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Das Anliegen, Theologie dialogisch zu betreiben, durchzieht das wissenschaftliche Schaffen und das kirchliche Engagement Bernd Oberdorfers. Dialogizität, Geselligkeit, Freundschaft und Partnerschaftlichkeit bilden nicht nur Themen in seinem Denken, sondern zeichnen auch seine Persönlichkeit aus.
Davon angeregt verfolgt der Sammelband verschiedene Ebenen und Felder menschlichen Zusammenlebens: von Nahbeziehungen in der Partnerschaft und Freundschaft bis hin zu nationalen und globalen Dialogen zwischen Kirchen und Diskursformen in der Gesellschaft. Schwerpunkte liegen auf den Themen Partnerschaft, Geselligkeit und Disput, interdisziplinären Begegnungen mit Literatur, Kultur und Ethik, Friedensethik und Frieden der Religionen und Dogmatik und weltweite Ökumene im Dialog zwischen Theorie und Praxis.
The present study estimated diet-related greenhouse gas emissions (GHGE) and land use (LU) in a sample of adults, examined main dietary contributors of GHGE, and evaluated socio demographic, lifestyle, and wellbeing factors as potential determinants of high environmental impact. A cross-sectional design based on data collected from the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC)-Potsdam cohort (2010-2012) was used. Usual diet was assessed using food frequency questionnaires. Diet-related GHGE and LU were calculated using a European-average lifecycle analyses-food-item database (SHARP-ID). Information on potential determinants were collected using self-administered questionnaires. Men (n = 404) and women (n = 401) at an average age of 66.0 +/- 8.4 years were included. Dietary-related energy-adjusted GHGE in men was 6.6 +/- 0.9 and in women was 7.0 +/- 1.1 kg CO2 eq per 2000 kcal. LU in men was 7.8 +/- 1.2 and in women was 7.7 +/- 1.2 m(2)/year per 2000 kcal. Food groups contributing to most GHGE included dairy, meat and non-alcoholic beverages. Among women, being single, having a job, being a smoker and having higher BMI were characteristics associated with higher GHGE, whereas for men these included being married, longer sleeping duration and higher BMI. Further studies are warranted to provide insights into population-specific determinants of sustainable dietary choices.
The drug concentrations targeted in meropenem and piperacillin/tazobactam therapy also depend on the susceptibility of the pathogen. Yet, the pathogen is often unknown, and antibiotic therapy is guided by empirical targets. To reliably achieve the targeted concentrations, dosing needs to be adjusted for renal function. We aimed to evaluate a meropenem and piperacillin/tazobactam monitoring program in intensive care unit (ICU) patients by assessing (i) the adequacy of locally selected empirical targets, (ii) if dosing is adequately adjusted for renal function and individual target, and (iii) if dosing is adjusted in target attainment (TA) failure. In a prospective, observational clinical trial of drug concentrations, relevant patient characteristics and microbiological data (pathogen, minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC)) for patients receiving meropenem or piperacillin/tazobactam treatment were collected. If the MIC value was available, a target range of 1-5 x MIC was selected for minimum drug concentrations of both drugs. If the MIC value was not available, 8-40 mg/L and 16-80 mg/L were selected as empirical target ranges for meropenem and piperacillin, respectively. A total of 356 meropenem and 216 piperacillin samples were collected from 108 and 96 ICU patients, respectively. The vast majority of observed MIC values was lower than the empirical target (meropenem: 90.0%, piperacillin: 93.9%), suggesting empirical target value reductions. TA was found to be low (meropenem: 35.7%, piperacillin 50.5%) with the lowest TA for severely impaired renal function (meropenem: 13.9%, piperacillin: 29.2%), and observed drug concentrations did not significantly differ between patients with different targets, indicating dosing was not adequately adjusted for renal function or target. Dosing adjustments were rare for both drugs (meropenem: 6.13%, piperacillin: 4.78%) and for meropenem irrespective of TA, revealing that concentration monitoring alone was insufficient to guide dosing adjustment. Empirical targets should regularly be assessed and adjusted based on local susceptibility data. To improve TA, scientific knowledge should be translated into easy-to-use dosing strategies guiding antibiotic dosing.
Biochemical markers and wellness status during a congested match play period in elite soccer players
(2022)
Objectives:
To analyze biochemical markers, wellness status, and physical fitness in elite soccer players in relation to changes in training and match exposure during a congested period of match play.
Methods:
Fourteen elite soccer players were evaluated 3 times (T1, T2, and T3) over 12 weeks (T1-T2: 6-wk regular period of match play and T2-T3: 6-wk congested period of match play). Players performed vertical jump tests, repeated shuttle sprint ability test, and the Yo-Yo Intermittent Recovery Test at T1, T2, and T3. Plasma C-reactive protein, creatinine, and creatine kinase were analyzed at T1, T2, and T3. Wellness status was measured daily using the Hopper questionnaire (delayed onset of muscle soreness, stress, fatigue, and sleep quality). Training session rating of perceived exertion was also recorded on a daily basis.
Results:
A significant increase was found in stress, fatigue, delayed onset of muscle soreness scores, and Hopper index during the congested period (between T2 and T3) compared with the regular period (between T1 and T2) (.001 < P < .008, 0.8 < ES < 2.3). Between T2 and T3, significant relationships were found between the percentage variations (Delta%) of C-reactive protein, and Delta% of creatine kinase with the Hopper Index, and the Delta% of fatigue score. In addition, the Delta% of fatigue score and Delta% of delayed onset of muscle soreness score correlated with Delta% Yo-Yo Intermittent Recovery Test and Delta% best of repeated shuttle sprint ability test (.49 < r < P < .01).
Conclusions:
An intensive period of congested match play significantly compromised elite soccer players' physical fitness and wellness status. Elite soccer players' wellness status reflects declines in physical fitness during this period while biochemical changes do not.
Trophic transfer efficiency (TTE) is usually calculated as the ratio of production rates between two consecutive trophic levels. Although seemingly simple, TTE estimates from lakes are rare. In our review, we explore the processes and structures that must be understood for a proper lake TTE estimate.
We briefly discuss measurements of production rates and trophic positions and mention how ecological efficiencies, nutrients (N, P) and other compounds (fatty acids) affect energy transfer between trophic levels and hence TTE.
Furthermore, we elucidate how TTE estimates are linked with size-based approaches according to the Metabolic Theory of Ecology, and how food-web models can be applied to study TTE in lakes.
Subsequently, we explore temporal and spatial heterogeneity of production and TTE in lakes, with a particular focus on the links between benthic and pelagic habitats and between the lake and the terrestrial environment.
We provide an overview of TTE estimates from lakes found in the published literature. Finally, we present two alternative approaches to estimating TTE. First, TTE can be seen as a mechanistic quantity informing about the energy and matter flow between producer and consumer groups.
This approach is informative with respect to food-web structure, but requires enormous amounts of data. The greatest uncertainty comes from the proper consideration of basal production to estimate TTE of omnivorous organisms.
An alternative approach is estimating food-chain and food-web efficiencies, by comparing the heterotrophic production of single consumer levels or the total sum of all heterotrophic production including that of heterotrophic bacteria to the total sum of primary production.
We close the review by pointing to a few research questions that would benefit from more frequent and standardized estimates of TTE in lakes.
Lithium and boron are trace components of magmas, released during exsolution of a gas phase during volcanic activity.
In this study, we determine the diffusivity and isotopic fractionation of Li and B in hydrous silicate melts.
Two glasses were synthesized with the same rhyolitic composition (4.2 wt% water), having different Li and B contents; these were studied in diffusion-couple experiments that were performed using an internally heated pressure vessel, operated at 300 MPa in the temperature range 700-1250 degrees C for durations from 0 s to 24 h. From this we determined activation energies for Li and B diffusion of 57 +/- 4 kJ/mol and 152 +/- 15 kJ/mol with pre-exponential factors of 1.53 x 10(-7) m(2)/s and 3.80 x 10(-8) m(2)/s, respectively.
Lithium isotopic fractionation during diffusion gave beta values between 0.15 and 0.20, whereas B showed no clear isotopic fractionation.
Our Li diffusivities and isotopic fractionation results differ somewhat from earlier published values, but overall confirm that Li diffusivity increases with water content. Our results on B diffusion show that similarly to Li, B mobility increases in the presence of water.
By applying the Eyring relation, we confirm that B diffusivity is limited by viscous flow in silicate melts.
Our results on Li and B diffusion present a new tool for understanding degassing-related processes, offering a potential geospeedometer to measure volcanic ascent rates.
How accurately can we retrieve irrigation timing and water amounts from (satellite) soil moisture?
(2022)
While ensuring food security worldwide, irrigation is altering the water cycle and generating numerous environmental side effects. As detailed knowledge about the timing and the amounts of water used for irrigation over large areas is still lacking, remotely sensed soil moisture has proved potential to fill this gap.
However, the spatial resolution and revisit time of current satellite products represent a major limitation to accurately estimating irrigation. This work aims to systematically quantify their impact on the retrieved irrigation information, hence assessing the value of satellite soil moisture for estimating irrigation timing and water amounts.
In a real-world experiment, we modeled soil moisture using actual irrigation and meteorological data, obtained from farmers and weather stations, respectively. Modeled soil moisture was compared against various remotely sensed products differing in terms of spatio-temporal resolution to test the hypothesis that high-resolution observations can disclose the irrigation signal from individual fields while coarse-scale satellite products cannot.
Then, in a synthetic experiment, we systematically investigated the effect of soil moisture spatial and temporal resolution on the accuracy of irrigation estimates. The analysis was further elaborated by considering different irrigation scenarios and by adding realistic amounts of random errors in the soil moisture time series.
We show that coarse-scale remotely sensed soil moisture products achieve higher correlations with rainfed simulations, while high-resolution satellite observations agree significantly better with irrigated simulations, suggesting that high-resolution satellite soil moisture can inform on field-scale (similar to 40 ha) irrigation. A thorough analysis of the synthetic dataset showed that satisfactory results, both in terms of detection (F-score > 0.8) and quantification (Pearson's correlation > 0.8), are found for noise-free soil moisture observations either with a temporal sampling up to 3 days or if at least one-third of the pixel covers the irrigated field(s).
However, irrigation water amounts are systematically underestimated for temporal samplings of more than one day, and decrease proportionally to the spatial resolution, i.e., coarsening the pixel size leads to larger irrigation underestimations.
Although lower spatial and temporal resolutions decrease the detection and quantification accuracies (e.g., R between 0.6 and 1 depending on the irrigation rate and spatio-temporal resolution), random errors in the soil moisture time series have a stronger negative impact (Pearson R always smaller than 0.85).
As expected, better performances are found for higher irrigation rates, i.e. when more water is supplied during an irrigation event. Despite the potentially large underestimations, our results suggest that high-resolution satellite soil moisture has the potential to track and quantify irrigation, especially over regions where large volumes of irrigation water are applied to the fields, and given that low errors affect the soil moisture observations.
The process of species formation is characterized by the accumulation of multiple reproductive barriers. The evolution of hybrid male sterility, or Haldane's rule, typically characterizes later stages of species formation, when reproductive isolation is strongest.
Yet, understanding how quickly reproductive barriers evolve and their consequences for maintaining genetic boundaries between emerging species remains a challenging task because it requires studying taxa that hybridize in nature.
Here, we address these questions using the meadow grasshopper Pseudochorthippus parallelus, where populations that show multiple reproductive barriers, including hybrid male sterility, hybridize in two natural hybrid zones. Using mitochondrial data, we infer that such populations diverged some 100,000 years ago, at the beginning of the last glacial cycle in Europe.
Nuclear data show that contractions at multiple glacial refugia, and post-glacial expansions have facilitated genetic differentiation between lineages that today interact in hybrid zones.
We find extensive introgression throughout the sampled species range, irrespective of the current strength of reproductive isolation. Populations exhibiting hybrid male sterility in two hybrid zones show repeatable patterns of genomic differentiation, consistent with shared genomic constraints affecting ancestral divergence or with the role of those regions in reproductive isolation.
Together, our results suggest that reproductive barriers that characterize late stages of species formation can evolve relatively quickly, particularly when associated with strong demographic changes. Moreover, we show that such barriers persist in the face of extensive gene flow, allowing future studies to identify associated genomic regions.
In vitro transcribed (IVT)-mRNA has been accepted as a promising therapeutic modality. Advances in facile and rapid production technologies make IVT-mRNA an appealing alternative to protein- or virus-based medicines.
Robust expression levels, lack of genotoxicity, and their manageable immunogenicity benefit its clinical applicability.
We postulated that innate immune responses of therapeutically relevant human cells can be tailored or abrogated by combinations of 5'-end and internal IVT-mRNA modifications.
Using primary human macrophages as targets, our data show the particular importance of uridine modifications for IVT-mRNA performance.
Among five nucleotide modification schemes tested, 5-methoxy-uridine outperformed other modifications up to 4-fold increased transgene expression, triggering moderate proinflammatory and non-detectable antiviral responses.
Macrophage responses against IVT-mRNAs exhibiting high immunogenicity (e.g., pseudouridine) could be minimized upon HPLC purification. Conversely, 5'-end modifications had only modest effects on mRNA expression and immune responses.
Our results revealed how the uptake of chemically modified IVT-mRNA impacts human macrophages, responding with distinct patterns of innate immune responses concomitant with increased transient transgene expression.
We anticipate our findings are instrumental to predictively address specific cell responses required for a wide range of therapeutic applications from eliciting controlled immunogenicity in mRNA vaccines to, e.g., completely abrogating cell activation in protein replacement therapies.
Non-fullerene acceptors (NFAs) as used in state-of-the-art organic solar cells feature highly crystalline layers that go along with low energetic disorder.
Here, the crucial role of energetic disorder in blends of the donor polymer PM6 with two Y-series NFAs, Y6, and N4 is studied.
By performing temperature-dependent charge transport and recombination studies, a consistent picture of the shape of the density of state distributions for free charges in the two blends is developed, allowing an analytical description of the dependence of the open-circuit voltage V-OC on temperature and illumination intensity.
Disorder is found to influence the value of the V-OC at room temperature, but also its progression with temperature. Here, the PM6:Y6 blend benefits substantially from its narrower state distributions.
The analysis also shows that the energy of the equilibrated free charge population is well below the energy of the NFA singlet excitons for both blends and possibly below the energy of the populated charge transfer manifold, indicating a down-hill driving force for free charge formation.
It is concluded that energetic disorder of charge-separated states has to be considered in the analysis of the photovoltaic properties, even for the more ordered PM6:Y6 blend.
