gewaltzunahme an Schulen stehen bisher nur wenige Studien im Zeitvergleich gegenüber. Der vorliegende Beitrag will diese Lücke schließen, indem er Ergebnisse einer aktuellen Replikationsstudie vorstellt und damit die Frage beantwortet, ob die Gewalt an Schulen im Vergleich zur Mitte der 1990er Jahre zu- oder abgenommen hat. Anhand einer repräsentativen sächsischen Stichprobe zeigt sich, dass im Jahr 2014 im Vergleich zu 1996 über weniger Gewalt an Schulen berichtet wird. Dies betrifft die Gewalt unter Schü ler(inne)n und die Gewalt gegen Lehrkräfte. Parallel hat die Interventionsbereitschaft unter der Lehrer- und Schülerschaft zugenommen. Zugleich macht die Studie auf differente Entwicklungstrends zwischen den Schülergruppen aufmerksam. Trotz eines insgesamt niedrigen Gewaltniveaus im Vergleich zur Mitte der 1990er Jahre legen die Befunde den Schluss nahe, bei den Präventionsbemühungen nicht nachzulassen.
Veryfew studies have investigated the widely held assumption that violence in schools has constantly increased in recent years. The current study aims to fill this gap by presenting results of a recent replication study in Germany, as well as answering the question as to whether violence in schools increased or decreased in comparison with the mid-1990s. Based on a representative sample of Saxon students, this study shows that less violence was reported in schools in 2014 compared to 1996. This relates to both violence among students and their violent actions against teachers. Moreover, the willingness of teachers and students to intervene has increased. At the same time, this study draws attention to developmental trends between groups of students. Despite a general low level of violence in schools compared to the mid-1990s, the findings suggest that prevention efforts must be continued.
Animal-associated microbial communities can play major roles in the physiology, development, ecology, and evolution of their hosts, but the study of their diversity has yet focused on a limited number of host species. In this study, we used high-throughput sequencing of partial sequences of the bacterial 16S rRNA gene to assess the diversity of the gut-inhabiting bacterial communities of 212 specimens of tropical anuran amphibians from Brazil and Madagascar. The core gut-associated bacterial communities among tadpoles from two different continents strongly overlapped, with eight highly represented operational taxonomic units (OTUs) in common. In contrast, the core communities of adults and tadpoles from Brazil were less similar with only one shared OTU. This suggests a community turnover at metamorphosis. Bacterial diversity was higher in tadpoles compared to adults. Distinct differences in composition and diversity occurred among gut bacterial communities of conspecific tadpoles from different water bodies and after experimental fasting for 8 days, demonstrating the influence of both environmental factors and food on the community structure. Communities from syntopic tadpoles clustered by host species both in Madagascar and Brazil, and the Malagasy tadpoles also had species-specific isotope signatures. We recommend future studies to analyze the turnover of anuran gut bacterial communities at metamorphosis, compare the tadpole core communities with those of other aquatic organisms, and assess the possible function of the gut microbiota as a reservoir for protective bacteria on the amphibian skin.
The fruit of Aristotelia chilensis is considered a "super fruit" due to its high concentration of polyphenols displaying exceptional antioxidant capacities ORAC. From maqui berries have been reported several anthocyanins and glycosylated flavonoids, those benefits increase the attention to restudy the plant. From the leaves of A. chilensis several indole alkaloids have been reported, we in addition to aristoteline, aristone, aristoquinoline and 3-fromylindole report the spectroscopic elucidation of 8-oxo-9-dehydromakomakine (1), hobartine (2) and a new alkaloid named 8-oxohobartine (3). Compound 1 to 3 did not show bactericidal activity against E. coli and S. aureus till 200 mu g.
Sixteen new ionic liquids (ILs) with tetraethylammonium, 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium, 3-methyl-1-octylimidazolium and tetrabutylphosphonium cations paired with 2-substituted 4,5-dicyanoimidazolate anions (substituent at C2 = methyl, trifluoromethyl, pentafluoroethyl, N,N′-dimethyl amino and nitro) have been synthesized and characterized by using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The effects of cation and anion type and structure of the resulting ILs, including several room temperature ionic liquids (RTILs), are reflected in the crystallization, melting points and thermal decomposition of the ILs. ILs exhibited large liquid and crystallization ranges and formed glasses on cooling with glass transition temperatures in the range of −22 to −71 °C. We selected one of the newly designed ILs due to its bigger size, compared to the common conventional IL anion and high electron-withdrawing nitrile group leads to an overall stabilization anion that may stabilize the metal nanoparticles. Stable and better separated iron and silver nanoparticles are obtained by the decomposition of corresponding Fe2(CO)9 and AgPF6, respectively, under N2-atmosphere in newly designed nitrile functionalized 4,5-dicyanoimidazolate anion based IL. Very small and uniform size for Fe-nanoparticles of about 1.8 ± 0.6 nm were achieved without any additional stabilizers or capping molecules. Comparatively bigger size of Ag-nanoparticles was obtained through the reduction of AgPF6 by hydrogen gas. Additionally, the AgPF6 precursor was decomposed under microwave irradiation (MWI), fabricating nut-in-shell-like, that is, core-separated-from-shell Ag-nano-structures.
Pollen influx (number of pollen grains cm−2 year−1) can objectively reflect the dispersal and deposition features of pollen within a certain time and space, and is often used as a basis for the quantitative reconstruction of palaeovegetation; however, little is known about the features and mechanisms of vertical dispersal of pollen. Here we present the results from a 5 year (2006–2010) monitoring program using pollen traps placed at different heights from ground level up to 60 m and surface soil samples in a mixed coniferous and deciduous broad-leaved woodland in the Changbai mountains, northeastern China. The pollen percentages and pollen influx from the traps have very similar characteristics to the highest values for Betula, Fraxinus, Quercus and Pinus, among the tree taxa and Artemisia, Chenopodiaceae and Asteraceae among the herb taxa. Pollen influx values vary significantly with height and show major differences between three distinct layers, above-canopy (≥32 m), within the trunk layer (8 ≤ 32 m) and on the ground (0 m). These differences in pollen influx are explained by differences in (i) the air flows in each of these layers and (ii) the fall speed of pollen of the various taxa. We found that the pollen recorded on the ground surface is a good representation of the major part of the pollen transported in the trunk space of the woodland. Comparison of the pollen influx values with the theoretical, calculated “characteristic pollen source area” (CPSA) of 12 selected taxa indicates that the pollen deposited on the ground surface of the woodland is a fair representation with 85–90 % of the total pollen deposited at a wind speed of 2.4 m s−1 coming from within ca. 1–5 km for Pinus and Quercus, ca. 5–10 km for Ulmus, Tilia, Oleaceae and Betula, ca. 20–40 km for Fraxinus, Poaceae, Chenopodiaceae, Populus and Salix, and ca. 30–60 km for Artemisia; it is also a good representation with 90–98 % of the total pollen deposited coming from within 60 km at a wind speed of 2.4 m s−1, or 100 km at a wind speed: 6 m s−1, for the 12 selected taxa used in the CPSA calculation. Furthermore, comparison with the vegetation map of the area around the sampling site shows that the pollen deposited on the ground represents all plant communities which grow in the study area within 70 km radius of the sampling site. In this study, the pollen percentages obtained from the soil surface samples are significantly biased towards pollen taxa with good preservation due to thick and robust pollen walls. Therefore, if mosses are available instead, soil samples should be avoided for pollen studies, in particular for the study of pollen-vegetation relationships, the estimation of pollen productivities and quantitative reconstruction of past vegetation. The results also indicate that the existing model of pollen dispersal and deposition, Prentice’s model, provides a fair description of the actual pollen dispersal and deposition in this kind of woodland, which suggests that the application of the landscape reconstruction algorithm would be relevant for reconstruction of this type of woodland in the past.
