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Heteromeric HSFA2/HSFA3 complexes drive transcriptional memory after heat stress in Arabidopsis
(2021)
Adaptive plasticity in stress responses is a key element of plant survival strategies. For instance, moderate heat stress (HS) primes a plant to acquire thermotolerance, which allows subsequent survival of more severe HS conditions. Acquired thermotolerance is actively maintained over several days (HS memory) and involves the sustained induction of memory-related genes. Here we show that FORGETTER3/ HEAT SHOCK TRANSCRIPTION FACTOR A3 (FGT3/HSFA3) is specifically required for physiological HS memory and maintaining high memory-gene expression during the days following a HS exposure. HSFA3 mediates HS memory by direct transcriptional activation of memory-related genes after return to normal growth temperatures. HSFA3 binds HSFA2, and in vivo both proteins form heteromeric complexes with additional HSFs. Our results indicate that only complexes containing both HSFA2 and HSFA3 efficiently promote transcriptional memory by positively influencing histone H3 lysine 4 (H3K4) hyper-methylation. In summary, our work defines the major HSF complex controlling transcriptional memory and elucidates the in vivo dynamics of HSF complexes during somatic stress memory. Moderate heat stress primes plants to acquire tolerance to subsequent, more severe heat stress. Here the authors show that the HSFA3 transcription factor forms a heteromeric complex with HSFA2 to sustain activated transcription of genes required for acquired thermotolerance by promoting H3K4 hyper-methylation.
The transversal hypergraph problem asks to enumerate the minimal hitting sets of a hypergraph. If the solutions have bounded size, Eiter and Gottlob [SICOMP'95] gave an algorithm running in output-polynomial time, but whose space requirement also scales with the output. We improve this to polynomial delay and space. Central to our approach is the extension problem, deciding for a set X of vertices whether it is contained in any minimal hitting set. We show that this is one of the first natural problems to be W[3]-complete. We give an algorithm for the extension problem running in time O(m(vertical bar X vertical bar+1) n) and prove a SETH-lower bound showing that this is close to optimal. We apply our enumeration method to the discovery problem of minimal unique column combinations from data profiling. Our empirical evaluation suggests that the algorithm outperforms its worst-case guarantees on hypergraphs stemming from real-world databases.
The Devonian Las Chacras-Potrerillos batholith comprises six nested monzonitic to granitic intrusions with metaluminous to weakly peraluminous composition and a Sr-Nd isotopic signature indicating a dominantly juvenile mantle-derived source. The chemically most evolved units in the southern batholith contain a large number of intra-granitic, pod-shaped tourmaline-bearing pegmatites. This study uses in situ chemical and boron isotopic analyses of tourmaline from nine of these pegmatites to discuss their relationship to the respective host intrusions and the implications of their B-isotope composition for the source and evolution of the magmas. The tourmalines reveal a diversity in element composition (e.g., FeO, MgO, TiO2, CaO, MnO, F) which distinguishes individual pegmatites from one another. However, all have a narrow 5 11 B range of -13.7 to -10.5%0 (n = 100) which indicates a relatively uniform magmatic system and similar temperature conditions during tourmaline crystallization. The average delta(11) B value of -11.7%0 is typical for S-type granites and is within the range reported for peraluminous granites. pegmatites, and metamorphic units of the Ordovician basement into which the Las Chacras-Potrerillos batholith intruded. The B-isotope evidence argues for a crustal boron source like that of the Ordovician basement, in contrast to the metaluminous to weakly peraluminous composition and juvenile initial Sr and Nd isotope ratios of the Las Chacras-Potrerillos batholith magmas. We propose that the boron was not derived from the magma source region but was incorporated from dehydration melting of elastic metasedimentary rocks higher up in the crustal column.