The dynamics of grassland ecosystems are highly complex due to multifaceted interactions among their soil, water, and vegetation components.
Precise simulations of grassland productivity therefore rely on accurately estimating a variety of parameters that characterize different processes of these systems.
This study applied three calibration schemes - a Single-Objective (SO-SUFI2), a Multi-Objective Pareto (MO-Pareto), and, a novel Uncertainty-Based Multi-Objective (MO-SUFI2) - to estimate the parameters of MONICA (Model for Nitrogen and Carbon Simulation) agro-ecosystem model in grassland ecosystems across Germany.
The MO-Pareto model is based on a traditional Pareto optimality concept, while the MO-SUFI2 optimizes multiple target variables considering their level of prediction uncertainty.
We used measurements of leaf area index, aboveground biomass, and soil moisture from experimental data at five sites with different intensities of cutting regimes (from two to five cutting events per season) to evaluate model performance.
Both MO-Pareto and MO-SUFI2 outperformed SO-SUFI2 during calibration and validation.
The comparison of the two MO approaches shows that they do not necessarily conflict with each other, but MO-SUFI2 provides complementary information for better estimations of model parameter uncertainty.
We used the obtained parameter ranges to simulate grassland productivity across Germany under different cutting regimes and quantified the uncertainty associated with estimated productivity across regions.
The results showed higher uncertainty in intensively managed grasslands compared to extensively managed grasslands, partially due to a lack of high-resolution input information concerning cutting dates. Furthermore, the additional information on the quantified uncertainty provided by our proposed MO-SUFI2 method adds deeper insights on confidence levels of estimated productivity.
Benefiting from additional management data collected at high resolution and ground measurements on the composition of grassland species mixtures appear to be promising solutions to reduce uncertainty and increase model reliability.
Objective:
The open expression of hatred, hostility, and violence against minorities has become a common online phenomenon. Adolescents are at particular risk of being involved in different hate speech roles (e.g., witness, perpetrator).
However, the correlates of their involvement as perpetrators and the mechanisms that might explain their involvement in hate speech across different roles have not yet been thoroughly investigated.
To this end, this study investigates moral disengagement and empathy as correlates of online hate speech perpetration and the moderation effects of empathy and moral disengagement in the relationship between witnessing and perpetrating online hate speech.
Method:
The sample consists of 3,560 7th to 9th graders from 40 schools in Germany and Switzerland. Self-report questionnaires were utilized to assess online hate speech involvement, moral disengagement, and empathy.
Results:
Multilevel regression analyses revealed that moral disengagement and witnessing online hate speech were positively associated with online hate speech perpetration, while empathy was negatively associated with it.
The findings also showed that the positive relationship between witnessing and perpetrating online hate speech was stronger at higher levels of moral disengagement and weaker when moral disengagement was low.
The association between witnessing and perpetrating online hate speech was weaker when adolescents had higher rather than lower levels of empathy.
Conclusions:
The findings underscore the need for prevention efforts to accelerate moral engagement and empathy as critical future directions in hate speech prevention. This study also contributes to our understanding of underlying mechanisms that explain adolescents' involvement across different roles in hate speech.
Adolescents around the globe are increasingly exposed to online hate speech (OHS). And yet little is known about the varying roles of involvement and the determinants of adolescents' hate speech perpetration.
Building on previous research, this study aims to test the cycle of violence hypothesis for OHS and to analyze whether moral disengagement (MD) and empathy moderate the victim-to-perpetrator relationship.
The sample consists of 3,560 seventh to ninth graders (52.1 percent girls), recruited from 40 schools across Germany and Switzerland. Self-report questionnaires were administered to assess OHS involvement, MD, and empathy.
Multilevel analyses revealed that victims of OHS were more likely to report OHS perpetration.
In addition, victims of OHS were more likely to report OHS perpetration when they reported higher levels of MD than those with lower levels of MD.
Finally, victims of OHS were less likely to report OHS perpetration when they reported higher levels of empathy than those with lower levels of empathy.
The findings extend the cycle of violence hypothesis to OHS and highlight the need to address MD and empathy in hate speech prevention. Implications for future research will be discussed.
Eine indifferente Gemengelage unterschiedlicher Erwartungen ist im Coaching nicht selten. Jeder will etwas anderes - was genau, weiß man häufig nicht. Oftmals ist man sich noch nicht einmal sicher, was man selbst will. Das führt zu Stress und Blockaden. Und die Optionen und Handlungsmöglichkeiten geraten aus dem Blick. Diese Situation ist auch vielen Führungskräften wohlbekannt.
Wie gut ist gut?
(2022)
Fortes fortuna adiuvat*
(2022)
Job satisfaction is a major driver of an individual’s subjective well-being and thus affects public health, societal prosperity, and organisations, as dissatisfied employees are less productive and more likely to change jobs. However, changing jobs does not necessarily lead to higher job satisfaction in the long run. Previous studies have shown, instead, that changing jobs only increases job satisfaction for a short period of time before it gradually falls back to similar levels as before. This phenomenon is known as the ’honeymoon–hangover’ pattern. In our study, we identify an important new moderator of the relation between job change and job satisfaction: the job–education match of job changes. Based on relative deprivation theory, we argue that job changes from being overeducated in a job lowers the likelihood of negative comparisons and thus increases the honeymoon period, lessens the hangover period, and increases long-term job satisfaction. We use data from the Socio-Economic Panel ranging from 1994–2018 and focus specifically on individual periods of employees before and after job changes (n = 134,404). Our results confirm that a change to a job that requires a matched education has a stronger and longer-lasting effect on job satisfaction, and that this effect is slightly lower for respondents born abroad.
Kontexturanalyse
(2022)
In den letzten 20 Jahren hat sich in der qualitativen und rekonstruktiven Sozialforschung vermehrt die Frage gestellt, wie sich polyphone, polykontexturale und in ihren Sinnbezügen mehrdeutige Verhältnisse erforschen lassen. In diesem Buch wird ein Zugang vorgestellt, der von Mehrdeutigkeiten ausgehend Systemdynamiken rekonstruiert. Die theoretischen und methodischen Überlegungen werden anhand von Beispielen aus der Organisations- und Managementforschung sowie der Erforschung der Selbst- und Weltverhältnisse religiöser Akteure vorgeführt.
Ground-motion models (GMMs) are often used to predict the random distribution of Spectral accelerations (SAs) at a site due to a nearby earthquake. In probabilistic seismic hazard and risk assessment, large earthquakes occurring close to a site are considered as critical scenarios. GMMs are expected to predict realistic SAs with low within-model uncertainty (sigma(mu)) for such rare scenarios. However, the datasets used to regress GMMs are usually deficient of data from critical scenarios. The (Kotha et al., A Regionally Adaptable Ground-Motion Model for Shallow Crustal Earthquakes in Europe Bulletin of Earthquake Engineering 18:4091-4125, 2020) GMM developed from the Engineering strong motion (ESM) dataset was found to predict decreasing short-period SAs with increasing M-W >= M-h = 6.2, and with large sigma(mu) at near-source distances <= 30km. In this study, we updated the parametrisation of the GMM based on analyses of ESM and the Near source strong motion (NESS) datasets. With M-h = 5.7, we could rectify the M-W scaling issue, while also reducing sigma(mu). at M-W >= M-h. We then evaluated the GMM against NESS data, and found that the SAs from a few large, thrust-faulting events in California, New Zealand, Japan, and Mexico are significantly higher than GMM median predictions. However, recordings from these events were mostly made on soft-soil geology, and contain anisotropic pulse-like effects. A more thorough non-ergodic treatment of NESS was not possible because most sites sampled unique events in very diverse tectonic environments. We provide an updated set of GMM coefficients,sigma(mu), and heteroscedastic variance models; while also cautioning against its application for M-W <= 4 in low-moderate seismicity regions without evaluating the homogeneity of M-W estimates between pan-European ESM and regional datasets.
Recent advances in organic solar cell performance have been mainly driven forward by combining high-performance p-type donor-acceptor copolymers (e.g.PM6) and non-fullerene small molecule acceptors (e.g.Y6) as bulk-heterojunction layers. A general observation in such devices is that the device performance, e.g., the open-circuit voltage, is strongly dependent on the processing solvent. While the morphology is a typically named key parameter, the energetics of donor-acceptor blends are equally important, but less straightforward to access in the active multicomponent layer. Here, we propose to use spectral onsets during electrochemical cycling in a systematic spectroelectrochemical study of blend films to access the redox behavior and the frontier orbital energy levels of the individual compounds. Our study reveals that the highest occupied molecular orbital offset (Delta E-HOMO) in PM6:Y6 blends is similar to 0.3 eV, which is comparable to the binding energy of Y6 excitons and therefore implies a nearly zero driving force for the dissociation of Y6 excitons. Switching the PM6 orientation in the blend films from face-on to edge-on in bulk has only a minor influence on the positions of the energy levels, but shows significant differences in the open circuit voltage of the device. We explain this phenomenon by the different interfacial molecular orientations, which are known to affect the non-radiative decay rate of the charge-transfer state. We compare our results to ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy data, which shows distinct differences in the HOMO offsets in the PM6:Y6 blend compared to neat films. This highlights the necessity to measure the energy levels of the individual compounds in device-relevant blend films.
Instrumental data show that the groundwater and lake levels in Northeast Germany have decreased over the past decades, and this process has accelerated over the past few years. In addition to global warming, the direct influence of humans on the local water balance is suspected to be the cause. Since the instrumental data usually go back only a few decades, little is known about the multidecadal to centennial-scale trend, which also takes long-term climate variation and the long-term influence by humans on the water balance into account. This study aims to quantitatively reconstruct the surface water areas in the Lower Havel Inner Delta and of adjacent Lake Gulpe in Brandenburg. The analysis includes the calculation of surface water areas from historical and modern maps from 1797 to 2020. The major finding is that surface water areas have decreased by approximately 30% since the pre-industrial period, with the decline being continuous. Our data show that the comprehensive measures in Lower Havel hydro-engineering correspond with groundwater lowering that started before recent global warming. Further, large-scale melioration measures with increasing water demands in the upstream wetlands beginning from the 1960s to the 1980s may have amplified the decline in downstream surface water areas.
Insights into the geographical origin and phylogeographical patterns of Paradisaea birds-of-paradise
(2022)
Birds-of-paradise represent a textbook example for geographical speciation and sexual selection. Perhaps the most iconic genus is Paradisaea, which is restricted to New Guinea and a few surrounding islands. Although several species concepts have been applied in the past to disentangle the different entities within this genus, no attempt has been made so far to uncover phylogeographical patterns based on a genetic dataset that includes multiple individuals per species. Here, we applied amplicon sequencing for the mitochondrial fragment Cytb for a total of 69 museum specimens representing all seven Paradisaea species described and inferred both phylogenetic relationships and colonization pathways across the island. Our analyses show that the most recent common ancestor of the diverging lineages within Paradisaea probably originated in the Late Miocene in the eastern part of the Central Range and suggest that tectonic processes played a key role in shaping the diversification and distribution of species. All species were recovered as monophyletic, except for those within the apoda-minor-raggiana clade, which comprises the allopatric and parapatric species P. apoda, P. minor and P. raggiana. The comparatively young divergence times, together with possible instances of mitochondrial introgression and incomplete lineage sorting, suggest recent speciation in this clade.
A dataset of 2184 field measurements reported in the literature was used to evaluate the predictive capability of eight conventional flow resistance equations to predict the mean flow velocity in gravel-bed rivers. The results reveal considerable disagreement with the observed flow velocities for relative submergence less than 4 and for the non-uniformity of the bed material greater than 7.5 for all the equations. However, the predictions made using the Smart and Jaggi (1983), Ferguson (2007), and Rickenmann and Recking (2011) equations were closer to the observed values. Furthermore, bedload sediment transport also reduces the predictive capability of the equations considered in this study except for the Recking et al. (2008) equation, which was developed consid- ering active bedload transport. The performance of flow resistance equations improves when corrected by considering the geometric standard deviation of the bed material. Here we present an empirical approach using the whole dataset and its subsets for accounting for the additional energy losses occurring due to the wake vortices, spill losses, and free surface instabilities occurring due to the protrusions from the bed. The results obtained using the validation dataset shows the importance and usefulness of this approach to account for the additional energy losses, especially for the Strickler (1923) and Keulegan (1938) equations.
Statistical distributions of flood peak discharge often show heavy tail behavior, that is, extreme floods are more likely to occur than would be predicted by commonly used distributions that have exponential asymptotic behavior.
This heavy tail behavior may surprise flood managers and citizens, as human intuition tends to expect light tail behavior, and the heaviness of the tails is very difficult to predict, which may lead to unnecessarily high flood damage.
Despite its high importance, the literature on the heavy tail behavior of flood distributions is rather fragmented.
In this review, we provide a coherent overview of the processes causing heavy flood tails and the implications for science and practice.
Specifically, we propose nine hypotheses on the mechanisms causing heavy tails in flood peak distributions related to processes in the atmosphere, the catchment, and the river system.
We then discuss to which extent the current knowledge supports or contradicts these hypotheses.
We also discuss the statistical conditions for the emergence of heavy tail behavior based on derived distribution theory and relate them to the hypotheses and flood generation mechanisms.
We review the degree to which the heaviness of the tails can be predicted from process knowledge and data. Finally, we recommend further research toward testing the hypotheses and improving the prediction of heavy tails.
Continuous pollen and chironomid records from Lake Emanda (65 degrees 17'N, 135 degrees 45'E) provide new insights into the Late Quaternary environmental history of the Yana Highlands (Yakutia). Larch forest with shrubs (alders, pines, birches) dominated during the deposition of the lowermost sediments suggesting its Early Weichselian [Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 5] age. Pollen- and chironomid-based climate reconstructions suggest July temperatures (T-July) slightly lower than modern. Gradually increasing amounts of herb pollen and cold stenotherm chironomid head capsules reflect cooler and drier environments, probably during the termination of MIS 5. T-July dropped to 8 degrees C. Mostly treeless vegetation is reconstructed during MIS 3. Tundra and steppe communities dominated during MIS 2. Shrubs became common after similar to 14.5 ka BP but herb-dominated habitats remained until the onset of the Holocene. Larch forests with shrub alder and dwarf birch dominated after the Holocene onset, ca. 11.7 ka BP. Decreasing amounts of shrub pollen during the Lateglacial are assigned to the Older Dryas and Younger Dryas with T-July similar to 7.5 degrees C. T-July increased up to 13 degrees C. Shrub stone pine was present after similar to 7.5 ka BP. The vegetation has been similar to modern since ca. 5.8 ka BP. Chironomid diversity and concentration in the sediments increased towards the present day, indicating the development of richer hydrobiological communities in response to the Holocene thermal maximum.