TBES: Template-Based Exploration and Synthesis of Heterogeneous Multiprocessor Architectures on FPGA
(2016)
This article describes TBES, a software end-to-end environment for synthesizing multitask applications on FPGAs. The implementation follows a template-based approach for creating heterogeneous multiprocessor architectures. Heterogeneity stems from the use of general-purpose processors along with custom accelerators. Experimental results demonstrate substantial speedup for several classes of applications. In addition to the use of architecture templates for the overall system, a second contribution lies in using high-level synthesis for promoting exploration of hardware IPs. The domain expert, who best knows which tasks are good candidates for hardware implementation, selects parts of the initial application to be potentially synthesized as dedicated accelerators. As a consequence, the HLS general problem turns into a constrained and more tractable issue, and automation capabilities eliminate the need for tedious and error-prone manual processes during domain space exploration. The automation only takes place once the application has been broken down into concurrent tasks by the designer, who can then drive the synthesis process with a set of parameters provided by TBES to balance tradeoffs between optimization efforts and quality of results. The approach is demonstrated step by step up to FPGA implementations and executions with an MJPEG benchmark and a complex Viola-Jones face detection application. We show that TBES allows one to achieve results with up to 10 times speedup to reduce development times and to widen design space exploration.
A great number of Central Asian wall paintings, archeological materials, architectural fragments, and textiles, as well as painting fragments on silk and paper, make up the so called Turfan Collection at the Asian Art Museum in Berlin. The largest part of the collection comes from the Kucha region, a very important cultural center in the third to ninth centuries. Between 1902 and 1914, four German expeditions traveled along the northern Silk Road. During these expeditions, wall paintings were detached from their original settings in Buddhist cave complexes. This paper reports a technical study of a wall painting, existing in eight fragments, from the Buddhist cave no. 40 (Ritterhohle). Its original painted surface is soot blackened and largely illegible. Gruwedel, leader of the first and third expeditions, described the almost complete destruction of the rediscovered temple complex and evidence of fire damage. The aim of this case study is to identify the materials used for the wall paintings. Furthermore, soot deposits as well as materials from conservation interventions were of interest. Non-invasive analyses were preferred but a limited number of samples were taken to provide more precise information on the painting technique. By employing optical and scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, micro X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction analysis, and Raman spectroscopy, a layer sequence of earthen render, a ground layer made of gypsum, and a paint layer containing a variety of inorganic pigments were identified.
The aim of this study was to develop a one-step synthesis of gold nanotriangles (NTs) in the presence of mixed phospholipid vesicles followed by a separation process to isolate purified NTs. Negatively charged vesicles containing AOT and phospholipids, in the absence and presence of additional reducing agents (polyampholytes, polyanions or low molecular weight compounds), were used as a template phase to form anisotropic gold nanoparticles. Upon addition of the gold chloride solution, the nucleation process is initiated and both types of particles, i.e., isotropic spherical and anisotropic gold nanotriangles, are formed simultaneously. As it was not possible to produce monodisperse nanotriangles with such a one-step procedure, the anisotropic nanoparticles needed to be separated from the spherical ones. Therefore, a new type of separation procedure using combined polyelectrolyte/micelle depletion flocculation was successfully applied. As a result of the different purification steps, a green colored aqueous dispersion was obtained containing highly purified, well-defined negatively charged flat nanocrystals with a platelet thickness of 10 nm and an edge length of about 175 nm. The NTs produce promising results in surface-enhanced Raman scattering.
The synthesis and photophysical properties of two new FRET pairs based on coumarin as a donor and DBD dye as an acceptor are described. The introduction of a bromo atom dramatically increases the two-photon excitation (2PE) cross section providing a 2PE-FRET system, which is also suitable for 2PE-FLIM.
In contrast to recent advances in projecting sea levels, estimations about the economic impact of sea level rise are vague. Nonetheless, they are of great importance for policy making with regard to adaptation and greenhouse-gas mitigation. Since the damage is mainly caused by extreme events, we propose a stochastic framework to estimate the monetary losses from coastal floods in a confined region. For this purpose, we follow a Peak-over-Threshold approach employing a Poisson point process and the Generalised Pareto Distribution. By considering the effect of sea level rise as well as potential adaptation scenarios on the involved parameters, we are able to study the development of the annual damage. An application to the city of Copenhagen shows that a doubling of losses can be expected from a mean sea level increase of only 11 cm. In general, we find that for varying parameters the expected losses can be well approximated by one of three analytical expressions depending on the extreme value parameters. These findings reveal the complex interplay of the involved parameters and allow conclusions of fundamental relevance. For instance, we show that the damage typically increases faster than the sea level rise itself. This in turn can be of great importance for the assessment of sea level rise impacts on the global scale. Our results are accompanied by an assessment of uncertainty, which reflects the stochastic nature of extreme events. While the absolute value of uncertainty about the flood damage increases with rising mean sea levels, we find that it decreases in relation to the expected damage.
Coupling of attention and saccades when viewing scenes with central and peripheral degradation
(2016)
Degrading real-world scenes in the central or the peripheral visual field yields a characteristic pattern: Mean saccade amplitudes increase with central and decrease with peripheral degradation. Does this pattern reflect corresponding modulations of selective attention? If so, the observed saccade amplitude pattern should reflect more focused attention in the central region with peripheral degradation and an attentional bias toward the periphery with central degradation. To investigate this hypothesis, we measured the detectability of peripheral (Experiment 1) or central targets (Experiment 2) during scene viewing when low or high spatial frequencies were gaze-contingently filtered in the central or the peripheral visual field. Relative to an unfiltered control condition, peripheral filtering induced a decrease of the detection probability for peripheral but not for central targets (tunnel vision). Central filtering decreased the detectability of central but not of peripheral targets. Additional post hoc analyses are compatible with the interpretation that saccade amplitudes and direction are computed in partial independence. Our experimental results indicate that task-induced modulations of saccade amplitudes reflect attentional modulations.
Overweight and Obesity
(2016)
In the present study, we summarize and evaluate the endeavors from recent years to estimate the maximum possible earthquake magnitude m(max) from observed data. In particular, we use basic and physically motivated assumptions to identify best cases and worst cases in terms of lowest and highest degree of uncertainty of m(max). In a general framework, we demonstrate that earthquake data and earthquake proxy data recorded in a fault zone provide almost no information about m(max) unless reliable and homogeneous data of a long time interval, including several earthquakes with magnitude close to m(max), are available. Even if detailed earthquake information from some centuries including historic and paleoearthquakes are given, only very few, namely the largest events, will contribute at all to the estimation of m(max), and this results in unacceptably high uncertainties. As a consequence, estimators of m(max) in a fault zone, which are based solely on earthquake-related information from this region, have to be dismissed.
Polysarcosine (M-n = 3650-20 000 g mol(-1), D similar to 1.1) was synthesized from the air and moisture stable N-phenoxycarbonyl-N-methylglycine. Polymerization was achieved by in situ transformation of the urethane precursor into the corresponding N-methylglycine-N-carboxyanhydride, when in the presence of a non-nucleophilic tertiary amine base and a primary amine initiator.