The Altiplano-Puna Plateau holds several shallow lakes, which are very sensitive to climate changes. This work is focused on a high-altitude lake system called Lagunas de Vilama (LVS), located in a complex climatic transition area with scarcity of continuous and homogeneous instrumental records. The objective of this study is to determine the regional spatial-temporal variability of precipitation and evaluate the seasonal and interannual lake responses. We use a lake-surfaces record derived from Landsat images to investigate links with regional precipitations and different climatic forcings. The results reveal that austral summer and autumn precipitations control the variability of the annual lake-surfaces. Also, we found intra-annual and interannual lags in the lake responses to precipitations, and identified several wet and dry stages. Our results show negative trends in precipitations and lake-surfaces, whose were strengthened by a shift to a warm phase of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation in the 1990s. The El Nino Southern Oscillation, Pacific Decadal Oscillation, and Southern Annular Mode also exert a strong influence in the region. This study demonstrates that the variability of LVS lakes is strongly related to the South American Monsoon System dynamics and large-scale climate fordngs from the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. This work provides novel indices which demonstrated to be good indicators of regional hydroclimatological variability for this region of South America.
The Arnoldi process can be applied to inexpensively approximate matrix functions of the form f (A)v and matrix functionals of the form v*(f (A))*g(A)v, where A is a large square non-Hermitian matrix, v is a vector, and the superscript * denotes transposition and complex conjugation. Here f and g are analytic functions that are defined in suitable regions in the complex plane. This paper reviews available approximation methods and describes new ones that provide higher accuracy for essentially the same computational effort by exploiting available, but generally not used, moment information. Numerical experiments show that in some cases the modifications of the Arnoldi decompositions proposed can improve the accuracy of v*(f (A))*g(A)v about as much as performing an additional step of the Arnoldi process.
Background and aims:
The objective of the present work was to determine to what extent sleep quality may mediate the association between chronodisruption (CD) and metabolic syndrome (MS), and between CD and body composition (BC).
Methodology:
Cross-sectional study which included 300 adult health workers, 150 of whom were night shift workers and thereby exposed to CD. Diagnosis of MS was made based on Adult Treatment Panel III criteria. Sleep quality was measured using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index. Body mass index (BMI), fat mass percentage, and visceral fat percentage were measured as indicators of body composition (BC). Data were analyzed using logistic, linear regression and structural equation models.
Results:
The odds of health workers exposed to CD to suffer MS was 22.13 (IC95 8.68-66.07) when the model was adjusted for age, gender, physical activity and energy consumption. CD was also significantly associated with an increase in fat mass and visceral fat percentages, but not to BMI. Surprisingly, there was not enough evidence supporting the hypothesis that sleep quality contributes to the association between CD and MS or between CD and BC.
Conclusions:
Sleep quality does not mediate the negative effects of CD on MS nor on BC.
Based on suggested interactions of potential tipping elements in the Earth's climate and in ecological systems, tipping cascades as possible dynamics are increasingly discussed and studied. The activation of such tipping cascades would impose a considerable risk for human societies and biosphere integrity. However, there are ambiguities in the description of tipping cascades within the literature so far. Here we illustrate how different patterns of multiple tipping dynamics emerge from a very simple coupling of two previously studied idealized tipping elements. In particular, we distinguish between a two phase cascade, a domino cascade and a joint cascade. A mitigation of an unfolding two phase cascade may be possible and common early warning indicators are sensitive to upcoming critical transitions to a certain degree. In contrast, a domino cascade may hardly be stopped once initiated and critical slowing down-based indicators fail to indicate tipping of the following element. These different potentials for intervention and anticipation across the distinct patterns of multiple tipping dynamics should be seen as a call to be more precise in future analyses of cascading dynamics arising from tipping element interactions in the Earth system.