Effect of temperature on the densification of silicate melts to lower earth's mantle conditions
(2022)
Physical properties of silicate melts play a key role for global planetary dynamics, controlling for example volcanic eruption styles, mantle convection and elemental cycling in the deep Earth. They are significantly modified by structural changes at the atomic scale due to external parameters such as pressure and temperature or due to chemistry. Structural rearrangements such as 4- to 6-fold coordination change of Si with increasing depth may profoundly influence melt properties, but have so far mostly been studied at ambient temperature due to experimental difficulties. In order to investigate the structural properties of silicate melts and their densification mechanisms at conditions relevant to the deep Earth's interior, we studied haplo basaltic glasses and melts (albite-diopside composition) at high pressure and temperature conditions in resistively and laser-heated diamond anvil cells using X-ray absorption near edge structure spectroscopy. Samples were doped with 10 wt% of Ge, which is accessible with this experimental technique and which commonly serves as a structural analogue for the network forming cation Si. We acquired spectra on the Ge K edge up to 48 GPa and 5000 K and derived the average Ge-O coordination number NGe-O, and bond distance RGe-O as functions of pressure. Our results demonstrate a continuous transformation from tetrahedral to octahedral coordination between ca. 5 and 30 GPa at ambient temperature. Above 1600 K the data reveal a reduction of the pressure needed to complete conversion to octahedral coordination by ca. 30 %. The results allow us to determine the influence of temperature on the Si coordination number changes in natural melts in the Earth's interior. We propose that the complete transition to octahedral coordination in basaltic melts is reached at about 40 GPa, corresponding to a depth of ca. 1200 km in the uppermost lower mantle. At the core-mantle boundary (2900 km, 130 GPa, 3000 K) the existence of non-buoyant melts has been proposed to explain observed low seismic wave velocity features. Our results highlight that the melt composition can affect the melt density at such extreme conditions and may strongly influence the structural response.
Die Mehrheit aktueller Studien schätzt das Transformationspotenzial digitaler Technologien für Organisationen hoch ein. In Auseinandersetzung mit dieser Einschätzung entwickelt der Artikel eine konzeptionelle organisationssoziologische Perspektive auf das Verhältnis von Organisation und digitalen Technologien. Wir nutzen diese Perspektive, um den Fall des Predictive Policing in Deutschland zu betrachten und die Entscheidung zur Adaption der Technologie, ihre organisationale Situierung sowie die Rolle des Organisationstyps zu diskutieren. Unsere Perspektive führt zu einem zurückhaltenden Urteil über das Transformationspotenzial dieser digitalen Technologie, die wir daher als Reform unter anderen Reformen begreifen. Insgesamt argumentieren wir dafür, Digitalisierung stärker als bisher als heterogenen Prozess zu verstehen.
Climate change projections predict that Mediterranean-type ecosystems (MTEs) are becoming hotter and drier and that fires will become more frequent and severe.
While most plant species in these important biodiversity hotspots are adapted to hot, dry summers and recurrent fire, the Interval Squeeze framework suggests that reduced seed production (demographic shift), reduced seedling establishment after fire (post fire recruitment shift), and reduction in the time between successive fires (fire interval shift) will threaten fire killed species under climate change.
One additional potential driver of accelerated species decline, however, has not been considered so far: the decrease in pollination success observed in many ecosystems worldwide has the potential to further reduce seed accumulation and thus population persistence also in these already threatened systems.
Using the well-studied fire-killed and serotinous shrub species Banksia hookeriana as an example, we apply a new spatially implicit population simulation model to explore population dynamics under past (1988-2002) and current (2003-2017) climate conditions, deterministic and stochastic fire regimes, and alternative scenarios of pollination decline.
Overall, model results suggest that while B. hookeriana populations were stable under past climate conditions, they will not continue to persist under current (and prospective future) climate.
Negative effects of climatic changes and more frequent fires are reinforced by the measured decline in seed set leading to further reduction in the mean persistence time by 12-17%.
These findings clearly indicate that declining pollination rates can be a critical factor that increases further the pressure on the persistence of fire-killed plants.
Future research needs to investigate whether other fire-killed species are similarly threatened, and if local population extinction may be compensated by recolonization events, facilitating persistence in spatially structured meta-communities.
The radiation-sensitive field-effect transistors (RADFETs) with an oxide thickness of 400 nm are irradiated with gate voltages of 2, 4 and 6 V, and without gate voltage.
A detailed analysis of the mechanisms responsible for the creation of traps during irradiation is performed.
The creation of the traps in the oxide, near and at the silicon/silicon-dioxide (Si/SiO2) interface during irradiation is modelled very well. This modelling can also be used for other MOS transistors containing SiO2.
The behaviour of radiation traps during postirradiation annealing is analysed, and the corresponding functions for their modelling are obtained. The switching traps (STs) do not have significant influence on threshold voltage shift, and two radiation-induced trap types fit the fixed traps (FTs) very well. The fading does not depend on the positive gate voltage applied during irradiation, but it is twice lower in case there is no gate voltage.
A new dosimetric parameter, called the Golden Ratio (GR), is proposed, which represents the ratio between the threshold voltage shift after irradiation and fading after spontaneous annealing. This parameter can be useful for comparing MOS dosimeters.
The formation of large polarons has been proposed as reason for the high defect tolerance, low mobility, low charge carrier trapping, and low nonradiative recombination rates of lead halide perovskites. Recently, direct evidence for large-polaron formation has been reported from a 50% effective mass enhancement in angle-resolved photoemission of CsPbBr3 over theory for the orthorhombic structure. We present in-depth band dispersion measurements of CsPbBr3 and GW calculations, which lead to similar effective masses at the valence band maximum of 0.203 1 0.016 m0 in experiment and 0.226 m0 in orthorhombic theory. We argue that the effective mass can be explained solely on the basis of electron-electron correlation and largepolaron formation cannot be concluded from photoemission data.
Care work 4.0
(2022)
Care-Berufe verändern sich durch demographische, technologische und wirtschaftliche Entwicklungen. Zuletzt erhöhen auch gesundheitspolitische Herausforderungen und die COVID-19 Maßnahmenpolitik den Druck auf das Sozial- und Gesundheitssystem. Dadurch befindet sich die bezahlte Care-Arbeit im berufsstrukturellen Wandel, d. h. es entstehen neue Bedingungen für und Anforderungen an diese Tätigkeiten, die in Österreich mehrheitlich von Frauen ausgeübt werden.
Monitoring agricultural systems becomes increasingly important in the context of global challenges like climate change, biodiversity loss, population growth, and the rising demand for agricultural products. High-resolution, national-scale maps of agricultural land are needed to develop strategies for future sustainable agriculture.
However, the characterization of agricultural land cover over large areas and for multiple years remains challenging due to the locally diverse and temporally variable characteristics of cultivated land.
We here propose a workflow for generating national agricultural land cover maps on a yearly basis that accounts for varying environmental conditions. We tested the approach by mapping 24 agricultural land cover classes in Germany for the three years 2017, 2018, and 2019, in which the meteorological conditions strongly differed.
We used a random forest classifier and dense time series data from Sentinel-2 and Landsat 8 in combination with monthly Sentinel-1 composites and environmental data and evaluated the relative importance of optical, radar, and environmental data.
Our results show high overall accuracy and plausible class accuracies for the most dominant crop types across different years despite the strong inter-annual meteorological variability and the presence of drought and nondrought years. The maps show high spatial consistency and good delineation of field parcels.
Combining optical, SAR, and environmental data increased overall accuracies by 6% to 10% compared to single sensor approaches, in which optical data outperformed SAR. Overall accuracy ranged between 78% and 80%, and the mapped areas aligned well with agricultural statistics at the regional and national level.
Based on the multi-year dataset we mapped major crop sequences of cereals and leaf crops. Most crop sequences were dominated by winter cereals followed by summer cereals.
Monocultures of summer cereals were mainly revealed in the Northwest of Germany. We showcased that high spatial and thematic detail in combination with annual mapping will stimulate research on crop cycles and studies to assess the impact of environmental policies on management decisions.
Our results demonstrate the capabilities of integrated optical time series and SAR data in combination with variables describing local and seasonal environmental conditions for annual large-area crop type mapping.
The past three decades of policy process studies have seen the emergence of a clear intellectual lineage with regard to complexity. Implicitly or explicitly, scholars have employed complexity theory to examine the intricate dynamics of collective action in political contexts. However, the methodological counterparts to complexity theory, such as computational methods, are rarely used and, even if they are, they are often detached from established policy process theory. Building on a critical review of the application of complexity theory to policy process studies, we present and implement a baseline model of policy processes using the logic of coevolving networks. Our model suggests that an actor's influence depends on their environment and on exogenous events facilitating dialogue and consensus-building. Our results validate previous opinion dynamics models and generate novel patterns. Our discussion provides ground for further research and outlines the path for the field to achieve a computational turn.
Social theory has long predicted that social mobility, in particular downward social mobility, is detrimental to the well-being of individuals. Dissociative and “falling from grace” theories suggest that mobility is stressful due to the weakening of social ties, feelings of alienation, and loss of status. In light of these theories, it is a puzzle that the majority of quantitative studies in this area have shown null results. Our approach to resolve the puzzle is two-fold. First, we argue for a broader conception of the mobility process than is often used and thus focus on intragenerational occupational class mobility rather than restricting ourselves to the more commonly studied intergenerational mobility. Second, we argue that self-reported measures may be biased by habituation (or “entrenched deprivation”). Using nurse-collected health and biomarker data from the UK Household Longitudinal Study (2010–2012, N = 4,123), we derive a measure of allostatic load as an objective gauge of physiological “wear and tear” and compare patterns of mobility effects with self-reports of health using diagonal reference models. Our findings indicate a strong class gradient in both allostatic load and self-rated health, and that both first and current job matter for current well-being outcomes. However, in terms of the effects of mobility itself, we find that intragenerational social mobility is consequential for allostatic load, but not for self-rated health. Downward mobility is detrimental and upward mobility beneficial for well-being as assessed by allostatic load. Thus, these findings do not support the idea of generalized stress from dissociation, but they do support the “falling from grace” hypothesis of negative downward mobility effects. Our findings have a further implication, namely that the differences in mobility effects between the objective and subjective outcome infer the presence of entrenched deprivation. Null results in studies of self-rated outcomes may therefore be a methodological artifact, rather than an outright rejection of decades-old social theory.
Reconstructing thermal histories in thrust belts is commonly used to infer the age and rates of thrusting and hence the driving mechanisms of orogenesis.
In areas where ancient basins have been incorporated into the orogenic wedge, a quantitative reconstruction of the thermal history helps distinguish among potential mechanisms responsible for heating events.
We present such a reconstruction for the Ischigualasto-Villa Union basin in the western Pampean Ranges of Argentina, where Triassic rifting and late Cretaceous-Cenozoic retroarc foreland basin development has been widely documented, including Miocene flat-slab subduction.
We report results of organic and inorganic thermal indicators acquired along three stratigraphic sections, including vitrinite reflectance and X-ray diffractometry in claystones and new thermochronological [(apatite fission-track and apatite and zircon [U-Th]/He)] analyses.
Despite up to 5 km-thick Cenozoic overburden and unlike previously thought, the thermal peak in the basin is not due to Cenozoic burial but occurred in the Triassic, associated with a high heat flow of up to 90 mWm(-2) and <2 km of burial, which heated the base of the Triassic strata to similar to 160 degrees C. Following exhumation, attested by the development of an unconformity between the Triassic and Late-Cretaceous-Cenozoic sequences, Cenozoic re-burial increased the temperature to similar to 110 degrees C at the base of the Triassic section and only similar to 50 degrees C 7 km upsection, suggesting a dramatic decrease in the thermal gradient.
The onset of Cenozoic cooling occurred at similar to 10(-8) Ma, concomitant with sediment accumulation and thus preceding the latest Miocene onset of thrusting that has been independently documented by stratigraphic-cross-cutting relationships.
We argue that the onset of cooling is associated with lithospheric refrigeration following establishment of flat-slab subduction, leading to the eastward displacement of the asthenospheric wedge beneath the South American plate.
Our study places time and temperature constraints on flat-slab cooling that calls for a careful interpretation of exhumation signals in thrustbelts inferred from thermochronology only.
Only a fast and global transformation towards decarbonization and sustainability can keep the Earth in a civilization-friendly state. As hotspots for (green) innovation and experimentation, cities could play an important role in this transition. They are also known to profit from each other's ideas, with policy and technology innovations spreading to other cities. In this way, cities can be conceptualized as nodes in a globe-spanning learning network. The dynamics of this process are important for society's response to climate change and other challenges, but remain poorly understood on a macroscopic level. In this contribution, we develop an approach to identify whether network-based complex contagion effects are a feature of sustainability policy adoption by cities, based on dose-response contagion and surrogate data models. We apply this methodology to an exemplary data set, comprising empirical data on the spreading of a public transport innovation (Bus Rapid Transit Systems) and a global inter-city connection network based on scheduled flight routes. Although our approach is not able to identify detailed mechanisms, our results point towards a contagious spreading process, and cannot be explained by either the network structure or the increase in global adoption rate alone. Further research on the role of a city's abstract "global neighborhood" regarding its policy and innovation decisions is thus both needed and promising, and may connect with research on social tipping processes. The methodology is generic, and can be used to compare the predictive power for innovation spreading of different kinds of inter-city network connections, e.g. via transport links, trade, or co-membership in political networks.
For many years scholars and politicians discuss the economic importance of the middle income class. Our article contributes to broaden the present state of research by not only examining the structure of the middle class whilst focusing on individual attributes, but by especially taking the role of gender-specific occupational characteristics and country-specific conditions into account. Based on the EU-SILC data 2020 for 17 countries, we analyze which factors affect the structure of the middle income class on the individual, on the occupational and country level. Our findings show that occupational attributes (e.g. part-time rate) prove to be highly relevant in this realm. Moreover, significant gender differences can be observed: women who work in an occupation which is mainly performed by women bear a higher risk of belonging to the lower income class as compared to men.