Walking while concurrently performing cognitive and/or motor interference tasks is the norm rather than the exception during everyday life and there is evidence from behavioral studies that it negatively affects human locomotion. However, there is hardly any information available regarding the underlying neural correlates of single-and dual-task walking. We had 12 young adults (23.8 +/- 2.8 years) walk while concurrently performing a cognitive interference (CI) or a motor interference (MI) task. Simultaneously, neural activation in frontal, central, and parietal brain areas was registered using a mobile EEG system. Results showed that the MI task but not the CI task affected walking performance in terms of significantly decreased gait velocity and stride length and significantly increased stride time and tempo-spatial variability. Average activity in alpha and beta frequencies was significantly modulated during both CI and MI walking conditions in frontal and central brain regions, indicating an increased cognitive load during dual-task walking. Our results suggest that impaired motor performance during dual-task walking is mirrored in neural activation patterns of the brain. This finding is in line with established cognitive theories arguing that dual-task situations overstrain cognitive capabilities resulting in motor performance decrements.
Background: Losses in lower extremity muscle strength/power, muscle mass and deficits in static and particularly dynamic balance due to aging are associated with impaired functional performance and an increased fall risk. It has been shown that the combination of balance and strength training (BST) mitigates these age-related deficits. However, it is unresolved whether supervised versus unsupervised BST is equally effective in improving muscle power and balance in older adults. Objective:This study examined the impact of a 12-week BST program followed by 12 weeks of detraining on measures of balance and muscle power in healthy older adults enrolled in supervised (SUP) or unsupervised (UNSUP) training. Methods: Sixty-six older adults (men: 25, women: 41; age 73 4 years) were randomly assigned to a SUP group (2/week supervised training, 1/week unsupervised training; n = 22), an UNSUP group (3/week unsupervised training; n = 22) or a passive control group (CON; n = 22). Static (i.e., Romberg Test) and dynamic (i.e., 10-meter walk test) steady-state, proactive (i.e., Timed Up and Go Test, Functional Reach Test), and reactive balance (e.g., Push and Release Test), as well as lower extremity muscle power (i.e., Chair Stand Test; Stair Ascent and Descent Test) were tested before and after the active training phase as well as after detraining. Results: Adherence rates to training were 92% for SUP and 97% for UNSUP. BST resulted in significant group x time interactions. Post hoc analyses showed, among others, significant training-related improvements for the Romberg Test, stride velocity, Timed Up and Go Test, and Chair Stand Test in favor of the SUP group. Following detraining, significantly enhanced performances (compared to baseline) were still present in 13 variables for the SUP group and in 10 variables for the UNSUP group. Conclusion: Twelve weeks of BST proved to be safe (no training-related injuries) and feasible (high attendance rates of >90%). Deficits of balance and lower extremity muscle power can be mitigated by BST in healthy older adults. Additionally, supervised as compared to unsupervised BST was more effective. Thus, it is recommended to counteract intrinsic fall risk factors by applying supervised BST programs for older adults. (C) 2015 The Author(s) Published by S. Karger AG, Basel
This case study evaluates the suitability of radar-based quantitative precipitation estimates (QPEs) for the simulation of streamflow in the Marikina River Basin (MRB), the Philippines. Hourly radar-based QPEs were produced from reflectivity that had been observed by an S-band radar located about 90 km from the MRB. Radar data processing and precipitation estimation were carried out using the open source library wradlib. To assess the added value of the radar-based QPE, we used spatially interpolated rain gauge observations (gauge-only (GO) product) as a benchmark. Rain gauge observations were also used to quantify rainfall estimation errors at the point scale. At the point scale, the radar-based QPE outperformed the GO product in 2012, while for 2013, the performance was similar. For both periods, estimation errors substantially increased from daily to the hourly accumulation intervals. Despite this fact, both rainfall estimation methods allowed for a good representation of observed streamflow when used to force a hydrological simulation model of the MRB. Furthermore, the results of the hydrological simulation were consistent with rainfall verification at the point scale: the radar-based QPE performed better than the GO product in 2012, and equivalently in 2013. Altogether, we could demonstrate that, in terms of streamflow simulation, the radar-based QPE can perform as good as or even better than the GO product - even for a basin such as the MRB which has a comparatively dense rain gauge network. This suggests good prospects for using radar-based QPE to simulate and forecast streamflow in other parts of the Philippines where rain gauge networks are not as dense.
BACKGROUND: Thrombogenicity is one of the main parameters tested in vitro to evaluate the hemocompatibility of artificial surfaces. While the influence of the temperature on platelet aggregation has been addressed by several studies, the temperature influence on the adherence of platelets to body foreign surfaces as an important aspect of biomedical device handling has not yet been explored. Therefore, we analyzed the influence of two typically applied incubation-temperatures (22 degrees C and 37 degrees C) on the adhesion of platelets to biomaterials. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Thrombogenicity of three different polymers - medical grade poly(dimethyl siloxane) (PDMS), polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) - were studied in an in vitro static test. Platelet adhesion was studied with stringently characterized blood from apparently healthy subjects. Collection of whole blood and preparation of platelet rich plasma (PRP) was carried out at room temperature (22 degrees C). PRP was incubated with the polymers either at 22 degrees C or 37 degrees C. Surface adherent platelets were fixed, fluorescently labelled and assessed by an image-based approach. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: Differences in the density of adherent platelets after incubation at 22 degrees C and 37 degrees C occurred on PDMS and PET. Similar levels of adherent platelets were observed on the very thrombogenic PTFE. The covered surface areas per single platelet were analyzed to measure the state of platelet activation and revealed no differences between the two incubation temperatures for any of the analyzed polymers. Irrespective of the observed differences between the low and medium thrombogenic PDMS and PET and the higher variability at 22 degrees C, the thrombogenicity of the three investigated polymers was evaluated being comparable at both incubation temperatures.
A high cell viability of around 99 +/- 18% and 99 +/- 5% was observed when THP-1 cells were cultured in the presence of aqueous extracts of the PEI microparticles in medium A and medium B respectively. The obtained microscopic data suggested that PEI particle extracts have no significant effect on cell death, oxidative stress or differentiation to macrophages. It was further found that the investigated proinflammatory markers in THP-1 cells were not up-regulated. These results are promising with regard to the biocompatibility of PEI microparticles and in a next step the hemocompatibility of the microparticles will be examined.
Uremia is a phenomenon caused by retention of uremic toxins in the plasma due to functional impairment of kidneys in the elimination of urinary waste products. Uremia is presently treated by dialysis techniques like hemofiltration, dialysis or hemodiafiltration. However, these techniques in use are more favorable towards removing hydrophilic than hydrophobic uremic toxins. Hydrophobic uremic toxins, such as hydroxy hipuric acid (OH-HPA), phenylacetic acid (PAA), indoxyl sulfate (IDS) and p-cresylsulfate (pCRS), contribute substantially to the progression of chronic kidney disease (CKD) and cardiovascular disease. Therefore, objective of the present study is to test adsorption capacity of highly porous microparticles prepared from poly(ether imide) (PEI) as an alternative technique for the removal of uremic toxins. Two types of nanoporous, spherically shaped microparticles were prepared from PEI by a spraying/coagulation process. PEI particles were packed into a preparative HPLC column to which a mixture of the four types of uremic toxins was injected and eluted with ethanol. Eluted toxins were quantified by analytical HPLC. PEI particles were able to adsorb all four toxins, with the highest affinity for PAA and pCR. IDS and OH-HPA showed a partially non-reversible binding. In summary, PEI particles are interesting candidates to be explored for future application in CKD.