The synthesis and the crystal structure of the double cluster compound [Nb6Cl14(MeCN)(4)][Nb6Cl14(pyz)(4)]middot6CH(3)CN are described. The synthesis is based on a partial ligand exchange reaction, which proceeds upon dissolving [Nb6Cl14(pyz)(4)]middot2CH(2)Cl(2) in acetonitrile. The compound is built up of two discrete neutral cluster units, which consist of octahedra of Nb-6 atoms coordinated by 12 edge-bridging chlorido and two terminal chlorido ligands, and four acetonitrile ligands on one and four pyrazine ligands on the other cluster unit. Co-crystallized acetonitrile molecules are also present. The single-crystal structure determination has revealed a cluster arrangement in which the [Nb6Cl14(pyz)(4)] units are connected by (halogen) lone-pair-(pyrazine) pi interactions. These lead to chains of [Nb6Cl14(pyz)(4)] clusters. These chains are further connected to cluster layers by (nitrile-halogen) dipole-dipole interactions, in which the [Nb6Cl14(MeCN)(4)] and co-crystallized MeCN molecules are also involved. These cluster layers are arranged parallel to the crystallographic {011} plane.
Purpose UK guidelines recommend dietary saturated fatty acids (SFAs) should not exceed 10% total energy (%TE) for cardiovascular disease prevention, with benefits observed when SFAs are replaced with unsaturated fatty acids (UFAs). This study aimed to assess the efficacy of a dietary exchange model using commercially available foods to replace SFAs with UFAs. Methods Healthy men (n = 109, age 48, SD 11 year) recruited to the Reading, Imperial, Surrey, Saturated fat Cholesterol Intervention-1 (RISSCI-1) study (ClinicalTrials.Gov n degrees NCT03270527) followed two sequential 4-week isoenergetic moderate-fat (34%TE) diets: high-SFA (18%TE SFAs, 16%TE UFAs) and low-SFA (10%TE SFAs, 24%TE UFAs). Dietary intakes were assessed using 4-day weighed diet diaries. Nutrient intakes were analysed using paired t-tests, fasting plasma phospholipid fatty acid (PL-FA) profiles and dietary patterns were analysed using orthogonal partial least square discriminant analyses. Results Participants exchanged 10.2%TE (SD 4.1) SFAs for 9.7%TE (SD 3.9) UFAs between the high and low-SFA diets, reaching target intakes with minimal effect on other nutrients or energy intakes. Analyses of dietary patterns confirmed successful incorporation of recommended foods from commercially available sources (e.g. dairy products, snacks, oils, and fats), without affecting participants' overall dietary intakes. Analyses of plasma PL-FAs indicated good compliance to the dietary intervention and foods of varying SFA content. Conclusions RISSCI-1 dietary exchange model successfully replaced dietary SFAs with UFAs in free-living healthy men using commercially available foods, and without altering their dietary patterns. Further intervention studies are required to confirm utility and feasibility of such food-based dietary fat replacement models at a population level.
This paper studies cosmic-ray (CR) transport in magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence. CR transport is strongly dependent on the properties of the magnetic turbulence.
We perform test particle simulations to study the interactions of CR with both total MHD turbulence and decomposed MHD modes.
The spatial diffusion coefficients and the pitch angle scattering diffusion coefficients are calculated from the test particle trajectories in turbulence.
Our results confirm that the fast modes dominate the CR propagation, whereas Alfven and slow modes are much less efficient and have shown similar pitch-angle scattering rates.
We investigate the cross field transport on large and small scales. On large/global scales, normal diffusion is observed and the diffusion coefficient is suppressed by M-A(zeta) compared to the parallel diffusion coefficients, with zeta closer to 4 in Alfven modes than that in total turbulence, as theoretically expected.
For the CR transport on scales smaller than the turbulence injection scale, both the local and global magnetic reference frames are adopted. Superdiffusion is observed on such small scales in all the cases. Particularly, CR transport in Alfven modes show clear Richardson diffusion in the local reference frame. The diffusion transitions smoothly from the Richardson's one with index 1.5 to normal diffusion as the particle mean free path decreases from lambda(parallel to) >> L to lambda(parallel to) << L, where L is the injection/coherence length of turbulence.
Our results have broad applications to CRs in various astrophysical environments.
Active matter broadly covers the dynamics of self-propelled particles.
While the onset of collective behavior in homogenous active systems is relatively well understood, the effect of inhomogeneities such as obstacles and traps lacks overall clarity.
Here, we study how interacting, self-propelled particles become trapped and released from a trap.