Leptonic nonthermal emission from supernova remnants evolving in the circumstellar magnetic field
(2022)
The very-high-energy (VHE; E > 100 GeV) gamma-ray emission observed from a number of supernova remnants (SNRs) indicates particle acceleration to high energies at the shock of the remnants and a potentially significant contribution to Galactic cosmic rays. It is extremely difficult to determine whether protons (through hadronic interactions and subsequent pion decay) or electrons (through inverse Compton scattering on ambient photon fields) are responsible for this emission. For a successful diagnostic, a good understanding of the spatial and energy distribution of the underlying particle population is crucial. Most SNRs are created in core-collapse explosions and expand into the wind bubble of their progenitor stars. This circumstellar medium features a complex spatial distribution of gas and magnetic field which naturally strongly affects the resulting particle population. In this work, we conduct a detailed study of the spectro-spatial evolution of the electrons accelerated at the forward shock of core-collapse SNRs and their nonthermal radiation, using the RATPaC code that is designed for the time- and spatially dependent treatment of particle acceleration at SNR shocks. We focus on the impact of the spatially inhomogeneous magnetic field through the efficiency of diffusion and synchrotron cooling. It is demonstrated that the structure of the circumstellar magnetic field can leave strong signatures in the spectrum and morphology of the resulting nonthermal emission.
Context
For a given body mass index (BMI), both impaired metabolic health (MH) and reduced cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) associate with increased risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD).
Objective
It remains unknown whether both risk phenotypes relate to CVD independently of each other, and whether these relationships differ in normal weight, overweight, and obese subjects.
Methods
Data from 421 participants from the Tubingen Diabetes Family Study, who had measurements of anthropometrics, metabolic parameters, CRF (maximal aerobic capacity [VO2max]) and carotid intima-media thickness (cIMT), an early marker of atherosclerosis, were analyzed. Subjects were divided by BMI and MH status into 6 phenotypes.
Results
In univariate analyses, older age, increased BMI, and a metabolic risk profile correlated positively, while insulin sensitivity and VO2max negatively with cIMT. In multivariable analyses in obese subjects, older age, male sex, lower VO2max (std. ss -0.21, P = 0.002) and impaired MH (std. ss 0.13, P = 0.02) were independent determinants of increased cIMT. After adjustment for age and sex, subjects with metabolically healthy obesity (MHO) had higher cIMT than subjects with metabolically healthy normal weight (MHNW; 0.59 +/- 0.009 vs 0.52 +/- 0.01 mm; P < 0.05). When VO2max was additionally included in this model, the difference in cIMT between MHO and MHNW groups became statistically nonsignificant (0.58 +/- 0.009 vs 0.56 +/- 0.02 mm; P > 0.05).
Conclusion
These data suggest that impaired MH and low CRF independently determine increased cIMT in obese subjects and that low CRF may explain part of the increased CVD risk observed in MHO compared with MHNW.
Ultrafast X-ray diffraction is used to quantify the transport of energy in laser-excited nanoscale gold-nickel (Au-Ni) bilayers.
Electron transport and efficient electron-phonon coupling in Ni convert the laser-deposited energy in the conduction electrons within a few picoseconds into a strong non-equilibrium between hot Ni and cold Au phonons at the bilayer interface.
Modeling of the subsequent equilibration dynamics within various two-temperature models confirms that for ultrathin Au films, the thermal transport is dominated by phonons instead of conduction electrons because of the weak electron-phonon coupling in Au.
A novel approach for estimating precipitation patterns is developed here and applied to generate a new hydrologically corrected daily precipitation dataset, called RAIN4PE (Rain for Peru and Ecuador), at 0.1 degrees spatial resolution for the period 1981-2015 covering Peru and Ecuador. It is based on the application of 1) the random forest method to merge multisource precipitation estimates (gauge, satellite, and reanalysis) with terrain elevation, and 2) observed and modeled streamflow data to first detect biases and second further adjust gridded precipitation by inversely applying the simulated results of the ecohydrological model SWAT (Soil and Water Assessment Tool). Hydrological results using RAIN4PE as input for the Peruvian and Ecuadorian catchments were compared against the ones when feeding other uncorrected (CHIRP and ERA5) and gauge-corrected (CHIRPS, MSWEP, and PISCO) precipitation datasets into the model. For that, SWAT was calibrated and validated at 72 river sections for each dataset using a range of performance metrics, including hydrograph goodness of fit and flow duration curve signatures. Results showed that gauge-corrected precipitation datasets outperformed uncorrected ones for streamflow simulation. However, CHIRPS, MSWEP, and PISCO showed limitations for streamflow simulation in several catchments draining into the Pacific Ocean and the Amazon River. RAIN4PE provided the best overall performance for streamflow simulation, including flow variability (low, high, and peak flows) and water budget closure. The overall good performance of RAIN4PE as input for hydrological modeling provides a valuable criterion of its applicability for robust countrywide hydrometeorological applications, including hydroclimatic extremes such as droughts and floods. Significance StatementWe developed a novel precipitation dataset RAIN4PE for Peru and Ecuador by merging multisource precipitation data (satellite, reanalysis, and ground-based precipitation) with terrain elevation using the random forest method. Furthermore, RAIN4PE was hydrologically corrected using streamflow data in watersheds with precipitation underestimation through reverse hydrology. The results of a comprehensive hydrological evaluation showed that RAIN4PE outperformed state-of-the-art precipitation datasets such as CHIRP, ERA5, CHIRPS, MSWEP, and PISCO in terms of daily and monthly streamflow simulations, including extremely low and high flows in almost all Peruvian and Ecuadorian catchments. This underlines the suitability of RAIN4PE for hydrometeorological applications in this region. Furthermore, our approach for the generation of RAIN4PE can be used in other data-scarce regions.
Magnetic reconnection is a multi-faceted process of energy conversion in astrophysical, space and laboratory plasmas that operates at microscopic scales but has macroscopic drivers and consequences.
Solar flares present a key laboratory for its study, leaving imprints of the microscopic physics in radiation spectra and allowing the macroscopic evolution to be imaged, yet a full observational characterization remains elusive.
Here we combine high resolution imaging and spectral observations of a confined solar flare at multiple wavelengths with data-constrained magnetohydrodynamic modeling to study the dynamics of the flare plasma from the current sheet to the plasmoid scale. The analysis suggests that the flare resulted from the interaction of a twisted magnetic flux rope surrounding a filament with nearby magnetic loops whose feet are anchored in chromospheric fibrils. Bright cusp-shaped structures represent the region around a reconnecting separator or quasi-separator (hyperbolic flux tube).
The fast reconnection, which is relevant for other astrophysical environments, revealed plasmoids in the current sheet and separatrices and associated unresolved turbulent motions.
Solar flares provide wide range of observational details about fundamental processes involved. Here, the authors show evidence for magnetic reconnection in a strong confined solar flare displaying all four reconnection flows with plasmoids in the current sheet and the separatrices.
With the advent of Nanotechnology, the use of nanomaterials in consumer products is increasing on a daily basis, due to which a deep understanding and proper investigation regarding their safety and risk assessment should be a major priority. To date, there is no investigation regarding the microrheological properties of nanomaterials (NMs) in biological media.
In our study, we utilized in silico models to select the suitable NMs based on their physicochemical properties such as solubility and lipophilicity. Then, we established a new method based on dynamic light scattering (DLS) microrheology to get the mean square displacement (MSD) and viscoelastic property of two model NMs that are dendrimers and cerium dioxide nanoparticles in Dulbecco's Modified Eagle Medium (DMEM) complete media at three different concentrations for both NMs. Subsequently, we established the cytotoxicological profiling using water-soluble tetrazolium salt-1 (WST-1) and a reactive oxygen species (ROS) assay.
To take one step forward, we further looked into the tight junction properties of the cells using immunostaining with Zonula occluden-1 (ZO-1) antibodies and found that the tight junction function or transepithelial resistance (TEER) was affected in response to the microrheology and cytotoxicity. The quantitative polymerase chain reaction (q-PCR) results in the gene expression of ZO-1 after the 24 h treatment with NPs further validates the findings of immunostaining results.
This new method that we established will be a reference point for other NM studies which are used in our day-to-day consumer products.
Obesity has been linked to lower concentrations of fat-soluble micronutrients and higher concentrations of oxidative stress markers as well as an altered metabolism of branched chain amino acids and phospholipids. In the context of morbid obesity, the aim of this study was to investigate whether and to which extent plasma status of micronutrients, amino acids, phospholipids and oxidative stress differs between morbidly obese (n = 23) and non-obese patients (n = 13). In addition to plasma, malondialdehyde, retinol, cholesterol and triglycerides were assessed in visceral and subcutaneous adipose tissue in both groups. Plasma gamma-tocopherol was significantly lower (p < 0.011) in the obese group while other fat-soluble micronutrients showed no statistically significant differences between both groups. Branched-chain amino acids (all p < 0.008) and lysine (p < 0.006) were significantly higher in morbidly obese patients compared to the control group. Malondialdehyde concentrations in both visceral (p < 0.016) and subcutaneous (p < 0.002) adipose tissue were significantly higher in the morbidly obese group while plasma markers of oxidative stress showed no significant differences between both groups. Significantly lower plasma concentrations of phosphatidylcholine, phosphatidylethanolamine, lyso-phosphatidylethanolamine (all p < 0.05) and their corresponding ether-linked analogs were observed, which were all reduced in obese participants compared to the control group. Pre-operative assessment of micronutrients in patients undergoing bariatric surgery is recommended for early identification of patients who might be at higher risk to develop a severe micronutrient deficiency post-surgery. Assessment of plasma BCAAs and phospholipids in obese patients might help to differentiate between metabolic healthy patients and those with metabolic disorders.
The simultaneous detection of gravitational waves and light from the binary neutron star merger GW170817 led to independent measurements of distance and redshift, providing a direct estimate of the Hubble constant H-0 that does not rely on a cosmic distance ladder, nor assumes a specific cosmological model.
By using gravitational waves as "standard sirens", this approach holds promise to arbitrate the existing tension between the H-0 value inferred from the cosmic microwave background and those obtained from local measurements.
However, the known degeneracy in the gravitational-wave analysis between distance and inclination of the source led to a H-0 value from GW170817 that was not precise enough to resolve the existing tension.
In this review, we summarize recent works exploiting the viewing-angle dependence of the electromagnetic signal, namely the associated short gamma-ray burst and kilonova, to constrain the system inclination and improve on H-0.
We outline the key ingredients of the different methods, summarize the results obtained in the aftermath of GW170817 and discuss the possible systematics introduced by each of these methods.
Instruments for measuring the absorbed dose and dose rate under radiation exposure, known as radiation dosimeters, are indispensable in space missions. They are composed of radiation sensors that generate current or voltage response when exposed to ionizing radiation, and processing electronics for computing the absorbed dose and dose rate. Among a wide range of existing radiation sensors, the Radiation Sensitive Field Effect Transistors (RADFETs) have unique advantages for absorbed dose measurement, and a proven record of successful exploitation in space missions. It has been shown that the RADFETs may be also used for the dose rate monitoring. In that regard, we propose a unique design concept that supports the simultaneous operation of a single RADFET as absorbed dose and dose rate monitor. This enables to reduce the cost of implementation, since the need for other types of radiation sensors can be minimized or eliminated. For processing the RADFET's response we propose a readout system composed of analog signal conditioner (ASC) and a self-adaptive multiprocessing system-on-chip (MPSoC). The soft error rate of MPSoC is monitored in real time with embedded sensors, allowing the autonomous switching between three operating modes (high-performance, de-stress and fault-tolerant), according to the application requirements and radiation conditions.
In the last years, electron density profile functions characterized by a linear dependence on the scale height showed good results when approximating the topside ionosphere. The performance above 800 km, however, is not yet well investigated.
This study investigates the capability of the semi-Epstein functions to represent electron density profiles from the peak height up to 20,000 km. Electron density observations recorded by the Van Allen Probes were used to resolve the scale height dependence in the plasmasphere.
It was found that the linear dependence of the scale height in the topside ionosphere cannot be directly used to extrapolate profiles above 800 km.
We find that the dependence of scale heights on altitude is quadratic in the plasmasphere. A statistical model of the scale heights is therefore proposed. After combining the topside ionosphere and plasmasphere by a unified model, we have obtained good estimations not only in the profile shapes, but also in the Total Electron Content magnitude and distributions when compared to actual measurements from 2013, 2014, 2016 and 2017.
Our investigation shows that Van Allen Probes can be merged to radio-occultation data to properly represent the upper ionosphere and plasmasphere by means of a semi-Epstein function.
Groundwater is critical in supporting current and future reliable water supply throughout Africa. Although continental maps of groundwater storage and recharge have been developed, we currently lack a clear understanding on how the controls on groundwater recharge vary across the entire continent. Reviewing the existing literature, we synthesize information on reported groundwater recharge controls in Africa. We find that 15 out of 22 of these controls can be characterised using global datasets. We develop 11 descriptors of climatic, topographic, vegetation, soil and geologic properties using global datasets, to characterise groundwater recharge controls in Africa. These descriptors cluster Africa into 15 Recharge Landscape Units for which we expect recharge controls to be similar. Over 80% of the continents land area is organized by just nine of these units. We also find that aggregating the Units by similarity into four broader Recharge Landscapes (Desert, Dryland, Wet tropical and Wet tropical forest) provides a suitable level of landscape organisation to explain differences in ground-based long-term mean annual recharge and recharge ratio (annual recharge / annual precipitation) estimates. Furthermore, wetter Recharge Landscapes are more efficient in converting rainfall to recharge than drier Recharge Landscapes as well as having higher annual recharge rates. In Dryland Recharge Landscapes, we found that annual recharge rates largely varied according to mean annual precipitation, whereas recharge ratio estimates increase with increasing monthly variability in P-PET. However, we were unable to explain why ground based estimates of recharge signatures vary across other Recharge Landscapes, in which there are fewer ground based recharge estimates, using global datasets alone. Even in dryland regions, there is still considerable unexplained variability in the estimates of annual recharge and recharge ratio, stressing the limitations of global datasets for investigating ground-based information.
Microbiome science is revolutionizing many concepts of plant biology, ecology, and evolution.
Understanding plant microbiomes is key to developing solutions that protect crop health without impacting the environment.
In this perspective article, we highlight the importance of both the structure and functions of plant-associated microbial communities in protecting their host from pathogens.
These new findings have a high potential to aid biocontrol programs and to replace traditional chemical products, guiding the transition towards a sustainable production.
Plasmon-driven dehalogenation of brominated purines has been recently explored as a model system to understand fundamental aspects of plasmon-assisted chemical reactions. Here, it is shown that divalent Ca2+ ions strongly bridge the adsorption of bromoadenine (Br-Ade) to Ag surfaces.