Discourse production in aphasia: a current review of theoretical and methodological challenges
(2016)
Background: Discourse abilities play an important role in the assessment, classification, and therapy outcome evaluation of people with aphasia. Discourse production in aphasia has been studied quite extensively in the last 15 years. Nevertheless, many questions still do not have definitive answers.Aims: The aim of this review is to present the current situation in the research on a number of crucial aspects of discourse production in aphasia, focusing on methodological progress and related challenges. This review continues the discussion of the core themes in the field, aiming to render it as up-to-date as possible.Main Contribution: The review focuses on a number of unexplored theoretical issues, specifically, the interface between micro- and macrolinguistic abilities, and the relationship between linguistic competence and communicative success in aphasia. The emphasis on theoretical challenges, along with the thorough discussion of methodological problems in the field, makes this review a starting point and a comprehensive information source for researchers planning to address language production in people with aphasia.Conclusion: Although the picture is not yet complete, recent advancements lead to a better understanding of the processes involved in aphasic discourse production. Different approaches provide insights into the complex multifaceted nature of discourse-level phenomena; however, methodological issues, including low comparability, substantially slow down the progress in the field.
Body height is associated with environmental conditions. It has been suggested that under poor conditions when inequality within a population increases, also the variability in height tends to increase. We studied the association of body height, within-country variability in height and geographic and historic origin in 767 growth studies carried out in 80 countries, published between 1794 and 2013, with data on N = 78,184 infants age 2 years, and N = 2,130,729 juveniles age 7 years. The studies represent almost the whole spectrum of economic diversity in human societies since the end-18 th century. 207 studies contained data for both infants and juveniles with 50,819 subjects (age 2), and 123,078 subjects (age 7). Multiple linear regressions showed significant interactions between height, sex, historic year of the study, geographic origin, and within-study standard deviation for height with multiple R-squared = 0.527, p < 0.001, at age 2, and multiple R-squared = 0.436, p < 0.001, at age 7. Yet, the two age groups differed in respect to within-study standard deviation for height. We found a significant association between body height and within-study standard deviation for height only at age 2: tall infant populations are less variable in height (r = –0.27, p < 0.01). There was no such association in children aged 7 years. Tall children from affluent and short children from less affluent countries do not differ in the variability of body height. The data suggest that the 'environmental adversity' hypothesis for variation in growth: small mean values for height go along with large standard deviations for height, does not apply for children at age 7.
The folding of single-stranded telomeric DNA into guanine (G) quadruplexes is a conformational change that plays a major role in sensing and drug targeting. The telomeric DNA can be placed on DNA origami nanostructures to make the folding process extremely selective for K+ ions even in the presence of high Na+ concentrations. Here, we demonstrate that the K+-selective G-quadruplex formation is reversible when using a cryptand to remove K+ from the G-quadruplex. We present a full characterization of the reversible switching between single-stranded telomeric DNA and G-quadruplex structures using Forster resonance energy transfer (FRET) between the dyes fluorescein (FAM) and cyanine3 (Cy3). When attached to the DNA origami platform, the G-quadruplex switch can be incorporated into more complex photonic networks, which is demonstrated for a three-color and a four-color FRET cascade from FAM over Cy3 and Cy5 to IRDye700 with G-quadruplex-Cy3 acting as a switchable transmitter.
Physiological response of two different Chlamydomonas reinhardtii strains to light-dark rhythms
(2016)
Cells of a cell-wall deficient line (cw15-type) of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii and of the corresponding wild type were grown during repetitive light-dark cycles. In a direct comparison, both lines showed approximately the same relative biomass increase during light phase but the cw-line produced significantly more, and smaller, daughter cells. Throughout the light period the average cellular starch content, the cellular chlorophyll content, the cellular rate of dark respiration, and the cellular rate of photosynthesis of the cw-line was lower. Despite this, several non-cell volume related parameters like the development of starch content per cell volume were clearly different over time between the strains. Additionally, the chlorophyll-based photosynthesis rates were 2-fold higher in the mutant than in the wild-type cells, and the ratio of chlorophyll a to chlorophyll b as well as the light-saturation index were also consistently higher in the mutant cells. Differences in the starch content were also confirmed by single cell analyses using a sensitive SHG-based microscopy approach. In summary, the cw15-type mutant deviates from its genetic background in the entire cell physiology. Both lines should be used in further studies in comparative systems biology with focus on the detailed relation between cell volume increase, photosynthesis, starch metabolism, and daughter cell productivity.
Isostasy is one of the oldest and most widely applied concepts in the geosciences, but the geoscientific community lacks a coherent, easy-to-use tool to simulate flexure of a realistic (i.e., laterally heterogeneous) lithosphere under an arbitrary set of surface loads. Such a model is needed for studies of mountain building, sedimentary basin formation, glaciation, sea-level change, and other tectonic, geodynamic, and surface processes. Here I present gFlex (for GNU flexure), an open-source model that can produce analytical and finite difference solutions for lithospheric flexure in one (profile) and two (map view) dimensions. To simulate the flexural isostatic response to an imposed load, it can be used by itself or within GRASS GIS for better integration with field data. gFlex is also a component with the Community Surface Dynamics Modeling System (CSDMS) and Landlab modeling frameworks for coupling with a wide range of Earth-surface-related models, and can be coupled to additional models within Python scripts. As an example of this in-script coupling, I simulate the effects of spatially variable lithospheric thickness on a modeled Iceland ice cap. Finite difference solutions in gFlex can use any of five types of boundary conditions: 0-displacement, 0-slope (i.e., clamped); 0-slope, 0-shear; 0-moment, 0-shear (i.e., broken plate); mirror symmetry; and periodic. Typical calculations with gFlex require << 1 s to similar to 1 min on a personal laptop computer. These characteristics - multiple ways to run the model, multiple solution methods, multiple boundary conditions, and short compute time - make gFlex an effective tool for flexural isostatic modeling across the geosciences.
Even if greenhouse gas emissions were stopped today, sea level would continue to rise for centuries, with the long-term sea-level commitment of a 2 degrees C warmer world significantly exceeding 2 m. In view of the potential implications for coastal populations and ecosystems worldwide, we investigate, from an ice-dynamic perspective, the possibility of delaying sea-level rise by pumping ocean water onto the surface of the Antarctic ice sheet. We find that due to wave propagation ice is discharged much faster back into the ocean than would be expected from a pure advection with surface velocities. The delay time depends strongly on the distance from the coastline at which the additional mass is placed and less strongly on the rate of sea-level rise that is mitigated. A millennium-scale storage of at least 80% of the additional ice requires placing it at a distance of at least 700 km from the coastline. The pumping energy required to elevate the potential energy of ocean water to mitigate the currently observed 3 mmyr(-1) will exceed 7% of the current global primary energy supply. At the same time, the approach offers a comprehensive protection for entire coastlines particularly including regions that cannot be protected by dikes.
This study investigates the characteristics of narrative-speech production and the use of verbs in Turkish agrammatic speakers (n = 10) compared to non-brain-damaged controls (n = 10). To elicit narrative-speech samples, personal interviews and storytelling tasks were conducted. Turkish has a large and regular verb inflection paradigm where verbs are inflected for evidentiality (i.e. direct versus indirect evidence available to the speaker). Particularly, we explored the general characteristics of the speech samples (e.g. utterance length) and the uses of lexical, finite and non-finite verbs and direct and indirect evidentials. The results show that speech rate is slow, verbs per utterance are lower than normal and the verb diversity is reduced in the agrammatic speakers. Verb inflection is relatively intact; however, a trade-off pattern between inflection for direct evidentials and verb diversity is found. The implications of the data are discussed in connection with narrative-speech production studies on other languages.
