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Background: Castilian-Spanish, Catalan, Galician, and European Portuguese are the most widely spoken languages of the Ibero-Romance group. An increasing number of authors have addressed the impact of aphasia on the morphosyntax of these varieties. However, accurate linguistic characterisations are scarce and the different sources of data have not been yet compiled.Aims: To stimulate state-of-the-art research, we provided a comprehensive summary of morphosyntactic aspects of Ibero-Romance and a review of how these are affected in non-fluent aphasia. The topics we dealt with are the use of verb argument structure and morphology, sentential negation and word order, definite articles, personal and reflexive pronouns, passives, topicalised constructions, questions, and relative clauses.Methods & Procedures: An exhaustive fieldwork and search of PubMed, Web of Science, and Medline records were performed to retrieve studies focused on morphosyntactic issues concerning the Ibero-Romance varieties. A total of 27 studies produced by 46 authors of varying background emerged. We did not review studies of category-specific deficits and aspects related to bilingual aphasia, although we assume that most speakers of Galician and Catalan are bilingual. Studies of spontaneous speech were included when no controlled experimental tasks were available.Outcomes & Results: The morphosyntactic commonalities of Ibero-Romance have been tackled from different theoretical perspectives. There exist asymmetries in findings which we explain with the use of different tasks (and task complexity) and individual differences between participants.Conclusions: Discourse-linking factors as well as deviations from the canonical pattern are recurrent answers to these asymmetries. A comprehensive theory of impairments in non-fluent aphasia integrating relevant aspects of both structural and processing accounts seems necessary.
Cyanobacteria are an ancient lineage of slow-growing photosynthetic bacteria and a prolific source of natural products with intricate chemical structures and potent biological activities. The bulk of these natural products are known from just a handful of genera. Recent efforts have elucidated the mechanisms underpinning the biosynthesis of a diverse array of natural products from cyanobacteria. Many of the biosynthetic mechanisms are unique to cyanobacteria or rarely described from other organisms. Advances in genome sequence technology have precipitated a deluge of genome sequences for cyanobacteria. This makes it possible to link known natural products to biosynthetic gene clusters but also accelerates the discovery of new natural products through genome mining. These studies demonstrate that cyanobacteria encode a huge variety of cryptic gene clusters for the production of natural products, and the known chemical diversity is likely to be just a fraction of the true biosynthetic capabilities of this fascinating and ancient group of organisms.
A large number of experimental findings from neuroscience and experimental psychology demonstrated interactions between spatial cognition and numerical cognition. In particular, many researchers posited a horizontal mental number line, where small numbers are thought of as being to the left of larger numbers. This review synthesizes work on the mental association between space and number, indicating the existence of multiple spatial mappings: recent research has found associations between number and vertical space, as well as associations between number and near/far space. We discuss number space in three dimensions with an eye on potential origins of the different number mappings, and how these number mappings fit in with our current knowledge of brain organization and brain-culture interactions. We derive novel predictions and show how this research fits into a general view of cognition as embodied, grounded and situated. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Madness and Sense
(2015)
Though Peter Gordon mentioned philosophical anthropology in his book Continental Divide, he has not yet realized how it works independently from Cassirer's and Heidegger's prejudices. The whole argument between them before, in and after Davos (1929) raged around the status of philosophical anthropology: How do the spiritualisation of life and the enlivening of the spirit come about? This was not just the central question for philosophical anthropology founded by Max Scheler, but also in Wilhelm Dilthey's life philosophy, which was systematized by Georg Misch. Cassirer and Heidegger shared three shortcomings with respect to the Life-philosophical Anthropology. Neither had a philosophy of nature or a philosophy of sociaty or a philosophy of history. The insight into the unfathomability of humans (Misch) is given a political edge in Helmuth Plessner's book Power and Human Nature (1931). Elevating it to the principle of democratic equality with respect to the worth of all cultures one opens up the potential for a form of civil competition that might supersede ethnocentric wars.