Such ion-mediated binding increases the molecule's adsorption energy leading to an overlap of the metal energy states and the molecular states, enabling the chemical interface damping (CID) of the plasmon modes of the Ag nanostructures (i.e., direct electron transfer from the metal to Br-Ade).
Consequently, the conversion of Br-Ade to adenine almost doubles following the addition of Ca2+.
These experimental results, supported by theoretical calculations of the local density of states of the Ag/Br-Ade complex, indicate a change of the charge transfer pathway driving the dehalogenation reaction, from Landau damping (in the lack of Ca2+ ions) to CID (after the addition of Ca2+).
The results show that the surface dynamics of chemical species (including water molecules) play an essential role in charge transfer at plasmonic interfaces and cannot be ignored. It is envisioned that these results will help in designing more efficient nanoreactors, harnessing the full potential of plasmon-assisted chemistry.
A large Rashba effect is essential for future applications in spintronics. Particularly attractive is understanding and controlling nonequilibrium properties of ferroelectric Rashba semiconductors. Here, time- and angle-resolved photoemission is utilized to access the ultrafast dynamics of bulk and surface transient Rashba states after femtosecond optical excitation of GeTe. A complex thermalization pathway is observed, wherein three different timescales can be clearly distinguished: intraband thermalization, interband equilibration, and electronic cooling. These dynamics exhibit an unconventional temperature dependence: while the cooling phase speeds up with increasing sample temperature, the opposite happens for interband thermalization. It is demonstrated how, due to the Rashba effect, an interdependence of these timescales on the relative strength of both electron-electron and electron-phonon interactions is responsible for the counterintuitive temperature dependence, with spin-selection constrained interband electron-electron scatterings found both to dominate dynamics away from the Fermi level, and to weaken with increasing temperature. These findings are supported by theoretical calculations within the Boltzmann approach explicitly showing the opposite behavior of all relevant electron-electron and electron-phonon scattering channels with temperature, thus confirming the microscopic mechanism of the experimental findings. The present results are important for future applications of ferroelectric Rashba semiconductors and their excitations in ultrafast spintronics.
Using over-5-year EMFISIS wave measurements from Van Allen Probes, we present a detailed survey to identify the controlling factors among the geomagnetic indices and solar wind parameters for the 1-min root mean square amplitudes of lower band chorus (LBC) and upper band chorus (UBC).
A set of important features are automatically determined by feature selection techniques, namely, Random Forest and Maximum Relevancy Minimum Redundancy. Our analysis results indicate the AE index with zero-time-delay dominates the intensity evolution of LBC and UBC, consistent with the evidence that chorus waves prefer to occur and amplify during enhanced substorm periods. Regarding solar wind parameters, solar wind speed and IMF B-z are identified as the controlling factors for chorus wave intensity. Using the combination of all these important features, a predictive neural network model of chorus wave intensity is established to reconstruct the temporal variations of chorus wave intensity, for which application of Random Forest produces the overall best performance.
Plain Language Summary
Whistler mode chorus waves are electromagnetic waves observed in the low-density region near the geomagnetic equator outside the plasmapause. The dynamics of Earth's radiation belts are largely influenced by chorus waves owing to their dual contributions to both radiation belt electron acceleration and loss. In this study, we use feature selection techniques to identify the controlling geomagnetic and solar wind factors for magnetospheric chorus waves. Feature selection techniques implement the processes which can select the features most influential to the output.
In this study, the inputs are geomagnetic indices and solar wind parameters and the output is the chorus wave intensity. The results indicate that AE index with zerotime delay dominates the chorus wave intensity. Furthermore, solar wind speed and IMF B-z are identified as the most important solar wind drivers for chorus wave intensity.
On basis of the combination of all these important geomagnetic and solar wind controlling factors, we develop a neural network model of chorus wave intensity, and find that the model with the inputs identified using the Random Forest method produces the overall best performance.
Solar H alpha excess during Solar Cycle 24 from full-disk filtergrams of the Chromospheric Telescope
(2022)
Context
The chromospheric H alpha spectral line is a strong line in the spectrum of the Sun and other stars. In the stellar regime, this spectral line is already used as a powerful tracer of stellar activity. For the Sun, other tracers, such as Ca II K, are typically used to monitor solar activity. Nonetheless, the Sun is observed constantly in H alpha with globally distributed ground-based full-disk imagers.
Aims
The aim of this study is to introduce the imaging H alpha excess and deficit as tracers of solar activity and compare them to other established indicators. Furthermore, we investigate whether the active region coverage fraction or the changing H alpha excess in the active regions dominates temporal variability in solar H alpha observations.
Methods
We used observations of full-disk H alpha filtergrams of the Chromospheric Telescope and morphological image processing techniques to extract the imaging H alpha excess and deficit, which were derived from the intensities above or below 10% of the median intensity in the filtergrams, respectively. These thresholds allowed us to filter for bright features (plage regions) and dark absorption features (filaments and sunspots). In addition, the thresholds were used to calculate the mean intensity I-mean(E/D) for H alpha excess and deficit regions. We describe the evolution of the H alpha excess and deficit during Solar Cycle 24 and compare it to the mean intensity and other well established tracers: the relative sunspot number, the F10.7 cm radio flux, and the Mg II index. In particular, we tried to determine how constant the H alpha excess and number density of H alpha excess regions are between solar maximum and minimum. The number of pixels above or below the intensity thresholds were used to calculate the area coverage fraction of H alpha excess and deficit regions on the Sun, which was compared to the imaging H alpha excess and deficit and the respective mean intensities averaged for the length of one Carrington rotation. In addition, we present the H alpha excess and mean intensity variation of selected active regions during their disk passage in comparison to the number of pixels of H alpha excess regions.
Results.
The H alpha excess and deficit follow the behavior of the solar activity over the course of the cycle. They both peak around solar maximum, whereby the peak of the H alpha deficit is shortly after the solar maximum. Nonetheless, the correlation of the monthly averages of the H alpha excess and deficit is high with a Spearman correlation of rho = 0.91. The H alpha excess is closely correlated to the chromospheric Mg II index with a correlation of 0.95. The highest correlation of the H alpha deficit is found with the F10.7 cm radio flux, with a correlation of 0.89, due to their peaks after the solar activity maximum. Furthermore, the H alpha deficit reflects the cyclic behavior of polar crown filaments and their disappearance shortly before the solar maximum. We investigated the mean intensity distribution for H alpha excess regions for solar minimum and maximum. The shape of the distributions for solar minimum and maximum is very similar, but with different amplitudes. Furthermore, we found that the area coverage fraction of H alpha excess regions and the H alpha excess are strongly correlated with an overall Spearman correlation of 0.92. The correlation between the H alpha excess and the mean intensity of H alpha excess regions is 0.75. The correlation of the area coverage fraction and the mean intensity of H alpha excess regions is in general relatively low (rho = 0.45) and only for few active regions is this correlation above 0.7. The weak correlation between the area coverage fraction and mean intensity leaves us pessimistic that the degeneracy between these two quantities can be broken for the modeling of unresolved stellar surfaces.
Simple Summary Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) are considered endangered and their population is in continuous decline. Understanding their social interactions, health, and welfare status has been a topic of intense research in recent decades. Coagulation assessments have been underutilized in wildlife but can give valuable information on individual health. This study aims to increase the knowledge of the coagulation status in healthy Asian elephants from different backgrounds and age groups, using a fast point-of-care analyzer. This tool can be further used in either routine health check-ups performed by caretakers or in a clinical emergency, such as in cases of elephant endotheliotropic herpesvirus hemorrhagic disease outbreaks. We have also investigated the presence of genomic mutations in one coagulation factor-factor VII-where a disorder was previously reported in an Asian elephant. Hereby, we report new reference values for coagulation parameters, such as coagulation times and fibrinogen concentration of Asian elephants assessed in Thailand and in Europe, as well as several single point mutations found in the exons of Elephas maximus coagulation F7 gene. We found the point-of-care analyzer used in this study to be very practical and user friendly for a zoo and field environment and hope that this project will incentivize further coagulation studies in Asian elephants and in other wildlife species. The Asian elephant population is continuously declining due to several extrinsic reasons in their range countries, but also due to diseases in captive populations worldwide. One of these diseases, the elephant endotheliotropic herpesvirus (EEHV) hemorrhagic disease, is very impactful because it particularly affects Asian elephant calves. It is commonly fatal and presents as an acute and generalized hemorrhagic syndrome. Therefore, having reference values of coagulation parameters, and obtaining such values for diseased animals in a very short time, is of great importance. We analyzed prothrombin time (PT), activated partial thromboplastin time (aPTT), and fibrinogen concentrations using a portable and fast point-of-care analyzer (VetScan Pro) in 127 Asian elephants from Thai camps and European captive herds. We found significantly different PT and aPTT coagulation times between elephants from the two regions, as well as clear differences in fibrinogen concentration. Nevertheless, these alterations were not expected to have biological or clinical implications. We have also sequenced the coagulation factor VII gene of 141 animals to assess the presence of a previously reported hereditary coagulation disorder in Asian elephants and to investigate the presence of other mutations. We did not find the previously reported mutation in our study population. Instead, we discovered the presence of several new single nucleotide polymorphisms, two of them being considered as deleterious by effect prediction software.
Several morphological and mitochondrial lineages of the alpine ringlet butterfly species Erebia pronoe have been described, indicating a complex phylogenetic structure. However, the existing data were insufficient and allow neither a reconstruction of the biogeographic history, nor an assessment of the genetic lineages. Therefore, we analysed mitochondrial (COI, NDI) and nuclear (EF1 alpha, RPS5) gene sequences and compared them with sequences from the sister species Erebia melas. Additionally, we combined this information with morphometric data of the male genitalia and the infection patterns with Wolbachia strains, based on a WSP analysis. We obtained a distinct phylogeographic structure within the E. pronoe-melas complex with eight well-distinguishable geographic groups, but also a remarkable mito-nuclear discordance. The mito-nuclear discordance in E. melas and E. pronoe glottis can be explained by different ages of Wolbachia infections with different Wolbachia strains, associated selective sweeps, and hybridisation inhibition. Additionally, we found indications for incipient speciation of E. pronoe glottis in the Pyrenees and a pronounced range dynamic within and among the other high mountain systems of Europe. Our results emphasize the importance of combined approaches in reconstructing biogeographic patterns and evaluating phylogeographic splits.
Over the last few years, the vegan diet has become increasingly popular in Germany. It has been proposed that this diet is generally lower in fat, but less is known about the impact on fatty acid (FA) profiles. Therefore, the cross-sectional "Risks and Benefits of a Vegan Diet" (RBVD) study (n = 72) was used to investigate dietary FA intake as well as plasma phospholipid FA in vegans (n = 36) compared to omnivores (n = 36). Vegans had a significantly lower dietary intake of total fat (median 86 g/day, IQR 64-111) in comparison to omnivores (median 104 g/day, IQR 88-143, p = 0.004). Further, vegans had a lower intake of saturated fatty acids (SFA) (p < 0.0001) and monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFA) (p = 0.001) compared to omnivores. Vegans had a higher intake in total polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA), omega-3 and omega-6 PUFA compared to omnivores, but without statistical significance after Bonferroni correction. According to plasma phospholipid profiles, relatively lower proportions of SFA (p < 0.0001), total trans fatty acids (TFA) (p = 0.0004) and omega-3-FA (p < 0.0001), but higher proportions of omega-6-FA (p < 0.0001) were observed in vegans. With the exception of omega-3 PUFA, a vegan diet is associated with a more favorable dietary fat intake and more favorable plasma FA profiles and therefore may reduce cardiovascular risk.
Coronary artery disease (CAD) is the leading cause of death worldwide.
Statins reduce morbidity and mortality of CAD. Intake of n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid (n-3 PUFAs), particularly eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), is associated with reduced morbidity and mortality in patients with CAD. Previous data indicate that a higher conversion of precursor fatty acids (FAs) to arachidonic acid (AA) is associated with increased CAD prevalence.
Our study explored the FA composition in blood to assess n-3 PUFA levels from patients with and without CAD. We analyzed blood samples from 273 patients undergoing cardiac catheterization. Patients were stratified according to clinically relevant CAD (n = 192) and those without (n = 81). FA analysis in full blood was performed by gas chromatography. Indicating increased formation of AA from precursors, the ratio of dihomo-gamma-linolenic acid (DGLA) to AA, the delta-5 desaturase index (D5D index) was higher in CAD patients. CAD patients had significantly lower levels of omega-6 polyunsaturated FAs (n-6 PUFA) and n-3 PUFA, particularly EPA, in the blood.
Thus, our study supports a role of increased EPA levels for cardioprotection.
Canada's RADARSAT missions improve the potential to study past flood events; however, existing tools to derive flood depths from this remote-sensing data do not correct for errors, leading to poor estimates.
To provide more accurate gridded depth estimates of historical flooding, a new tool is proposed that integrates Height Above Nearest Drainage and Cost Allocation algorithms. This tool is tested against two trusted, hydraulically derived, gridded depths of recent floods in Canada.
This validation shows the proposed tool outperforms existing tools and can provide more accurate estimates from minimal data without the need for complex physics-based models or expert judgement.
With improvements in remote-sensing data, the tool proposed here can provide flood researchers and emergency managers accurate depths in near-real time.
The determination of the spin state of iron-bearing compounds at high pressure and temperature is crucial for our understanding of chemical and physical properties of the deep Earth. Studies on the relationship between the coordination of iron and its electronic spin structure in iron-bearing oxides, silicates, carbonates, iron alloys, and other minerals found in the Earth's mantle and core are scarce because of the technical challenges to simultaneously probe the sample at high pressures and temperatures. We used the unique properties of a pulsed and highly brilliant x-ray free electron laser (XFEL) beam at the High Energy Density (HED) instrument of the European XFEL to x-ray heat and probe samples contained in a diamond anvil cell. We heated and probed with the same x-ray pulse train and simultaneously measured x-ray emission and x-ray diffraction of an FeCO3 sample at a pressure of 51 GPa with up to melting temperatures. We collected spin state sensitive Fe K beta(1,3) fluorescence spectra and detected the sample's structural changes via diffraction, observing the inverse volume collapse across the spin transition. During x-ray heating, the carbonate transforms into orthorhombic Fe4C3O12 and iron oxides. Incipient melting was also observed. This approach to collect information about the electronic state and structural changes from samples contained in a diamond anvil cell at melting temperatures and above will considerably improve our understanding of the structure and dynamics of planetary and exoplanetary interiors.