Microcystins do not necessarily lower the sensitivity of Microcystis aeruginosa to tannic acid
(2016)
Different phytoplankton strains have been shown to possess varying sensitivities towards macrophyte allelochemicals, yet the reasons for this are largely unknown. To test whether microcystin (MC) is responsible for strain-specific sensitivities of Microcystis aeruginosa to macrophyte allelochemicals, we compared the sensitivity of 12 MC- and non-MC-producing M. aeruginosa strains, including an MC-deficient mutant and its wild type, to the polyphenolic allelochemical tannic acid (TA). Non-MC-producing strains showed a significantly higher sensitivity to TA than MC-producing strains, both in Chlorophyll a concentrations and quantum yields of photosystem II. In contrast, an MC-deficient mutant displayed a higher fitness against TA compared to its wild type. These results suggest that the resistance of M. aeruginosa to polyphenolic allelochemicals is not primarily related to MCs per se, but to other yet unknown protective mechanisms related to MCs.
This article is a response to calls in prior research that we need more longitudinal analyses to better understand the foundations of PSM and related prosocial values. There is wide agreement that it is crucial for theory building but also for tailoring hiring practices and human resource development programs to sort out whether PSM-related values are stable or developable. The article summarizes existent theoretical expectations, which turn out to be partially conflicting, and tests them against multiple waves of data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study which covers a time period of 16 years. It finds that PSM-related values of public employees are stable rather than dynamic but tend to increase with age and decrease with organizational membership. The article also examines cohort effects, which have been neglected in prior work, and finds moderate evidence that there are differences between those born during the Second World War and later generations.
Achieving cooperation in natural resource management is always a challenge when incentives exist for an individual to maximise her short term benefits at the cost of a group. We study a public good social dilemma in water infrastructure provision on land reform farms in Namibia. In the context of the Namibian land reform, arbitrarily mixed groups of livestock farmers have to share the operation and maintenance of water infrastructure. Typically, water is mainly used for livestock production, and livestock numbers are subject to high fluctuations due to the given environmental conditions. Our paper assesses how alternative payment systems with differing congruence of provision and appropriation support the cooperation in the group given the ever-changing equilibria. In a first step, we conducted an exploratory overview of the social-ecological system of central Namibian land reform projects. The Social Ecological System (SES) Framework served as a guideline for this assessment (Ostrom 2009). Taking the complexity of the cooperation situation into account, in the second step we designed a role-play that is based on a social-ecological simulation model. The role-play simulates the real-life decision situations of land reform beneficiaries wherein equilibria are permanently changing. This approach helped us to not only better understand the cooperation challenges of Namibian land reform beneficiaries, but also supported stakeholders in their decision making and institution building. Our study provides evidence to support that land reform beneficiaries increase their contributions as they own more livestock and as other group members increase their payments. Nevertheless, only groups with relatively homogeneous livestock endowments manage to agree on payment rules. Interestingly, the dominant rule is an "equal payment per farmer" and not a "payment per head of livestock", though the latter would imply a higher congruence of provision and appropriation.
Injection of fluids into deep saline aquifers causes a pore pressure increase in the storage formation, and thus displacement of resident brine. Via hydraulically conductive faults, brine may migrate upwards into shallower aquifers and lead to unwanted salinisation of potable groundwater resources. In the present study, we investigated different scenarios for a potential storage site in the Northeast German Basin using a three-dimensional (3-D) regional-scale model that includes four major fault zones. The focus was on assessing the impact of fault length and the effect of a secondary reservoir above the storage formation, as well as model boundary conditions and initial salinity distribution on the potential salinisation of shallow groundwater resources. We employed numerical simulations of brine injection as a representative fluid. Our simulation results demonstrate that the lateral model boundary settings and the effective fault damage zone volume have the greatest influence on pressure build-up and development within the reservoir, and thus intensity and duration of fluid flow through the faults. Higher vertical pressure gradients for short fault segments or a small effective fault damage zone volume result in the highest salinisation potential due to a larger vertical fault height affected by fluid displacement. Consequently, it has a strong impact on the degree of shallow aquifer salinisation, whether a gradient in salinity exists or the saltwater-freshwater interface lies below the fluid displacement depth in the faults. A small effective fault damage zone volume or low fault permeability further extend the duration of fluid flow, which can persist for several tens to hundreds of years, if the reservoir is laterally confined. Laterally open reservoir boundaries, large effective fault damage zone volumes and intermediate reservoirs significantly reduce vertical brine migration and the potential of freshwater salinisation because the origin depth of displaced brine is located only a few decametres below the shallow aquifer in maximum. The present study demonstrates that the existence of hydraulically conductive faults is not necessarily an exclusion criterion for potential injection sites, because salinisation of shallower aquifers strongly depends on initial salinity distribution, location of hydraulically conductive faults and their effective damage zone volumes as well as geological boundary conditions.
Ice complex deposits are characteristic, ice-rich formations in northern East Siberia and represent an important part in the arctic carbon pool. Recently, these late Quaternary deposits are the objective of numerous investigations typically relying on outcrop and borehole data. Many of these studies can benefit from a 3D structural model of the subsurface for upscaling their observations or for constraining estimations of inventories, such as the local carbon stock. We have addressed this problem of structural imaging by 3D ground-penetrating radar (GPR), which, in permafrost studies, has been primarily used for 2D profiling. We have used a 3D kinematic GPR surveying strategy at a field site located in the New Siberian Archipelago on top of an ice complex. After applying a 3D GPR processing sequence, we were able to trace two horizons at depths below 20 m. Taking available borehole and outcrop data into account, we have interpreted these two features as interfaces of major lithologic units and derived a 3D cryostratigraphic model of the subsurface. Our data example demonstrated that a 3D surveying and processing strategy was crucial at our field site and showed the potential of 3D GPR to image geologic structures in complex ice-rich permafrost landscapes.
Analysis of time-lapse ground-penetrating radar (GPR) data can provide information regarding subsurface hydrological processes, such as preferential flow. However, the analysis of time-lapse data is often limited by data quality; for example, for noisy input data, the interpretation of difference images is often difficult. Motivated by modern image-processing tools, we have developed two robust GPR attributes, which allow us to distinguish amplitude (contrast similarity) and time-shift (structural similarity) variations related to differences between individual time-lapse GPR data sets. We tested and evaluated our attributes using synthetic data of different complexity. Afterward, we applied them to a field data example, in which subsurface flow was induced by an artificial rainfall event. For all examples, we identified our structural similarity attribute to be a robust measure for highlighting time-lapse changes also in data with low signal-to-noise ratios. We determined that our new attribute-based workflow is a promising tool to analyze time-lapse GPR data, especially for imaging subsurface hydrological processes.
Rotation of the femoral component is an important aspect of knee arthroplasty, due to its effects on postsurgery knee kinematics and associated functional outcomes. It is still debated which method for establishing rotational alignment is preferable in orthopedic surgery. We compared force sensing based femoral component rotation with traditional anatomic landmark methods to investigate which method is more accurate in terms of alignment to the true transepicondylar axis. Thirty-one patients underwent computer-navigated total knee arthroplasty for osteoarthritis with femoral rotation established via a force sensor. During surgery, three alternative hypothetical femoral rotational alignments were assessed, based on transepicondylar axis, anterior-posterior axis, or the utilization of a posterior condyles referencing jig. Postoperative computed tomography scans were obtained to investigate rotation characteristics. Significant differences in rotation characteristics were found between rotation according to DKB and other methods (P < 0.05). Soft tissue balancing resulted in smaller deviation from anatomical epicondylar axis than any other method. 77% of operated knees were within a range of +/-3 degrees of rotation. Only between 48% and 52% of knees would have been rotated appropriately using the other methods. The current results indicate that force sensors may be valuable for establishing correct femoral rotation.