We have found that captured particles aggregate into an orbiting condensate with a crystalline structure. As more particles are added, the trapped condensates escape as a whole.
Our results shed light on the effects of confinement and quenched disorder in active matter.
Quantification of reaction fluxes of metabolic networks can help us understand how the integration of different metabolic pathways determines cellular functions. Yet, intracellular fluxes cannot be measured directly but are estimated with metabolic flux analysis (MFA), which relies on the patterns of isotope labeling of metabolites in the network. The application of MFA also requires a stoichiometric model with atom mappings that are currently not available for the majority of large-scale metabolic network models, particularly of plants. While automated approaches such as the Reaction Decoder Toolkit (RDT) can produce atom mappings for individual reactions, tracing the flow of individual atoms of the entire reactions across a metabolic model remains challenging. Here we establish an automated workflow to obtain reliable atom mappings for large-scale metabolic models by refining the outcome of RDT, and apply the workflow to metabolic models of Arabidopsis thaliana. We demonstrate the accuracy of RDT through a comparative analysis with atom mappings from a large database of biochemical reactions, MetaCyc. We further show the utility of our automated workflow by simulating N-15 isotope enrichment and identifying nitrogen (N)-containing metabolites which show enrichment patterns that are informative for flux estimation in future N-15-MFA studies of A. thaliana. The automated workflow established in this study can be readily expanded to other species for which metabolic models have been established and the resulting atom mappings will facilitate MFA and graph-theoretic structural analyses with large-scale metabolic networks.
Long- and short-term monitoring of a dam in response to seasonal changes and ground motion loading
(2021)
An experimental multi-parameter structural monitoring system has been installed on the Kurpsai dam, western Kyrgyz Republic. This system consists of equipment for seismic and strain measurements for making longer- (days, weeks, months) and shorter- (minutes, hours) term observations, dealing with, for example seasonal (longer) effects or the response of the dam to ground motion from noise or seismic events. Fibre-optic strain sensors allow the seasonal and daily opening and closing of the spaces between the dam's segments to be tracked. For the seismic data, both amplitude (in terms of using differences in amplitudes in the Fourier spectra for mapping the modes of vibration of the dam) and their time-frequency distribution for a set of small to moderate seismic events are investigated and the corresponding phase variabilities (in terms of lagged coherency) are evaluated. Even for moderate levels of seismic-induced ground motion, some influence on the structural response can be detected, which then sees the dam quickly return to its original state. A seasonal component was identified in the strain measurements, while levels of noise arising from the operation of the dam's generators and associated water flow have been provisionally identified.
Lost in Germania
(2021)
Tacitus’ Germania is notable for its absences: lacking a preface and programmatic statements, and being the only ethnographic monograph to have survived from Greco-Roman antiquity, readers have often leapt to fill in its perceived blanks. This chapter aims at redressing the effects of overdetermined readings by interpreting the text’s absences as significant in their own right.
Centroid moment tensor (CMT) parameters can be estimated from seismic waveforms. Since these data indirectly observe the deformation process, CMTs are inferred as solutions to inverse problems which are generally underdetermined and require significant assumptions, including assumptions about data noise. Broadly speaking, we consider noise to include both theory and measurement errors, where theory errors are due to assumptions in the inverse problem and measurement errors are caused by the measurement process. While data errors are routinely included in parameter estimation for full CMTs, less attention has been paid to theory errors related to velocity-model uncertainties and how these affect the resulting moment-tensor (MT) uncertainties. Therefore, rigorous uncertainty quantification for CMTs may require theory-error estimation which becomes a problem of specifying noise models. Various noise models have been proposed, and these rely on several assumptions. All approaches quantify theory errors by estimating the covariance matrix of data residuals. However, this estimation can be based on explicit modelling, empirical estimation and/or ignore or include covariances. We quantitatively compare several approaches by presenting parameter and uncertainty estimates in nonlinear full CMT estimation for several simulated data sets and regional field data of the M-1 4.4, 2015 June 13 Fox Creek, Canada, event. While our main focus is at regional distances, the tested approaches are general and implemented for arbitrary source model choice. These include known or unknown centroid locations, full MTs, deviatoric MTs and double-couple MTs. We demonstrate that velocity-model uncertainties can profoundly affect parameter estimation and that their inclusion leads to more realistic parameter uncertainty quantification. However, not all approaches perform equally well. Including theory errors by estimating non-stationary (non-Toeplitz) error covariance matrices via iterative schemes during Monte Carlo sampling performs best and is computationally most efficient. In general, including velocity-model uncertainties is most important in cases where velocity structure is poorly known.