Characterization of binding interactions of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein and DNA-peptide nanostructures
(2022)
Binding interactions of the spike proteins of the severe acute respiratory syndrome corona virus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) to a peptide fragment derived from the human angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (hACE2) receptor are investigated.
The peptide is employed as capture moiety in enzyme linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA) and quantitative binding interaction measurements that are based on fluorescence proximity sensing (switchSENSE).
In both techniques, the peptide is presented on an oligovalent DNA nanostructure, in order to assess the impact of mono- versus trivalent binding modes.
As the analyte, the spike protein and several of its subunits are tested as well as inactivated SARS-CoV-2 and pseudo viruses. While binding of the peptide to the full-length spike protein can be observed, the subunits RBD and S1 do not exhibit binding in the employed concentrations.
Variations of the amino acid sequence of the recombinant full-length spike proteins furthermore influence binding behavior. The peptide was coupled to DNA nanostructures that form a geometric complement to the trimeric structure of the spike protein binding sites.
An increase in binding strength for trimeric peptide presentation compared to single peptide presentation could be generally observed in ELISA and was quantified in switchSENSE measurements. Binding to inactivated wild type viruses could be shown as well as qualitatively different binding behavior of the Alpha and Beta variants compared to the wild type virus strain in pseudo virus models.
Western-style obesity-promoting diets are associated with increased inflammation, higher disease incidence and mortality.
In contrast, plant-based diets (PBDs), which incorporate large amounts of vegetables and fruit, legumes, whole grains and only a small amount of meat, are generally associated with better health and lower mortality.
This narrative review summarizes the evidence on health and life span in adults adhering to PBDs and discusses the potentially longevity-promoting mechanism of PBDs as well as limitations due to nutrient deficiencies.
Epidemiologic studies consistently report lower mortality rates in adults who adhering to PBDs when compared with people whose diet regularly includes meat.
PBDs are associated with many health benefits, such as improved metabolic and inflammatory profile.
In turn, the incidence of cardiovascular disease is lower in adults consuming PBDs, which contributes to their better health. The health-promoting effects of PBDs are still not entirely clear but most likely multifactorial and include modulation of the gut microbiome. The interest in possible longevity-promoting mechanisms of PBDs has increased in recent years, as many characteristics of PBDs such as protein restriction and restriction of certain amino acids are known to extend the life span.
While there is ample evidence from animal studies, large-scale human studies, which also provide insight into the specific mechanisms of the effect of PBDs on longevity, are missing.
However, due to the lower protein content of PBDs, there appears to be an age limit for the anticipated health effects, as adults over 65 require larger amounts of protein.
Studies on French adults using a written lexical decision task with masked priming, in which targets were more primed by consonant- (jalu-JOLI) than vowel-related (vobi-JOLI) primes, support the proposal that consonants have more weight than vowels in lexical processing.
This study examines the phonological and/or lexical nature of this consonant bias
(C-bias), using a sandwich priming task in which a brief presentation of the target
(pre-prime) precedes the prime-target sequence, a manipulation blocking lexical neighbourhood effects.
Results from three experiments (varying pre-prime/prime durations) show consistent
C-priming and no significant V-priming at earlier and later processing stages (50 or 66 ms primes).
Yet, a joint analysis reveals a small V-priming, while confirming a significant consonant advantage.
This demonstrates the contribution of the phonological level to the C-bias.
Second, differences in performance comparing the classic versus sandwich priming task also establish a contribution of lexical neighbourhood inhibition effects to the C-bias.
Efforts have been made in the past to enhance building exposure models on a regional scale with increasing spatial resolutions by integrating different data sources. This work follows a similar path and focuses on the downscaling of the existing SARA exposure model that was proposed for the residential building stock of the communes of Valparaiso and Vina del Mar (Chile). Although this model allowed great progress in harmonising building classes and characterising their differential physical vulnerabilities, it is now outdated, and in any case, it is spatially aggregated over large administrative units. Hence, to more accurately consider the impact of future earthquakes on these cities, it is necessary to employ more reliable exposure models. For such a purpose, we propose updating this existing model through a Bayesian approach by integrating ancillary data that has been made increasingly available from Volunteering Geo-Information (VGI) activities. Its spatial representation is also optimised in higher resolution aggregation units that avoid the inconvenience of having incomplete building-by-building footprints. A worst-case earthquake scenario is presented to calculate direct economic losses and highlight the degree of uncertainty imposed by exposure models in comparison with other parameters used to generate the seismic ground motions within a sensitivity analysis. This example study shows the great potential of using increasingly available VGI to update worldwide building exposure models as well as its importance in scenario-based seismic risk assessment.
An instance of the marriage problem is given by a graph G = (A boolean OR B, E), together with, for each vertex of G, a strict preference order over its neighbors. A matching M of G is popular in the marriage instance if M does not lose a head-to-head election against any matching where vertices are voters. Every stable matching is a min-size popular matching; another subclass of popular matchings that always exists and can be easily computed is the set of dominant matchings. A popular matching M is dominant if M wins the head-to-head election against any larger matching. Thus, every dominant matching is a max-size popular matching, and it is known that the set of dominant matchings is the linear image of the set of stable matchings in an auxiliary graph. Results from the literature seem to suggest that stable and dominant matchings behave, from a complexity theory point of view, in a very similar manner within the class of popular matchings. The goal of this paper is to show that there are instead differences in the tractability of stable and dominant matchings and to investigate further their importance for popular matchings. First, we show that it is easy to check if all popular matchings are also stable; however, it is co-NP hard to check if all popular matchings are also dominant. Second, we show how some new and recent hardness results on popular matching problems can be deduced from the NP-hardness of certain problems on stable matchings, also studied in this paper, thus showing that stable matchings can be employed to show not only positive results on popular matchings (as is known) but also most negative ones. Problems for which we show new hardness results include finding a min-size (resp., max-size) popular matching that is not stable (resp., dominant). A known result for which we give a new and simple proof is the NP-hardness of finding a popular matching when G is nonbipartite.
We present a study of the control of electric field induced strain on the magnetic and electrical transport properties in a magnetoelastically coupled artificial multiferroic Fe3O4/BaTiO3 heterostructure.
In this Fe3O4/BaTiO3 heterostructure, the Fe3O4 thin film is epitaxially grown in the form of bilateral domains, analogous to a-c stripe domains of the underlying BaTiO3(001) substrate.
By in situ electric field dependent magnetization measurements, we demonstrate the extrinsic control of the magnetic anisotropy and the characteristic Verwey metal-insulator transition of the epitaxial Fe3O4 thin film in a wide temperature range between 20-300 K, via strain mediated converse magnetoelectric coupling.
In addition, we observe strain induced modulations in the magnetic and electrical transport properties of the Fe3O4 thin film across the thermally driven intrinsic ferroelectric and structural phase transitions of the BaTiO3 substrate.
In situ electric field dependent Raman measurements reveal that the electric field does not significantly modify the antiphase boundary defects in the Fe3O4 thin film once it is thermodynamically stable after deposition and that the modification of the magnetic properties is mainly caused by strain induced lattice distortions and magnetic anisotropy.
These results provide a framework to realize electrical control of the magnetization in a classical highly correlated transition metal oxide.
Assessment of climate change impact on discharge of the lakhmass catchment (Northwest Tunisia)
(2022)
The Mediterranean region is increasingly recognized as a climate change hotspot but is highly underrepresented in hydrological climate change studies. This study aims to investigate the climate change effects on the hydrology of Lakhmass catchment in Tunisia. Lakhmass catchment is a part of the Medium Valley of Medjerda in northwestern Tunisia that drains an area of 126 km(2). First, the Hydrologiska Byrans Vattenbalansavdelning light (HBV-light) model was calibrated and validated successfully at a daily time step to simulate discharge during the 1981-1986 period. The Nash Sutcliffe Efficiency and Percent bias (NSE, PBIAS) were (0.80, +2.0%) and (0.53, -9.5%) for calibration (September 1982-August 1984) and validation (September 1984-August 1986) periods, respectively. Second, HBV-light model was considered as a predictive tool to simulate discharge in a baseline period (1981-2009) and future projections using data (precipitation and temperature) from thirteen combinations of General Circulation Models (GCMs) and Regional Climatic Models (RCMs). We used two trajectories of Representative Concentration Pathways, RCP4.5 and RCP8.5, suggested by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Each RCP is divided into three projection periods: near-term (2010-2039), mid-term (2040-2069) and long-term (2070-2099). For both scenarios, a decrease in precipitation and discharge will be expected with an increase in air temperature and a reduction in precipitation with almost 5% for every +1 degrees C of global warming. By long-term (2070-2099) projection period, results suggested an increase in temperature with about 2.7 degrees C and 4 degrees C, and a decrease in precipitation of approximately 7.5% and 15% under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5, respectively. This will likely result in a reduction of discharge of 12.5% and 36.6% under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5, respectively. This situation calls for early climate change adaptation measures under a participatory approach, including multiple stakeholders and water users.
Understanding the influence of climate change and population pressure on human conflict remains a critically important topic in the social sciences. Long-term records that evaluate these dynamics across multiple centuries and outside the range of modern climatic variation are especially capable of elucidating the relative effect of-and the interaction between-climate and demography. This is crucial given that climate change may structure population growth and carrying capacity, while both climate and population influence per capita resource availability. This study couples paleoclimatic and demographic data with osteological evaluations of lethal trauma from 149 directly accelerator mass spectrometry C-14-dated individuals from the Nasca highland region of Peru. Multiple local and supraregional precipitation proxies are combined with a summed probability distribution of 149 C-14 dates to estimate population dynamics during a 700-y study window. Counter to previous findings, our analysis reveals a precipitous increase in violent deaths associated with a period of productive and stable climate, but volatile population dynamics. We conclude that favorable local climate conditions fostered population growth that put pressure on the marginal and highly circumscribed resource base, resulting in violent resource competition that manifested in over 450 y of internecine warfare. These findings help support a general theory of intergroup violence, indicating that relative resource scarcity-whether driven by reduced resource abundance or increased competition-can lead to violence in subsistence societies when the outcome is lower per capita resource availability.
Southeastern Tibetan Plateau growth revealed by inverse analysis of landscape evolution model
(2022)
The Cenozoic history of the Tibetan Plateau topography is critical for understanding the evolution of the Indian-Eurasian collision, climate, and biodiversity. However, the long-term growth and landscape evolution of the Tibetan Plateau remain ambiguous, it remains unclear if plateau uplift occurred soon after the India-Asia collision in the Paleogene (similar to 50-25 Ma) or later in the Neogene (similar to 20-5 Ma). Here, we reproduce the uplift history of the southeastern Tibetan Plateau using a 2D landscape evolution model, which simultaneously solves fluvial erosion and sediment transport processes in the drainage basins of the Three Rivers region (Yangtze, Mekong, and Salween Rivers). Our model was optimized through a formal inverse analysis with 20,000 forward simulations, which aims to reconcile the transient states of the present-day river profiles. The results, compared to existing paleoelevation and thermochronologic data, suggest initially low elevations (similar to 300-500 m) during the Paleogene, followed by a gradual southeastward propagation of topographic uplift of the plateau margin.
Fast-localized electron loss, resulting from interactions with electromagnetic ion cyclotron (EMIC) waves, can produce deepening minima in phase space density (PSD) radial profiles. Here, we perform a statistical analysis of local PSD minima to quantify how readily these are associated with radiation belt depletions. The statistics of PSD minima observed over a year are compared to the Versatile Electron Radiation Belts (VERB) simulations, both including and excluding EMIC waves. The observed minima distribution can only be achieved in the simulation including EMIC waves, indicating their importance in the dynamics of the radiation belts. By analyzing electron flux depletions in conjunction with the observed PSD minima, we show that, in the heart of the outer radiation belt (L* < 5), on average, 53% of multi-MeV electron depletions are associated with PSD minima, demonstrating that fast localized loss by interactions with EMIC waves are a common and crucial process for ultra-relativistic electron populations.
forum:logopädie 37.2022, 6
(2022)
„Gender-Ideologie“ und „Gender-Wahn“– diese Begriffe entstammen einem antifeministischen Diskurs, der ohne Bedrohungsszenarien nicht funktioniert. Feministische Errungenschaften – wie die Ehe für alle – werden zur Ursache persönlicher Nachteile umgedeutet. Seine Vertreter*innen verbreiten ihre (oft gewaltvollen) Narrative sowohl auf der Straße als auch im Internet. Antifeministische Bewegungen weisen zudem vielfältige Querverbindungen mit konservativen, nationalistischen, fundamentalreligiösen und faschistischen Diskursen auf.
Poaching is driving many species toward extinction, and as a result, lowering poaching pressure is a conservation priority. This requires understanding where poaching pressure is high and which factors determine these spatial patterns. However, the cryptic and illegal nature of poaching makes this difficult.
Ranger patrol data, typically recorded in protected area logbooks, contain information on patrolling efforts and poaching detection and should thus provide opportunities for a better understanding of poaching pressure. However, these data are seldom analyzed and rarely used to inform adaptive management strategies.
We developed a novel approach to making use of analog logbook records to map poaching pressure and to test environmental criminology and predator-prey relationship hypotheses explaining poaching patterns. We showcase this approach for Golestan National Park in Iran, where poaching has substantially depleted ungulate populations. We digitized data from >4800 ranger patrols from 2014 to 2016 and used an occupancy modeling framework to relate poaching to (1) accessibility, (2) law enforcement, and (3) prey availability factors. Based on predicted poaching pressure and patrolling intensity, we provide suggestions for future patrol allocation strategies. Our results revealed a low probability (12%) of poacher detection during patrols. Poaching distribution was best explained by prey availability, indicating that poachers target areas with high concentrations of ungulates. Poaching pressure was estimated to be high (>0.49) in 39% of our study area. To alleviate poaching pressure, we recommend ramping up patrolling intensity in 12% of the national park, which could be achievable by reducing excess patrols in about 20% of the park.
However, our results suggest that for 27% of the park, it is necessary to improve patrolling quality to increase detection probability of poaching, for example, by closing temporal patrolling gaps or expanding informant networks. Our approach illustrates that analog ranger logbooks are an untapped resource for evidence-based and adaptive planning of protected area management. Using this wealth of data can open up new avenues to better understand poaching and its determinants, to expand effectiveness assessments to the past, and, more generally, to allow for strategic conservation planning in protected areas.
A comparative whole-genome approach identifies bacterial traits for marine microbial interactions
(2022)
Luca Zoccarato, Daniel Sher et al. leverage publicly available bacterial genomes from marine and other environments to examine traits underlying microbial interactions.