Islands as model systems in ecology and evolution: prospects fifty years after MacArthur-Wilson
(2015)
The study of islands as model systems has played an important role in the development of evolutionary and ecological theory. The 50th anniversary of MacArthur and Wilson's (December 1963) article, An equilibrium theory of insular zoogeography', was a recent milestone for this theme. Since 1963, island systems have provided new insights into the formation of ecological communities. Here, building on such developments, we highlight prospects for research on islands to improve our understanding of the ecology and evolution of communities in general. Throughout, we emphasise how attributes of islands combine to provide unusual research opportunities, the implications of which stretch far beyond islands. Molecular tools and increasing data acquisition now permit re-assessment of some fundamental issues that interested MacArthur and Wilson. These include the formation of ecological networks, species abundance distributions, and the contribution of evolution to community assembly. We also extend our prospects to other fields of ecology and evolution - understanding ecosystem functioning, speciation and diversification - frequently employing assets of oceanic islands in inferring the geographic area within which evolution has occurred, and potential barriers to gene flow. Although island-based theory is continually being enriched, incorporating non-equilibrium dynamics is identified as a major challenge for the future.
In most plants, carbohydrates represent the major energy store as well as providing the building blocks for essential structural polymers. Although the major pathways for carbohydrate biosynthesis, degradation, and transport are well characterized, several key steps have only recently been discovered. In addition, several novel minor metabolic routes have been uncovered in the past few years. Here we review current studies of plant carbohydrate metabolism detailing the expanding compendium of functionally characterized transport proteins as well as our deeper comprehension of more minor and conditionally activated metabolic pathways. We additionally explore the pertinent questions that will allow us to enhance our understanding of the response of both major and minor carbohydrate fluxes to changing cellular circumstances.
The majority of the matter in the universe is still unidentified and under investigation by both direct and indirect means. Many experiments searching for the recoil of dark-matter particles off target nuclei in underground laboratories have established increasingly strong constraints on the mass and scattering cross sections of weakly interacting particles, and some have even seen hints at a possible signal. Other experiments search for a possible mixing of photons with light scalar or pseudo-scalar particles that could also constitute dark matter. Furthermore, annihilation or decay of dark matter can contribute to charged cosmic rays, photons at all energies, and neutrinos. Many existing and future ground-based and satellite experiments are sensitive to such signals. Finally, data from the Large Hadron Collider at CERN are scrutinized for missing energy as a signature of new weakly interacting particles that may be related to dark matter. In this review article we summarize the status of the field with an emphasis on the complementarity between direct detection in dedicated laboratory experiments, indirect detection in the cosmic radiation, and searches at particle accelerators. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Height and skeletal morphology strongly relate to life style. Parallel to the decrease in physical activity and locomotion, modern people are slimmer in skeletal proportions. In German children and adolescents, elbow breadth and particularly relative pelvic breadth (50th centile of bicristal distance divided by body height) have significantly decreased in recent years. Even more evident than the changes in pelvic morphology are the rapid changes in body height in most modern countries since the end-19th and particularly since the mid-20th century. Modern Japanese mature earlier; the age at take-off (ATO, the age at which the adolescent growth spurt starts) decreases, and they are taller at all ages. Preece-Baines modelling of six national samples of Japanese children and adolescents, surveyed between 1955 and 2000, shows that this gain in height is largely an adolescent trend, whereas height at take-off (HTO) increased by less than 3 cm since 1955; adolescent growth (height gain between ATO and adult age) increased by 6 cm. The effect of globalization on the modern post-war Japanese society ("community effect in height") on adolescent growth is discussed.