Successful conservation efforts have led to recent increases of large mammals such as European bison Bison bonasus, moose Alces alces and grey wolf Canis lupus and their return to former habitats in central Europe.
While embraced by some, the recovery of these species is a controversial topic and holds potential for human-wildlife conflicts.
Involving the public has been suggested to be an effective method for monitoring wildlife and mitigating associated conflicts.
To assess two interrelated prerequisites for engaging people in Citizen Science (CS)-knowledge of returning species and respondents' readiness to participate in CS activities for monitoring and managing these species-we conducted a survey (questionnaire) in two wildlife parks located in different states of Germany.
Based on 472 complete questionnaires, we developed generalized linear models to understand how sociodemographic variables and exposure to the species affected visitors' knowledge of each species, and to investigate if sociodemographic variables and knowledge influenced the likelihood of visitors to participate in CS activities.
Almost all visitors were aware of the returning wolf population, while knowledge and awareness about bison and moose were significantly lower.
Knowledge of the two herbivores differed geographically (higher knowledge of moose in the north-eastern state), possibly indicating a positive association between exposure to the species and knowledge.
However, models generally performed poorly in predicting knowledge about wildlife, suggesting that such specific knowledge is insufficiently explained by sociodemographic variables. Our model, which explained stated willingness in CS indicated that younger participants and those with higher knowledge scores in the survey were more willing to engage in CS activities.
Overall, our analyses highlight how exposure to large mammals, knowledge about wildlife and human demographics are interrelated-insights that are helpful for effectively recruiting citizen scientists for wildlife conservation.
Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.
This study investigates the use of pulse stretching (skew-sized) inverters for monitoring the variation of count rate and linear energy transfer (LET) of energetic particles. The basic particle detector is a cascade of two pulse stretching inverters, and the required sensing area is obtained by connecting up to 12 two-inverter cells in parallel and employing the required number of parallel arrays. The incident particles are detected as single-event transients (SETs), whereby the SET count rate denotes the particle count rate, while the SET pulsewidth distribution depicts the LET variations. The advantage of the proposed solution is the possibility to sense the LET variations using fully digital processing logic. SPICE simulations conducted on IHP's 130-nm CMOS technology have shown that the SET pulsewidth varies by approximately 550 ps over the LET range from 1 to 100 MeV center dot cm(2) center dot mg(-1). The proposed detector is intended for triggering the fault-tolerant mechanisms within a self-adaptive multiprocessing system employed in space. It can be implemented as a standalone detector or integrated in the same chip with the target system.
Fatty acids are widely used to study trophic interactions in food web assemblages. Generally, it is assumed that there is a very small modification of fatty acids from one trophic step to another, making them suitable as trophic biomarkers. However, recent literature provides evidence that many fishes possess genes encoding enzymes with a role in bioconversion, thus the capability for bioconversion might be more widespread than previously assumed. Nonetheless, empirical evidence for biosynthesis occurring in natural populations remains scarce. In this study, we investigated different feeding types of perch (Perca fluviatilis) that are specialized on specific resources with different levels of highly unsaturated fatty acids (HUFAs), and analyzed the change between HUFA proportions in perch muscle tissue compared to their resources. Perch showed matching levels to their resources for EPA, but ARA and especially DHA were accumulated. Compound-specific stable isotope analyses helped us to identify the origin of HUFA carbon. Our results suggest that perch obtain a substantial amount of DHA via bioconversion when feeding on DHA-poor benthic resources. Thus, our data indicate the capability of bioconversion of HUFAs in a natural freshwater fish population.