Most climate change impacts manifest in the form of natural hazards. Damage assessment typically relies on damage functions that translate the magnitude of extreme events to a quantifiable damage. In practice, the availability of damage functions is limited due to a lack of data sources and a lack of understanding of damage processes. The study of the characteristics of damage functions for different hazards could strengthen the theoretical foundation of damage functions and support their development and validation. Accordingly, we investigate analogies of damage functions for coastal flooding and for wind storms and identify a unified approach. This approach has general applicability for granular portfolios and may also be applied, for example, to heat-related mortality. Moreover, the unification enables the transfer of methodology between hazards and a consistent treatment of uncertainty. This is demonstrated by a sensitivity analysis on the basis of two simple case studies (for coastal flood and storm damage). The analysis reveals the relevance of the various uncertainty sources at varying hazard magnitude and on both the microscale and the macroscale level. Main findings are the dominance of uncertainty from the hazard magnitude and the persistent behaviour of intrinsic uncertainties on both scale levels. Our results shed light on the general role of uncertainties and provide useful insight for the application of the unified approach.
Accessing morphosyntax in L1 and L2 word recognition A priming study of inflected German adjectives
(2016)
In fusional languages, inflectional affixes may encode multiple morphosyntactic features such as case, number, and gender. To determine how these features are accessed during both native (L1) and non-native (L2) word recognition, the present study compares the results from a masked visual priming experiment testing inflected adjectives of German to those of a previous overt (cross-modal) priming experiment on the same phenomenon. While for the L1 group both experiments produced converging results, a group of highly-proficient Russian L2 learners of German showed native-like modulations of repetition priming effects under overt, but not under masked priming conditions. These results indicate that not only affixes but also their morphosyntactic features are accessible during initial form-based lexical access, albeit only for L1 and not for L2 processing. We argue that this contrast is in line with other findings suggesting that non-native language processing is less influenced by structural information than the L1.
We consider a generalized diffusion equation in two dimensions for modeling diffusion on a comb-like structures. We analyze the probability distribution functions and we derive the mean squared displacement in x and y directions. Different forms of the memory kernels (Dirac delta, power-law, and distributed order) are considered. It is shown that anomalous diffusion may occur along both x and y directions. Ultraslow diffusion and some more general diffusive processes are observed as well. We give the corresponding continuous time random walk model for the considered two dimensional diffusion-like equation on a comb, and we derive the probability distribution functions which subordinate the process governed by this equation to the Wiener process.
Studies investigating the effect of increasing CO2 levels on the phosphorus cycle in natural waters are lacking although phosphorus often controls phytoplankton development in many aquatic systems. The aim of our study was to analyse effects of elevated CO2 levels on phosphorus pool sizes and uptake. The phosphorus dynamic was followed in a CO2-manipulation mesocosm experiment in the Storfjarden (western Gulf of Finland, Baltic Sea) in summer 2012 and was also studied in the surrounding fjord water. In all mesocosms as well as in surface waters of Storfjarden, dissolved organic phosphorus (DOP) concentrations of 0.26aEuro-+/- aEuro-0.03 and 0.23aEuro-+/- aEuro-0.04aEuro-A mu molaEuro-L-1, respectively, formed the main fraction of the total P-pool (TP), whereas phosphate (PO4) constituted the lowest fraction with mean concentration of 0.15aEuro-A +/- aEuro-0.02 in the mesocosms and 0.17aEuro-A +/- aEuro-0.07aEuro-A mu molaEuro-L-1 in the fjord. Transformation of PO4 into DOP appeared to be the main pathway of PO4 turnover. About 82aEuro-% of PO4 was converted into DOP whereby only 18aEuro-% of PO4 was transformed into particulate phosphorus (PP). PO4 uptake rates measured in the mesocosms ranged between 0.6 and 3.9aEuro-nmolaEuro-L(-1)aEuro-h(-1). About 86aEuro-% of them was realized by the size fraction < aEuro-3aEuro-A mu m. Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) uptake revealed that additional P was supplied from organic compounds accounting for 25-27aEuro-% of P provided by PO4 only. CO2 additions did not cause significant changes in phosphorus (P) pool sizes, DOP composition, and uptake of PO4 and ATP when the whole study period was taken into account. However, significant short-term effects were observed for PO4 and PP pool sizes in CO2 treatments > aEuro-1000aEuro-A mu atm during periods when phytoplankton biomass increased. In addition, we found significant relationships (e.g., between PP and Chl a) in the untreated mesocosms which were not observed under high fCO(2) conditions. Consequently, it can be hypothesized that the relationship between PP formation and phytoplankton growth changed with CO2 elevation. It can be deduced from the results, that visible effects of CO2 on P pools are coupled to phytoplankton growth when the transformation of PO4 into POP was stimulated. The transformation of PO4 into DOP on the other hand does not seem to be affected. Additionally, there were some indications that cellular mechanisms of P regulation might be modified under CO2 elevation changing the relationship between cellular constituents.
A comprehensive typology of basic executive formats is presented and linked to a discussion of tradeoffs in the design of executive-legislative relations. The focus is on the tradeoffs between three goals: (1) programmatic parties, (2) identifiable cabinets and (3) issue -specific legislative coalitions. To include semi-presidentialism into the typology in a logically consistent manner, a heretofore neglected executive format has to be defined, which is labelled semi-parliamentarism. Based on a discussion of Australian states, it is argued that semi-parliamentarism has the potential to mitigate the trilemma.
Phytohormones act in concert to coordinate plant growth and the response to environmental cues. Gibberellins (GAs) are growth-promoting hormones that recently emerged as modulators of plant immune signaling. By regulating the stability of DELLA proteins, GAs intersect with the signaling pathways of the classical primary defense hormones, salicylic acid (SA) and jasmonic acid (JA), thereby altering the final outcome of the immune response. DELLA proteins confer resistance to necrotrophic pathogens by potentiating JA signaling and raise the susceptibility to biotrophic pathogens by attenuating the SA pathway. Here, we show that JUB1, a core element of the GA - brassinosteroid (BR) - DELLA regulatory module, functions as a negative regulator of defense responses against Pseudomonas syringae pv. tomato DC3000 (Pst DC3000) and mediates the crosstalk between growth and immunity.