Applications of graph theory have proliferated across the academic spectrum in recent years. Whereas geosciences and landscape ecology have made rich use of graph theory, its use seems limited in physical geography, and particularly in geomorphology. Common applications of graph theory analyses of connectivity, path or transport efficiencies, subnetworks, network structure, system behaviour and dynamics, and network optimization or engineering all have uses or potential uses in geomorphology and closely related fields. In this paper, we give a short introduction to graph theory and review previous geomorphological applications or works in related fields that have been particularly influential. Network-like geomorphic systems can be classified into nonspatial or spatially implicit system components linked by statistical/causal relationships and spatial units linked by some spatial relationship, for example by fluxes of matter and/or energy. We argue that, if geomorphic system properties and behaviour (e.g., complexity, sensitivity, synchronisability, historical contingency, connectivity etc.) depend on system structure and if graph theory is able to quantitatively describe the configuration of system components, then graph theory should provide us with tools that help in quantifying system properties and in inferring system behaviour. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
This paper provides a comprehensive review of treatment studies of acquired dysgraphia and the occurrence of generalisation after this treatment. The aim is to examine what determines the occurrence of generalisation by investigating the link between the level of impairment, the method of treatment, and the outcome of therapy. We present the outcomes of treatment with regard to generalisation in 40 treatment studies. We derive general principles of generalisation which provide us with a better understanding of the mechanism of generalisation: (1) Direct treatment effects on representations or processes; (2) interactive processing and summation of activation; and (3) strategies and compensatory skills. We discuss the implications of these findings for our understanding of the cognitive processes used for spelling. Finally, we provide suggestions for the direction of further research into this important area, as a better understanding of the mechanism of generalisation could maximise treatment effects for an individual with acquired dysgraphia.
Framing Citizen Participation: Participatory Budgeting in France, Germany and the United Kingdom
(2015)
All components of the endothelin (ET) system are present in renal tubular cells. In this review, we summarize current knowledge about ET and the most common tubular diseases: acute kidney injury (AKI) and polycystic kidney disease. AKI originally was called acute tubular necrosis, pointing to the most prominent morphologic findings. Similarly, cysts in polycystic kidney disease, and especially in autosomal-dominant polycystic kidney disease, are of tubular origin. Preclinical studies have indicated that the ET system and particularly ETA receptors are involved in the pathogenesis of ischemia-reperfusion injury, although these findings have not been translated to clinical studies. The ET system also has been implicated in radiocontrast-dye-induced AKI, however, ET-receptor blockade in a large human study was not successful. The ET system is activated in sepsis models of AKI; the effectiveness of ET blocking agents in preclinical studies is variable depending on the model and the ET-receptor antagonist used. Numerous studies have shown that the ET system plays an important role in the complex pathophysiology associated with cyst formation and disease progression in polycystic kidney disease. However, results from selective targeting of ET-receptor subtypes in animal models of polycystic kidney disease have proved disappointing and do not support clinical trials. These studies have shown that a critical balance between ETA and ETB receptor action is necessary to maintain structure and function in the cystic kidney. In summary, ETs have been implicated in the pathogenesis of several renal tubulointerstitial diseases, however, experimental animal findings have not yet led to use of ET blockers in human beings. (C) 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
tRNAs, nexus molecules between mRNAs and proteins, have a central role in translation. Recent discoveries have revealed unprecedented complexity of tRNA biosynthesis, modification patterns, regulation and function. In this Review, we present emerging concepts regarding how tRNA abundance is dynamically regulated and how tRNAs (and their nucleolytic fragments) are centrally involved in stress signalling and adaptive translation, operating across a wide range of timescales. Mutations in tRNAs or in genes affecting tRNA biogenesis are also linked to complex human diseases with surprising heterogeneity in tissue vulnerability, and we highlight cell-specific aspects that modulate the disease penetrance of tRNA-based pathologies.
Ionogels (IGs), also termed ion gels, are functional hybrid materials based on an ionic liquid (IL) and a polymeric, hybrid, or inorganic matrix. IGs combine the properties of the matrix such as mechanical strength with IL properties like high ionic conductivity, high thermal stability, or catalytic activity. IGs are thus attractive for many applications, but the vast majority of IGs made and published so far are bulk materials or dense films. Applications like sensing or catalysis, however, would benefit from IGs with high surface areas or defined surface morphologies or architectures. In spite of this, only relatively few examples of high-surface-area IGs have been made so far; this has mostly been achieved by electrospinning, which has proven to be a promising strategy towards advanced IGs. The current review discusses first developments and outlines the future potential of electrospun ionogels, predominantly from a materials and inorganic chemistry perspective.