Circular economy
(2021)
In a circular economy, the use of recycled resources in production is a key performance indicator for management. Yet, academic studies are still unable to inform managers on appropriate recycling and pricing policies. We develop an optimal control model integrating a firm's recycling rate, which can use both virgin and recycled resources in the production process. Our model accounts for recycling influence both at the supply- and demandsides. The positive effect of a firm's use of recycled resources diminishes over time but may increase through investments. Using general formulations for demand and cost, we analytically examine joint dynamic pricing and recycling investment policies in order to determine their optimal interplay over time. We provide numerical experiments to assess the existence of a steady-state and to calculate sensitivity analyses with respect to various model parameters. The analysis shows how to dynamically adapt jointly optimized controls to reach sustainability in the production process. Our results pave the way to sounder sustainable practices for firms operating within a circular economy.
Cirrus is the only cloud type capable of inducing daytime cooling or heating at the top of the atmosphere (TOA) and the sign of its radiative effect highly depends on its optical depth. However, the investigation of its geometrical and optical properties over the Arctic is limited. In this work the long-term properties of cirrus clouds are explored for the first time over an Arctic site (Ny-Alesund, Svalbard) using lidar and radiosonde measurements from 2011 to 2020. The optical properties were quality assured, taking into account the effects of specular reflections and multiple-scattering. Cirrus clouds were generally associated with colder and calmer wind conditions compared to the 2011-2020 climatology. However, the dependence of cirrus properties on temperature and wind speed was not strong. Even though the seasonal cycle was not pronounced, the winter-time cirrus appeared under lower temperatures and stronger wind conditions. Moreover, in winter, geometrically- and optically-thicker cirrus were found and their ice particles tended to be more spherical. The majority of cirrus was associated with westerly flow and westerly cirrus tended to be geometrically-thicker. Overall, optically-thinner layers tended to comprise smaller and less spherical ice crystals, most likely due to reduced water vapor deposition on the particle surface. Compared to lower latitudes, the cirrus layers over Ny-Alesund were more absorbing in the visible spectral region and they consisted of more spherical ice particles.
MALDI-TOF-MS-based identification of monoclonal murine Anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies within one hour
(2022)
During the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, many virus-binding monoclonal antibodies have been developed for clinical and diagnostic purposes. This underlines the importance of antibodies as universal bioanalytical reagents. However, little attention is given to the reproducibility crisis that scientific studies are still facing to date. In a recent study, not even half of all research antibodies mentioned in publications could be identified at all. This should spark more efforts in the search for practical solutions for the traceability of antibodies. For this purpose, we used 35 monoclonal antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 to demonstrate how sequence-independent antibody identification can be achieved by simple means applied to the protein. First, we examined the intact and light chain masses of the antibodies relative to the reference material NIST-mAb 8671. Already half of the antibodies could be identified based solely on these two parameters. In addition, we developed two complementary peptide mass fingerprinting methods with MALDI-TOF-MS that can be performed in 60 min and had a combined sequence coverage of over 80%. One method is based on the partial acidic hydrolysis of the protein by 5 mM of sulfuric acid at 99 degrees C. Furthermore, we established a fast way for a tryptic digest without an alkylation step. We were able to show that the distinction of clones is possible simply by a brief visual comparison of the mass spectra. In this work, two clones originating from the same immunization gave the same fingerprints. Later, a hybridoma sequencing confirmed the sequence identity of these sister clones. In order to automate the spectral comparison for larger libraries of antibodies, we developed the online software ABID 2.0. This open-source software determines the number of matching peptides in the fingerprint spectra. We propose that publications and other documents critically relying on monoclonal antibodies with unknown amino acid sequences should include at least one antibody fingerprint. By fingerprinting an antibody in question, its identity can be confirmed by comparison with a library spectrum at any time and context.