Their results provide a valuable resource to investigate clusters of functional and linked traits to better understand marine bacteria community assembly and dynamics.
Microbial interactions shape the structure and function of microbial communities with profound consequences for biogeochemical cycles and ecosystem health. Yet, most interaction mechanisms are studied only in model systems and their prevalence is unknown. To systematically explore the functional and interaction potential of sequenced marine bacteria, we developed a trait-based approach, and applied it to 473 complete genomes (248 genera), representing a substantial fraction of marine microbial communities.
We identified genome functional clusters (GFCs) which group bacterial taxa with common ecology and life history. Most GFCs revealed unique combinations of interaction traits, including the production of siderophores (10% of genomes), phytohormones (3-8%) and different B vitamins (57-70%). Specific GFCs, comprising Alpha- and Gammaproteobacteria, displayed more interaction traits than expected by chance, and are thus predicted to preferentially interact synergistically and/or antagonistically with bacteria and phytoplankton. Linked trait clusters (LTCs) identify traits that may have evolved to act together (e.g., secretion systems, nitrogen metabolism regulation and B vitamin transporters), providing testable hypotheses for complex mechanisms of microbial interactions.
Our approach translates multidimensional genomic information into an atlas of marine bacteria and their putative functions, relevant for understanding the fundamental rules that govern community assembly and dynamics.
The time instant-the first-passage time (FPT)-when a diffusive particle (e.g., a ligand such as oxygen or a signalling protein) for the first time reaches an immobile target located on the surface of a bounded three-dimensional domain (e.g., a hemoglobin molecule or the cellular nucleus) is a decisive characteristic time-scale in diverse biophysical and biochemical processes, as well as in intermediate stages of various inter- and intra-cellular signal transduction pathways. Adam and Delbruck put forth the reduction-of-dimensionality concept, according to which a ligand first binds non-specifically to any point of the surface on which the target is placed and then diffuses along this surface until it locates the target. In this work, we analyse the efficiency of such a scenario and confront it with the efficiency of a direct search process, in which the target is approached directly from the bulk and not aided by surface diffusion. We consider two situations: (i) a single ligand is launched from a fixed or a random position and searches for the target, and (ii) the case of 'amplified' signals when N ligands start either from the same point or from random positions, and the search terminates when the fastest of them arrives to the target. For such settings, we go beyond the conventional analyses, which compare only the mean values of the corresponding FPTs. Instead, we calculate the full probability density function of FPTs for both scenarios and study its integral characteristic-the 'survival' probability of a target up to time t. On this basis, we examine how the efficiencies of both scenarios are controlled by a variety of parameters and single out realistic conditions in which the reduction-of-dimensionality scenario outperforms the direct search.
Archaea belonging to the phylum Bathyarchaeota are the predominant archaeal species in cold, anoxic marine sediments and additionally occur in a variety of habitats, both natural and man-made. Metagenomic and single-cell sequencing studies suggest that Bathyarchaeota may have a significant impact on the emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, either through direct production of methane or through the degradation of complex organic matter that can subsequently be converted into methane. This is especially relevant in permafrost regions where climate change leads to thawing of permafrost, making high amounts of stored carbon bioavailable. Here we present the analysis of nineteen draft genomes recovered from a sediment core metagenome of the Polar Fox Lagoon, a thermokarst lake located on the Bykovsky Peninsula in Siberia, Russia, which is connected to the brackish Tiksi Bay. We show that the Bathyarchaeota in this lake are predominantly peptide degraders, producing reduced ferredoxin from the fermentation of peptides, while degradation pathways for plant-derived polymers were found to be incomplete. Several genomes encoded the potential for acetogenesis through the Wood-Ljungdahl pathway, but methanogenesis was determined to be unlikely due to the lack of genes encoding the key enzyme in methanogenesis, methyl-CoM reductase. Many genomes lacked a clear pathway for recycling reduced ferredoxin. Hydrogen metabolism was also hardly found: one type 4e [NiFe] hydrogenase was annotated in a single MAG and no [FeFe] hydrogenases were detected. Little evidence was found for syntrophy through formate or direct interspecies electron transfer, leaving a significant gap in our understanding of the metabolism of these organisms.
Predictors and prevalence of hazardous alcohol use in middle-late to late adulthood in Europe
(2022)
Objectives:
Even low to moderate levels of alcohol consumption can have detrimental health consequences, especially in older adults (OA). Although many studies report an increase in the proportion of drinkers among OA, there are regional variations. Therefore, we examined alcohol consumption and the prevalence of hazardous alcohol use (HAU) among men and women aged 50+ years in four European regions and investigated predictors of HAU.
Methods:
We analyzed data of N = 35,042 participants of the European SHARE study. We investigated differences in alcohol consumption (units last week) according to gender, age and EU-region using ANOVAs. Furthermore, logistic regression models were used to examine the effect of income, education, marital status, history of a low-quality parent-child relationship and smoking on HAU, also stratified for gender and EU-region. HAU was operationalized as binge drinking or risky drinking (<12.5 units of 10 ml alcohol/week).
Results:
Overall, past week alcohol consumption was 5.0 units (+/- 7.8), prevalence of HAU was 25.4% within our sample of European adults aged 50+ years. Male gender, younger age and living in Western Europe were linked to both higher alcohol consumption and higher risks of HAU. Income, education, smoking, a low-quality parent-child relationship, living in Northern and especially Eastern Europe were positively associated with HAU. Stratified analyses revealed differences by region and gender.
Conclusions:
HAU was highly prevalent within this European sample of OA. Alcohol consumption and determinants of HAU differed between EU-regions, hinting to a necessity of risk-stratified population-level strategies to prevent HAU and subsequent alcohol use disorders.
Over the last few decades, a network of misogynist blogs, websites, wikis, and forums has developed, where users share their bigoted, sexist, and toxic views of society in general and masculinity and femininity in particular. This chapter outlines conceptual framework of hegemonic and hybrid masculinity. It provides a brief overview of the historical development of the manosphere and its various configurations and present our analysis of the masculinities performed by the five groups of the manosphere. The concept of hegemonic masculinity was articulated by Connell and colleagues in the 1980s as “the pattern of practice that allowed men’s dominance over women to continue.” Prior to the advent of the manosphere, an online iteration of male supremacist mobilizations, both Men’s Rights Activists and Pick-up artists developed as offline movements in the 1970s. MRAs perceive their respective societies as inherently stacked against men. This chapter analyses the masculinities of the manosphere and how they “repudiat[e] and reif[y]” hegemonic masculinity and male supremacism.
Can compression garments reduce the deleterious effects of physical exercise on muscle strength?
(2022)
Background
The use of compression garments (CGs) during or after training and competition has gained popularity in the last few decades. However, the data concerning CGs' beneficial effects on muscle strength-related outcomes after physical exercise remain inconclusive.
Objective
The aim was to determine whether wearing CGs during or after physical exercise would facilitate the recovery of muscle strength-related outcomes.
Methods
A systematic literature search was conducted across five databases (PubMed, SPORTDiscus, Web of Science, Scopus, and EBSCOhost). Data from 19 randomized controlled trials (RCTs) including 350 healthy participants were extracted and meta-analytically computed. Weighted between-study standardized mean differences (SMDs) with respect to their standard errors (SEs) were aggregated and corrected for sample size to compute overall SMDs. The type of physical exercise, the body area and timing of CG application, and the time interval between the end of the exercise and subsequent testing were assessed.
Results
CGs produced no strength-sparing effects (SMD [95% confidence interval]) at the following time points (t) after physical exercise: immediately <= t < 24 h: - 0.02 (- 0.22 to 0.19), p = 0.87; 24 <= t < 48 h: - 0.00 (- 0.22 to 0.21), p = 0.98; 48 <= t < 72 h: - 0.03 (- 0.43 to 0.37), p = 0.87; 72 <= t < 96 h: 0.14 (- 0.21 to 0.49), p = 0.43; 96 h <= t: 0.26 (- 0.33 to 0.85), p = 0.38. The body area where the CG was applied had no strength-sparing effects. CGs revealed weak strength-sparing effects after plyometric exercise.
Conclusion
Meta-analytical evidence suggests that wearing a CG during or after training does not seem to facilitate the recovery of muscle strength following physical exercise. Practitioners, athletes, coaches, and trainers should reconsider the use of CG as a tool to reduce the effects of physical exercise on muscle strength.
Background
The role of trunk muscle training (TMT) for physical fitness (e.g., muscle power) and sport-specific performance measures (e.g., swimming time) in athletic populations has been extensively examined over the last decades. However, a recent systematic review and meta-analysis on the effects of TMT on measures of physical fitness and sport-specific performance in young and adult athletes is lacking.
Objective
To aggregate the effects of TMT on measures of physical fitness and sport-specific performance in young and adult athletes and identify potential subject-related moderator variables (e.g., age, sex, expertise level) and training-related programming parameters (e.g., frequency, study length, session duration, and number of training sessions) for TMT effects.
Data Sources
A systematic literature search was conducted with PubMed, Web of Science, and SPORTDiscus, with no date restrictions, up to June 2021.
Study Eligibility Criteria
Only controlled trials with baseline and follow-up measures were included if they examined the effects of TMT on at least one measure of physical fitness (e.g., maximal muscle strength, change-of-direction speed (CODS)/agility, linear sprint speed) and sport-specific performance (e.g., throwing velocity, swimming time) in young or adult competitive athletes at a regional, national, or international level. The expertise level was classified as either elite (competing at national and/or international level) or regional (i.e., recreational and sub-elite).
Study Appraisal and Synthesis Methods
The methodological quality of TMT studies was assessed using the Physiotherapy Evidence Database (PEDro) scale. A random-effects model was used to calculate weighted standardized mean differences (SMDs) between intervention and active control groups. Additionally, univariate sub-group analyses were independently computed for subject-related moderator variables and training-related programming parameters.
Results
Overall, 31 studies with 693 participants aged 11-37 years were eligible for inclusion. The methodological quality of the included studies was 5 on the PEDro scale. In terms of physical fitness, there were significant, small-to-large effects of TMT on maximal muscle strength (SMD = 0.39), local muscular endurance (SMD = 1.29), lower limb muscle power (SMD = 0.30), linear sprint speed (SMD = 0.66), and CODS/agility (SMD = 0.70). Furthermore, a significant and moderate TMT effect was found for sport-specific performance (SMD = 0.64). Univariate sub-group analyses for subject-related moderator variables revealed significant effects of age on CODS/agility (p = 0.04), with significantly large effects for children (SMD = 1.53, p = 0.002). Further, there was a significant effect of number of training sessions on muscle power and linear sprint speed (p <= 0.03), with significant, small-to-large effects of TMT for > 18 sessions compared to <= 18 sessions (0.45 <= SMD <= 0.84, p <= 0.003). Additionally, session duration significantly modulated TMT effects on linear sprint speed, CODS/agility, and sport-specific performance (p <= 0.05). TMT with session durations <= 30 min resulted in significant, large effects on linear sprint speed and CODS/agility (1.66 <= SMD <= 2.42, p <= 0.002), whereas session durations > 30 min resulted in significant, large effects on sport-specific performance (SMD = 1.22, p = 0.008).
Conclusions
Our findings indicate that TMT is an effective means to improve selected measures of physical fitness and sport-specific performance in young and adult athletes. <br /> Independent sub-group analyses suggest that TMT has the potential to improve CODS/agility, but only in children. Additionally, more (> 18) and/or shorter duration (<= 30 min) TMT sessions appear to be more effective for improving lower limb muscle power, linear sprint speed, and CODS/agility in young or adult competitive athletes.
Marine sedimentary archives are routinely used to reconstruct past environmental changes. In many cases, bioturbation and sedimentary mixing affect the proxy time-series and the age-depth relationship. While idealized models of bioturbation exist, they usually assume homogeneous mixing, thus that a single sample is representative for the sediment layer it is sampled from.
However, it is largely unknown to which extent this assumption holds for sediments used for paleoclimate reconstructions.
To shed light on
1) the age-depth relationship and its full uncertainty,
2) the magnitude of mixing processes affecting the downcore proxy variations, and
3) the representativity of the discrete sample for the sediment layer, we designed and performed a case study on South China Sea sediment material which was collected using a box corer and which covers the last glacial cycle.
Using the radiocarbon content of foraminiferal tests as a tracer of time, we characterize the spatial age-heterogeneity of sediments in a three-dimensional setup. In total, 118 radiocarbon measurements were performed on defined small- and large-volume bulk samples ( similar to 200 specimens each) to investigate the horizontal heterogeneity of the sediment. Additionally, replicated measurements on small numbers of specimens (10 x 5 specimens) were performed to assess the heterogeneity within a sample volume. Visual assessment of X-ray images and a quantitative assessment of the mixing strength show typical mixing from bioturbation corresponding to around 10 cm mixing depth.
Notably, our 3D radiocarbon distribution reveals that the horizontal heterogeneity (up to 1,250 years), contributing to the age uncertainty, is several times larger than the typically assumed radiocarbon based age-model error (single errors up to 250 years). Furthermore, the assumption of a perfectly bioturbated layer with no mixing underneath is not met.
Our analysis further demonstrates that the age-heterogeneity might be a function of sample size; smaller samples might contain single features from the incomplete mixing and are thus less representative than larger samples.
We provide suggestions for future studies, optimal sampling strategies for quantitative paleoclimate reconstructions and realistic uncertainty in age models, as well as discuss possible implications for the interpretation of paleoclimate records.
The power of opposition
(2022)
Proposing a novel way to look at the consolidation of democratic regimes, this book presents important theoretical and empirical contributions to the study of democratic consolidation, legislative organization, and public opinion.
Theoretically, Simone Wegmann brings legislatures into focus as the main body representing both winners and losers of democratic elections. Empirically, Wegmann shows that the degree of policy-making power of opposition players varies considerably between countries. Using survey data from the CSES, the ESS, and the LAPOP and systematically analyzing more than 50 legislatures across the world and the specific rights they grant to opposition players during the policy-making process, Wegmann demonstrates that neglecting the curial role of the legislature in a democratic setting can only lead to an incomplete assessment of the importance of institutions for democratic consolidation.
The Power of Opposition will be of great interest to scholars of comparative politics, especially those working on questions related to legislative organization, democratic consolidation, and/or public opinion.
In this study we present a novel method for the automatic detection of minerals and elements using hyperspectral transmittance imaging microscopy measurements of complete thin sections (HyperTIM).
This is accomplished by using a hyperspectral camera system that operates in the visible and near-infrared (VNIR) range with a specifically designed sample holder, scanning setup, and a microscope lens.