Background/Aims: Preterm birth (PTB) and low birth weight (LBW) significantly influence mortality and morbidity of the offspring in early life and also have long-term consequences in later life. A better understanding of the molecular mechanisms of preterm birth could provide new insights regarding putative preventive strategies. Metabolomics provides a powerful analytic tool to readout complex interactions between genetics, environment and health and may serve to identify relevant biomarkers. In this study, the association between 163 targeted maternal blood metabolites and gestational age was investigated in order to find candidate biomarkers for PTB. Methods: Five hundred twenty-three women were included into this observational study. Maternal blood was obtained before delivery. The concentration of 163 maternal serum metabolites was measured by flow injection tandem mass spectrometry. To find putative biomarkers for preterm birth, a three-step analysis was designed: bivariate correlation analysis followed by multivariable regression analysis and a comparison of mean values among gestational age groups. Results: Bivariate correlation analysis showed that 2 acylcarnitines (C16:2, C2), 1 amino acids (xLeu), 8 diacyl-PCs (PCaaC36:4, PCaaC38:4, PCaaC38:5, PCaaC38:6, PCaaC40:4, PCaaC40:5, PCaaC40:6, PCaaC42:4), and 1 Acylalkyl-PCs (PCaeC40:5) were inversely correlated with gestational age. Multivariable regression analysis confounded for PTB history, maternal body mass index (BMI) before pregnancy, systolic blood pressure at the third trimester, and maternal body weight at the third trimester, showed that the diacyl-PC PCaaC38:6 was the only metabolite inversely correlated with gestational age. Conclusions: Maternal blood concentrations of PCaaC38:6 are independently associated with gestational age. (C) 2016 The Author(s) Published by S. Karger AG, Basel
Teachers’ professional knowledge is assumed to be a key variable for effective teaching. As teacher education has the goal to enhance professional knowledge of current and future teachers, this knowledge should be described and assessed. Nevertheless, only a limited number of studies quantitatively measures physics teachers’ professional knowledge. The study reported in this paper was part of a bigger project with the broader goal of understanding teacher professional knowledge. We designed a test instrument to assess the professional knowledge of physics teachers (N = 186) in the dimensions of content knowledge (CK), pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), and pedagogical knowledge (PK). A model describing the relationships between these three dimensions of professional knowledge was created to inform the design of the tests used to measure CK, PCK, and PK. In this paper, we describe the model with particular emphasis on the PCK part, and the subsequent PCK test development and its implementation in detail. We report different approaches to evaluate the PCK test, including the description of content validity, the examination of the internal structure of professional knowledge, and the analysis of construct validity by testing teachers across different school subjects, teachers from different school types, pre-service teachers, and physicists. Our findings demonstrate that our PCK test results could distinguish physics teachers from the other groups tested. The PCK test results could not be explained by teachers’ CK or PK, cognitive abilities, computational skills, or science knowledge.
Workplace innovations often take the form of making suggestions about small-range improvements, for example, of processes and work procedures. Research on innovation suggests that people holding a novel idea will often consult their peers first in order to gauge their potential approval and support before proposing the idea to formal decision makers. We argue that peer evaluators’ intentions to support an innovative idea depend on the idea’s capacity to satisfy or threaten the evaluator’s achievement motive. Support intentions will be higher if the idea satisfies the evaluators’ achievement motive (idea-motive congruence), and lower if it threatens their achievement motive (idea-motive incongruence); evaluators’ affective response is proposed to mediate this effect. Moreover, the intentions attributed to the idea presenter are proposed to affect peers’ support intentions. The results of two scenario-based experiments (N = 153 and 123) confirm that motive-incongruent implications of an innovative idea, in particular regarding their fear of failure, reduce the likelihood for peers’ support intentions. Results on affective responses were inconsistent across studies, whereas perceiving the idea presenter to hold prosocial intentions was positively related to idea support. Implications for the evaluation of ideas are discussed.
We report an experimental method to measure the translational and rotational dynamics of colloidal spheres in three dimensions with confocal microscopy and show that the experimental values reasonably agree with the theoretical values. This method can be extended to study rotational dynamics in concentrated colloidal systems and complex bio-systems.
Electric field manipulated nanopatterns in thin films of metalorganic 3-miktoarm star terpolymers
(2016)
We report the effect of electric field on the morphological transitions and ordering behavior of polyferrocenylethylmethylsilane block (PFEMS)-containing copolymers. By analyzing structures in solvent-annealed films of metalorganic sphere-and cylinder-forming diblock copolymers, as well as of 3-miktoarm polyisoprene-arm-polystyrene-arm-PFEMS (3 mu-ISF) terpolymers, we decouple two types of responses to the electric field: morphological transformations as a result of an increase in the volume fraction of the PFEMS block by oxidation of the ferrocenyl groups, and the orientation of the dielectric interfaces of microdomains parallel to the electric field vector. In the case of 3m-ISF, the former effect dominates at high electric field strengths which results in an unexpected cylinder-to-sphere transition, leading to a well-ordered hexagonal dot pattern. Our results demonstrate multiple tunability of ordered microdomain morphologies, suggesting future applications in nanofabrication and surface patterning.
We introduce azobenzene-functionalized polyelectrolyte multilayers as efficient, inexpensive optoacoustic transducers for hyper-sound strain waves in the GHz range. By picosecond transient reflectivity measurements we study the creation of nanoscale strain waves, their reflection from interfaces, damping by scattering from nanoparticles and propagation in soft and hard adjacent materials like polymer layers, quartz and mica. The amplitude of the generated strain epsilon similar to 5 x 10(-4) is calibrated by ultrafast X-ray diffraction.
Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to provide evidence regarding the selection procedures for and characteristics of senior officials in supreme audit institutions (SIAs). Design/methodology/approach - This study follows a quantitative approach using original data collected for presidential elections of SIAs in the 16 federal states in Germany. A fractional logit model is calculated to test different theoretical assumptions in relation to structural, political and individual factors. Findings - The descriptive results confirm the findings of prior research that presidential candidates are elected with very high approval rates. The main determinants are the vote share of the ruling coalition and the executive experience of the presidential candidate. Research limitations/implications - This study focuses on 16 federal states in Germany, but an international comparative perspective covering subnational levels would further augment analysis through the variance of selection procedures and electoral outcomes. Social implications - Independence of auditors is a fundamental issue for the control of the executive, but it seems that there are inevitable trade-offs therein, such as between knowledge of the auditing objects or the politicization of the election process and the independence of the auditor. Originality/value - This study provides novel empirical insights into the election and selection procedures for senior SIA officials at the subnational level, and shows that the executive exerts strong, but functionally reasonable, influence on candidate selection.
Climate change increases riverine carbon outgassing, while export to the ocean remains uncertain
(2016)
Any regular interaction of land and river during flooding affects carbon pools within the terrestrial system, riverine carbon and carbon exported from the system. In the Amazon basin carbon fluxes are considerably influenced by annual flooding, during which terrigenous organic material is imported to the river. The Amazon basin therefore represents an excellent example of a tightly coupled terrestrial-riverine system. The processes of generation, conversion and transport of organic carbon in such a coupled terrigenous-riverine system strongly interact and are climate-sensitive, yet their functioning is rarely considered in Earth system models and their response to climate change is still largely unknown. To quantify regional and global carbon budgets and climate change effects on carbon pools and carbon fluxes, it is important to account for the coupling between the land, the river, the ocean and the atmosphere. We developed the RIVerine Carbon Model (RivCM), which is directly coupled to the well-established dynamic vegetation and hydrology model LPJmL, in order to account for this large-scale coupling. We evaluate RivCM with observational data and show that some of the values are reproduced quite well by the model, while we see large deviations for other variables. This is mainly caused by some simplifications we assumed. Our evaluation shows that it is possible to reproduce large-scale carbon transport across a river system but that this involves large uncertainties. Acknowledging these uncertainties, we estimate the potential changes in riverine carbon by applying RivCM for climate forcing from five climate models and three CO2 emission scenarios (Special Report on Emissions Scenarios, SRES). We find that climate change causes a doubling of riverine organic carbon in the southern and western basin while reducing it by 20% in the eastern and northern parts. In contrast, the amount of riverine inorganic carbon shows a 2- to 3-fold increase in the entire basin, independent of the SRES scenario. The export of carbon to the atmosphere increases as well, with an average of about 30 %. In contrast, changes in future export of organic carbon to the Atlantic Ocean depend on the SRES scenario and are projected to either decrease by about 8.9% (SRES A1B) or increase by about 9.1% (SRES A2). Such changes in the terrigenous-riverine system could have local and regional impacts on the carbon budget of the whole Amazon basin and parts of the Atlantic Ocean. Changes in riverine carbon could lead to a shift in the riverine nutrient supply and pH, while changes in the exported carbon to the ocean lead to changes in the supply of organic material that acts as a food source in the Atlantic. On larger scales the increased outgassing of CO2 could turn the Amazon basin from a sink of carbon to a considerable source. Therefore, we propose that the coupling of terrestrial and riverine carbon budgets should be included in subsequent analysis of the future regional carbon budget.