Both climate change and land use regimes affect the viability of populations, but they are often studied separately. Moreover, population viability analyses (PVAs) often ignore the effects of large environmental gradients and use temporal resolutions that are too coarse to take into account that different stages of a population's life cycle may be affected differently by climate change. Here, we present the High-resolution Large Environmental Gradient (HiLEG) model and apply it in a PVA with daily resolution based on daily climate projections for Northwest Germany. We used the large marsh grasshopper (LMG) as the target species and investigated (1) the effects of climate change on the viability and spatial distribution of the species, (2) the influence of the timing of grassland mowing on the species and (3) the interaction between the effects of climate change and grassland mowing. The stageand cohort-based model was run for the spatially differentiated environmental conditions temperature and soil moisture across the whole study region. We implemented three climate change scenarios and analyzed the population dynamics for four consecutive 20-year periods. Climate change alone would lead to an expansion of the regions suitable for the LMG, as warming accelerates development and due to reduced drought stress. However, in combination with land use, the timing of mowing was crucial, as this disturbance causes a high mortality rate in the aboveground life stages. Assuming the same date of mowing throughout the region, the impact on viability varied greatly between regions due to the different climate conditions. The regional negative effects of the mowing date can be divided into five phases: (1) In early spring, the populations were largely unaffected in all the regions; (2) between late spring and early summer, they were severely affected only in warm regions; (3) in summer, all the populations were severely affected so that they could hardly survive; (4) between late summer and early autumn, they were severely affected in cold regions; and (5) in autumn, the populations were equally affected across all regions. The duration and start of each phase differed slightly depending on the climate change scenario and simulation period, but overall, they showed the same pattern. Our model can be used to identify regions of concern and devise management recommendations. The model can be adapted to the life cycle of different target species, climate projections and disturbance regimes. We show with our adaption of the HiLEG model that high-resolution PVAs and applications on large environmental gradients can be reconciled to develop conservation strategies capable of dealing with multiple stressors.
Supergenes are nonrecombining genomic regions ensuring the coinheritance of multiple, coadapted genes. Despite the importance of supergenes in adaptation, little is known on how they originate. A classic example of supergene is the S locus controlling heterostyly, a floral heteromorphism occurring in 28 angiosperm families. In Primula, heterostyly is characterized by the cooccurrence of two complementary, self-incompatible floral morphs and is controlled by five genes clustered in the hemizygous, ca. 300-kb S locus. Here, we present the first chromosome-scale genome assembly of any heterostylous species, that of Primula veris (cowslip). By leveraging the high contiguity of the P. veris assembly and comparative genomic analyses, we demonstrated that the S-locus evolved via multiple, asynchronous gene duplications and independent gene translocations. Furthermore, we discovered a new whole-genome duplication in Ericales that is specific to the Primula lineage. We also propose a mechanism for the origin of S-locus hemizygosity via nonhomologous recombination involving the newly discovered two pairs of CFB genes flanking the S locus. Finally, we detected only weak signatures of degeneration in the S locus, as predicted for hemizygous supergenes. The present study provides a useful resource for future research addressing key questions on the evolution of supergenes in general and the S locus in particular: How do supergenes arise? What is the role of genome architecture in the evolution of complex adaptations? Is the molecular architecture of heterostyly supergenes across angiosperms similar to that of Primula?
Ancient genome provides insights into the history of Eurasian lynx in Iberia and Western Europe
(2022)
The Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) is one of the most widely distributed felids in the world. However, most of its populations started to decline a few millennia ago. Historical declines have been especially severe in Europe, and particularly in Western Europe, from where the species disappeared in the last few centuries. Here, we analyze the genome of an Eurasian lynx inhabiting the Iberian Peninsula 2500 ya, to gain insights into the phylogeographic position and genetic status of this extinct population. Also, we contextualize previous ancient data in the light of new phylogeographic studies of the species. Our results suggest that the Iberian population is part of an extinct European lineage closely related to the current Carpathian-Baltic lineages. Also, this sample holds the lowest diversity reported for the species so far, and similar to that of the highly endangered Iberian lynx. A combination of historical factors, such as a founder effect while colonizing the peninsula, together with intensified human impacts during the Holocene in the Cantabrian strip, could have led to a genetic impoverishment of the population and precipitated its extinction. Mitogenomic lineages distribution in space and time support the long-term coexistence of several lineages of Eurasian lynx in Western Europe with fluctuating ranges. While mitochondrial sequences related to the lineages currently found in Balkans and Caucasus were predominant during the Pleistocene, those more closely related to the lineage currently distributed in Central Europe prevailed during the Holocene. The use of ancient genomics has proven to be a useful tool to understand the biogeographic pattern of the Eurasian lynx in the past.