We utilize this method on a monazite ore thin section from Steenkampskraal (South Africa), which we analyzed for the rare earth element (REE)-bearing mineral monazite ((Ce,Nd,La)PO4), with high concentrations of Nd. The transmittance analyses with the hyperspectral VNIR camera can be used to identify REE minerals and Nd in thin sections.
We propose a three-point band depth index, the Nd feature depth index (NdFD), and its related product the Nd band depth index (NdBDI), which enables automatic mineral detection and classification for the Nd-bearing monazites in thin sections. In combination with the average concentration of the relative Nd content, it permits a destruction-free, total concentration calculation for Nd across the entire thin section.
Groundwater recharge (GWR) is one of the most challenging water fluxes to estimate, as it relies on observed data that are often limited in many developing countries.
This study developed an innovative water budget method using satellite products for estimating the spatially distributed GWR at monthly and annual scales in tropical wet sedimentary regions despite cloudy conditions.
The distinctive features proposed in this study include the capacity to address 1) evapotranspiration estimations in tropical wet regions frequently overlaid by substantial cloud cover; and 2) seasonal root-zone water storage estimations in sedimentary regions prone to monthly variations.
The method also utilises satellite-based information of the precipitation and surface runoff. The GWR was estimated and validated for the hydrologically contrasting years 2016 and 2017 over a tropical wet sedimentary region located in North-eastern Brazil, which has substantial potential for groundwater abstraction.
This study showed that applying a cloud-cleaning procedure based on monthly compositions of biophysical data enables the production of a reasonable proxy for evapotranspiration able to estimate groundwater by the water budget method.
The resulting GWR rates were 219 (2016) and 302 (2017) mm yr(-1), showing good correlations (CC = 0.68 to 0.83) and slight underestimations (PBIAS =-13 to-9%) when compared with the referenced estimates obtained by the water table fluctuation method for 23 monitoring wells. Sensitivity analysis shows that water storage changes account for +19% to-22% of our monthly evaluation.
The satellite-based approach consistently demonstrated that the consideration of cloud-cleaned evapotranspiration and root-zone soil water storage changes are essential for a proper estimation of spatially distributed GWR in tropical wet sedimentary regions because of their weather seasonality and cloudy conditions.
The Levenberg–Marquardt regularization for the backward heat equation with fractional derivative
(2022)
The backward heat problem with time-fractional derivative in Caputo's sense is studied. The inverse problem is severely ill-posed in the case when the fractional order is close to unity. A Levenberg-Marquardt method with a new a posteriori stopping rule is investigated. We show that optimal order can be obtained for the proposed method under a Hölder-type source condition. Numerical examples for one and two dimensions are provided.
Agricultural production worldwide has been increasing in the last decades at a very fast pace and with it the waste generation. Livestock activities are one of the largest producers of residues in the agricultural sector and contribute greatly to climate change. The present chapter gives an introduction and an in-depth analysis of the waste management of livestock for the conversion in a circular agriculture and economy based on research and experience in the sector conducted in the last decades. The conversion of animal waste into energy generation is an opportunity for farmers to obtain additional economic benefits, while contributing to the environment by preventing the release of GHGs into the atmosphere. The use of animal waste for energy generation through anaerobic digestion is a progressive technique and is being widely accepted in Europe, where Germany is the leading country in the use of biogas plants for energy production among others in the European Union. Economically speaking, the livestock industry faces the challenge of converting its production into a clean and more profitable production. The goal of this chapter is to analyze the economic benefit as well as the environmental contribution and future challenges of the use of livestock waste in the biorefineries sector from different perspectives, based on an intensive literature review. This review is accompanied by a geospatial analysis component, mapping biogas reactor hotspots and clusters in Germany, by means of methods of spatial statistics as analysis methods as kernel density estimations (KDE) and K-means clustering, based on volunteer geographic data. The applied methods easily can be transferred to other regions and allow a quick macroscopic overview over existing biogas reactors; furthermore, an identification of cluster and hotspots with a high biogas potential, that in a subsequent step can be analyzed in depth in larger scales.
Background
Fetuin-A is a hepatokine which has the capacity to prevent vascular calcification. Moreover, it is linked to the induction of metabolic dysfunction, insulin resistance and associated with increased risk of diabetes.
It has not been clarified whether fetuin-A associates with risk of vascular, specifically microvascular, complications in patients with diabetes.
We aimed to investigate whether pre-diagnostic plasma fetuin-A is associated with risk of complications once diabetes develops.
Methods
Participants with incident type 2 diabetes and free of micro- and macrovascular disease from the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC)-Potsdam cohort (n = 587) were followed for microvascular and macrovascular complications (n = 203 and n = 60, respectively, median follow-up: 13 years).
Plasma fetuin-A was measured approximately 4 years prior to diabetes diagnosis. Prospective associations between baseline fetuin-A and risk of complications were assessed with Cox regression.
Results
In multivariable models, fetuin-A was linearly inversely associated with incident total and microvascular complications, hazard ratio (HR, 95% CI) per standard deviation (SD) increase: 0.86 (0.74; 0.99) for total, 0.84 (0.71; 0.98) for microvascular and 0.92 (0.68; 1.24) for macrovascular complications. After additional adjustment for cardiometabolic plasma biomarkers, including triglycerides and high-density lipoprotein, the associations were slightly attenuated: 0.88 (0.75; 1.02) for total, 0.85 (0.72; 1.01) for microvascular and 0.95 (0.67; 1.34) for macrovascular complications. No interaction by sex could be observed (p > 0.10 for all endpoints).
Conclusions
Our data show that lower plasma fetuin-A levels measured prior to the diagnosis of diabetes may be etiologically implicated in the development of diabetes-associated microvascular disease.
Over the past decades, the growing proliferation of international institutions governing the global environment has impelled institutional interplay as a result of functional and normative overlap across multiple regimes.
This article synthesizes primary contributions made in research on institutional interplay over the past twenty years, with particular focus on publications with International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics. Broadening our understanding about the different types, dimensions, pathways, and effects of institutional interplay, scholars have produced key insights into the ways and means by which international institutions cooperate, manage discord, engage in problem solving, and capture synergies across levels and scales.
As global environmental governance has become increasingly fragmented and complex, we recognize that recent studies have highlighted the growing interactions between transnationally operating institutions in the wake of polycentric governance and hybrid institutional complexes.
However, our findings reveal that there is insufficient empirical and conceptual research to fully understand the relationship, causes, and consequences of interplay between intergovernmental and transnational institutions. Reflecting on the challenges of addressing regulatory gaps and mitigating the crisis of multilateralism, we expound the present research frontier for further advancing research on institutional interplay and provide recommendations to support policy-making.
The field of movement ecology has seen a rapid increase in high-resolution data in recent years, leading to the development of numerous statistical and numerical methods to analyse relocation trajectories. Data are often collected at the level of the individual and for long periods that may encompass a range of behaviours.
Here, we use the power spectral density (PSD) to characterise the random movement patterns of a black-winged kite (Elanus caeruleus) and a white stork (Ciconia ciconia). The tracks are first segmented and clustered into different behaviours (movement modes), and for each mode we measure the PSD and the ageing properties of the process.
For the foraging kite we find 1/f noise, previously reported in ecological systems mainly in the context of population dynamics, but not for movement data. We further suggest plausible models for each of the behavioural modes by comparing both the measured PSD exponents and the distribution of the single-trajectory PSD to known theoretical results and simulations.
Improving nitrogen (N) status in European water bodies is a pressing issue. N levels depend not only on current but also past N inputs to the landscape, that have accumulated through time in legacy stores (e.g., soil, groundwater).
Catchment-scale N models, that are commonly used to investigate in-stream N levels, rarely examine the magnitude and dynamics of legacy components.
This study aims to gain a better understanding of the long-term fate of the N inputs and its uncertainties, using a legacy-driven N model (ELEMeNT) in Germany's largest national river basin (Weser; 38,450 km(2)) over the period 1960-2015.
We estimate the nine model parameters based on a progressive constraining strategy, to assess the value of different observational data sets.
We demonstrate that beyond in-stream N loading, soil N content and in-stream N concentration allow to reduce the equifinality in model parameterizations.
We find that more than 50% of the N surplus denitrifies (1480-2210 kg ha(-1)) and the stream export amounts to around 18% (410-640 kg ha(-1)), leaving behind as much as around 230-780 kg ha(-1) of N in the (soil) source zone and 10-105 kg ha(-1) in the subsurface.
A sensitivity analysis reveals the importance of different factors affecting the residual uncertainties in simulated N legacies, namely hydrologic travel time, denitrification rates, a coefficient characterizing the protection of organic N in source zone and N surplus input.
Our study calls for proper consideration of uncertainties in N legacy characterization, and discusses possible avenues to further reduce the equifinality in water quality modeling.
Drainage-divide migration, controlled by rock-uplift and rainfall patterns, may play a major role in the geomorphic evolution of mountain ranges.
However, divide-migration rates over geologic timescales have only been estimated by theoretical studies and remain empirically poorly constrained.
Geomorphological evidence suggests that the Sierra de Aconquija, on the eastern side of the southern Central Andes, northwest Argentina, is undergoing active westward drainage-divide migration. The mountain range has been subjected to steep rock trajectories and pronounced orographic rainfall for the last several million years, presenting an ideal setting for using low-temperature thermochronometric data to explore its topographic evolution.
We perform three-dimensional thermal-kinematic modeling of previously published thermochronometric data spanning the windward and leeward sides of the range to explore the most likely structural and topographic evolution of the range.
We find that the data can be explained by scenarios involving drainage-divide migration alone, or by scenarios that also involve changes in the structures that have accommodated deformation through time.
By combining new Be-10-derived catchment-average denudation rates with geomorphic constraints on probable fault activity, we conclude that the evolution of the range was likely dominated by west-vergent faulting on a high-angle reverse fault underlying the range, together with westward drainage-divide migration at a rate of several km per million years.
Our findings place new constraints on the magnitudes and rates of drainage-divide migration in real landscapes, quantify the effects of orographic rainfall and erosion on the topographic evolution of a mountain range, and highlight the importance of considering drainage-divide migration when interpreting thermochronometer age patterns.
Public sector organizations at all levels of government increasingly rely on Big Data Algorithmic Systems (BDAS) to support decision-making along the entire policy cycle. But while our knowledge on the use of big data continues to grow for government agencies implementing and delivering public services, empirical research on applications for anticipatory policy design is still in its infancy. Based on the concept of policy analytical capacity (PAC), this case study examines the application of BDAS for early crisis detection within the German Federal Government—that is, the German Federal Foreign Office (FFO) and the Federal Ministry of Defence (FMoD). It uses the nested model of PAC to reflect on systemic, organizational, and individual capacity-building from a neoinstitutional perspective and allow for the consideration of embedded institutional contexts. Results from semi-structured interviews indicate that governments seeking to exploit BDAS in policymaking depend on their institutional environment (e.g., through research and data governance infrastructure). However, specific capacity-building strategies may differ according to the departments' institutional framework, with the FMoD relying heavily on subordinate agencies and the FFO creating network-like structures with external researchers. Government capacity-building at the individual and organizational level is similarly affected by long-established institutional structures, roles, and practices within the organization and beyond, making it important to analyze these three levels simultaneously instead of separately.
Food preferences are crucial for diet-related decisions, which substantially impact individual health and global climate. However, the persistence of unfavorable food preferences is a significant obstacle to changing eating behavior.
Here we explored the effects of posthypnotic suggestions (PHS) on food-related decisions by measuring food choices, subjective ratings, and indifference points. In Session 1, demographic data and hypnotic susceptibility of participants were assessed. In Session 2, following hypnosis induction, PHS aiming to increase the desirability of healthy food was delivered.
Afterward, a task set was administrated twice, once when PHS was activated and once deactivated. The order of PHS activation was counterbalanced across participants. The task set included a liking-rating task for 170 pictures of different food items, followed by an online supermarket where participants were instructed to select enough food for a fictitious week of quarantining from the same item pool. After 1 week, Session 3 repeated Session 2 without hypnosis induction in order to assess the persistence of PHS.
The crucial dependent measures were food choices, subjective ratings, and the indifference points as a function of time and PHS condition.
Congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH) is the most common form of adrenal insufficiency in childhood; it requires cortisol replacement therapy with hydrocortisone (HC, synthetic cortisol) from birth and therapy monitoring for successful treatment. In children, the less invasive dried blood spot (DBS) sampling with whole blood including red blood cells (RBCs) provides an advantageous alternative to plasma sampling.
Potential differences in binding/association processes between plasma and DBS however need to be considered to correctly interpret DBS measurements for therapy monitoring. While capillary DBS samples would be used in clinical practice, venous cortisol DBS samples from children with adrenal insufficiency were analyzed due to data availability and to directly compare and thus understand potential differences between venous DBS and plasma. A previously published HC plasma pharmacokinetic (PK) model was extended by leveraging these DBS concentrations.
In addition to previously characterized binding of cortisol to albumin (linear process) and corticosteroid-binding globulin (CBG; saturable process), DBS data enabled the characterization of a linear cortisol association with RBCs, and thereby providing a quantitative link between DBS and plasma cortisol concentrations. The ratio between the observed cortisol plasma and DBS concentrations varies highly from 2 to 8. Deterministic simulations of the different cortisol binding/association fractions demonstrated that with higher blood cortisol concentrations, saturation of cortisol binding to CBG was observed, leading to an increase in all other cortisol binding fractions.
In conclusion, a mathematical PK model was developed which links DBS measurements to plasma exposure and thus allows for quantitative interpretation of measurements of DBS samples.
Lennard-Jones mixtures represent one of the popular systems for the study of glass-forming liquids.
Spatio/temporal heterogeneity and rare (activated) events are at the heart of the slow dynamics typical of these systems. Such slow dynamics is characterised by the development of a plateau in the mean-squared displacement (MSD) at intermediate times, accompanied by a non-Gaussianity in the displacement distribution identified by exponential tails.
As pointed out by some recent works, the non-Gaussianity persists at times beyond the MSD plateau, leading to a Brownian yet non-Gaussian regime and thus highlighting once again the relevance of rare events in such systems.
Single-particle motion of glass-forming liquids is usually interpreted as an alternation of rattling within the local cage and cage-escape motion and therefore can be described as a sequence of waiting times and jumps. In this work, by using a simple yet robust algorithm, we extract jumps and waiting times from single-particle trajectories obtained via molecular dynamics simulations.
We investigate the presence of correlations between waiting times and find negative correlations, which becomes more and more pronounced when lowering the temperature.