Robust appraisals of climate impacts at different levels of global-mean temperature increase are vital to guide assessments of dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system. The 2015 Paris Agreement includes a two-headed temperature goal: "holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2 degrees C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees C". Despite the prominence of these two temperature limits, a comprehensive overview of the differences in climate impacts at these levels is still missing. Here we provide an assessment of key impacts of climate change at warming levels of 1.5 degrees C and 2 degrees C, including extreme weather events, water availability, agricultural yields, sea-level rise and risk of coral reef loss. Our results reveal substantial differences in impacts between a 1.5 degrees C and 2 degrees C warming that are highly relevant for the assessment of dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system. For heat-related extremes, the additional 0.5 degrees C increase in global-mean temperature marks the difference between events at the upper limit of present-day natural variability and a new climate regime, particularly in tropical regions. Similarly, this warming difference is likely to be decisive for the future of tropical coral reefs. In a scenario with an end-of-century warming of 2 degrees C, virtually all tropical coral reefs are projected to be at risk of severe degradation due to temperature-induced bleaching from 2050 onwards. This fraction is reduced to about 90% in 2050 and projected to decline to 70% by 2100 for a 1.5 degrees C scenario. Analyses of precipitation-related impacts reveal distinct regional differences and hot-spots of change emerge. Regional reduction in median water availability for the Mediterranean is found to nearly double from 9% to 17% between 1.5 degrees C and 2 degrees C, and the projected lengthening of regional dry spells increases from 7 to 11%. Projections for agricultural yields differ between crop types as well as world regions. While some (in particular high-latitude) regions may benefit, tropical regions like West Africa, South-East Asia, as well as Central and northern South America are projected to face substantial local yield reductions, particularly for wheat and maize. Best estimate sea-level rise projections based on two illustrative scenarios indicate a 50cm rise by 2100 relative to year 2000-levels for a 2 degrees C scenario, and about 10 cm lower levels for a 1.5 degrees C scenario. In a 1.5 degrees C scenario, the rate of sea-level rise in 2100 would be reduced by about 30% compared to a 2 degrees C scenario. Our findings highlight the importance of regional differentiation to assess both future climate risks and different vulnerabilities to incremental increases in global-mean temperature. The article provides a consistent and comprehensive assessment of existing projections and a good basis for future work on refining our understanding of the difference between impacts at 1.5 degrees C and 2 degrees C warming.
Widespread flooding in June 2013 caused damage costs of (sic)6 to 8 billion in Germany, and awoke many memories of the floods in August 2002, which resulted in total damage of (sic)11.6 billion and hence was the most expensive natural hazard event in Germany up to now. The event of 2002 does, however, also mark a reorientation toward an integrated flood risk management system in Germany. Therefore, the flood of 2013 offered the opportunity to review how the measures that politics, administration, and civil society have implemented since 2002 helped to cope with the flood and what still needs to be done to achieve effective and more integrated flood risk management. The review highlights considerable improvements on many levels, in particular (1) an increased consideration of flood hazards in spatial planning and urban development, (2) comprehensive property-level mitigation and preparedness measures, (3) more effective flood warnings and improved coordination of disaster response, and (4) a more targeted maintenance of flood defense systems. In 2013, this led to more effective flood management and to a reduction of damage. Nevertheless, important aspects remain unclear and need to be clarified. This particularly holds for balanced and coordinated strategies for reducing and overcoming the impacts of flooding in large catchments, cross-border and interdisciplinary cooperation, the role of the general public in the different phases of flood risk management, as well as a transparent risk transfer system. Recurring flood events reveal that flood risk management is a continuous task. Hence, risk drivers, such as climate change, land-use changes, economic developments, or demographic change and the resultant risks must be investigated at regular intervals, and risk reduction strategies and processes must be reassessed as well as adapted and implemented in a dialogue with all stakeholders.
Polymer-dispersed liquid crystals (PDLCs) of ferroelectric poly(vinylidene fluoride-trifluoroethylene) and nematic 4-cyano-4ʹ-n-hexylbiphenyl (6CB) or 4-cyano-4ʹ-n-pentylbiphenyl (5CB) were prepared to study the effect of the remanent polarisation of the polymer on the liquid crystal alignment. We measured the macroscopic alignment of the liquid crystal molecules in the thickness direction by means of Infrared Transition-Moment Orientational Analysis. Electrical poling at 100 V/µm caused an increased order parameter up to 0.15. After subsequent annealing above the nematic-to-isotropic phase-transition temperature, the order parameter was reduced to 0.02. Nevertheless, the order parameter was still higher than for non-poled film indicating a slight orientation in thickness direction. Both values are lower than those expected from model calculations. In agreement with dielectric measurements, we attribute this result to the shielding effect of mobile charge carriers within the liquid crystal inclusions.
Maternal environmental factors can impact on the phenotype of the offspring via the induction of epigenetic adaptive mechanisms. The advanced fetal programming hypothesis proposes that maternal genetic variants may influence the offspring's phenotype indirectly via epigenetic modification, despite the absence of a primary genetic defect. To test this hypothesis, heterozygous female eNOS knockout mice and wild type mice were bred with male wild type mice. We then assessed the impact of maternal eNOS deficiency on the liver phenotype of wild type offspring. Birth weight of male wild type offspring born to female heterozygous eNOS knockout mice was reduced compared to offspring of wild type mice. Moreover, the offspring displayed a sex specific liver phenotype, with an increased liver weight, due to steatosis. This was accompanied by sex specific differences in expression and DNA methylation of distinct genes. Liver global DNA methylation was significantly enhanced in both male and female offspring. Also, hepatic parameters of carbohydrate metabolism were reduced in male and female offspring. In addition, male mice displayed reductions in various amino acids in the liver. Maternal genetic alterations, such as partial deletion of the eNOS gene, can affect liver metabolism of wild type offspring without transmission of the intrinsic defect. This occurs in a sex specific way, with more detrimental effects in females. This finding demonstrates that a maternal genetic defect can epigenetically alter the phenotype of the offspring, without inheritance of the defect itself. Importantly, these acquired epigenetic phenotypic changes can persist into adulthood.
Zum Hundertsten nichts Neues
(2016)
Editorial
(2016)
This study examines the role of pitch and final lengthening in German intonation phrase boundary (IPB) perception. Since a prosody-related event-related potential (ERP) component termed Closure Positive Shift reflects the processing of major prosodic boundaries, we combined ERP and behavioural measures (i.e. a prosodic judgement task) to systematically test the impact of sole and combined cue occurrences on IPB perception. In two experiments we investigated whether adult listeners perceived an IPB in acoustically manipulated speech material that contained none, one, or two of the prosodic boundary cues. Both ERP and behavioural results suggest that pitch and final lengthening cues have to occur in combination to trigger IPB perception. Hence, the combination of behavioural and electrophysiological measures provides a comprehensive insight into prosodic boundary cue perception in German and leads to an argument in favour of interrelated cues from the frequency (i.e. pitch change) and the time (i.e. final lengthening) domain.