The water vapor-induced swelling, as well as subsequent phase-transition kinetics, of thin films of a diblock copolymer (DBC) loaded with different amounts of the salt NaBr, is investigated in situ. In dilute aqueous solution, the DBC features an orthogonally thermoresponsive behavior. It consists of a zwitterionic poly(sulfobetaine) block, namely, poly(4-(N-(3'-methacrylamidopropyl)-N, N-dimethylammonio) butane-1-sulfonate) (PSBP), showing an upper critical solution temperature, and a nonionic block, namely, poly(N-isopropylmethacrylamide) (PNIPMAM), exhibiting a lower critical solution temperature. The swelling kinetics in D2O vapor at 15 degrees C and the phase transition kinetics upon heating the swollen film to 60 degrees C and cooling back to 15 degrees C are followed with simultaneous time-of-flight neutron reflectometry and spectral reflectance measurements. These are complemented by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. The collapse temperature of PNIPMAM and the swelling temperature of PSBP are found at lower temperatures than in aqueous solution, which is attributed to the high polymer concentration in the thin-film geometry. Upon inclusion of sub-stoichiometric amounts (relative to the monomer units) of NaBr in the films, the water incorporation is significantly increased. This increase is mainly attributed to a salting-in effect on the zwitterionic PSBP block. Whereas the addition of NaBr notably shifts the swelling temperature of PSBP to lower temperatures, the collapse temperature of PNIPMAM remains unaffected by the presence of salt in the films.
Complex networks are abundant in nature and many share an important structural property: they contain a few nodes that are abnormally highly connected (hubs). Some of these hubs are called influencers because they couple strongly to the network and play fundamental dynamical and structural roles. Strikingly, despite the abundance of networks with influencers, little is known about their response to stochastic forcing. Here, for oscillatory dynamics on influencer networks, we show that subjecting influencers to an optimal intensity of noise can result in enhanced network synchronization. This new network dynamical effect, which we call coherence resonance in influencer networks, emerges from a synergy between network structure and stochasticity and is highly nonlinear, vanishing when the noise is too weak or too strong. Our results reveal that the influencer backbone can sharply increase the dynamical response in complex systems of coupled oscillators. Influencer networks include a small set of highly-connected nodes and can reach synchrony only via strong node interaction. Tonjes et al. show that introducing an optimal amount of noise enhances synchronization of such networks, which may be relevant for neuroscience or opinion dynamics applications.
The mean free path of ionizing photons, lambda(mfp), is a key factor in the photoionization of the intergalactic medium (IGM). At z greater than or similar to 5, however, lambda(mfp) may be short enough that measurements towards QSOs are biased by the QSO proximity effect. We present new direct measurements of lambda(mfp) that address this bias and extend up to z similar to 6 for the first time. Our measurements at z similar to 5 are based on data from the Giant Gemini GMOS survey and new Keck LRIS observations of low-luminosity QSOs. At z similar to 6 we use QSO spectra from Keck ESI and VLT X-Shooter. We measure lambda(mfp) = 9.09(-1.28)(+1.62) proper Mpc and 0.75(-0.45)(+0.65) proper Mpc (68 percent confidence) at z = 5.1 and 6.0, respectively. The results at z = 5.1 are consistent with existing measurements, suggesting that bias from the proximity effect is minor at this redshift. At z = 6.0, however, we find that neglecting the proximity effect biases the result high by a factor of two or more. Our measurement at z = 6.0 falls well below extrapolations from lower redshifts, indicating rapid evolution in lambda(mfp) over 5 < z < 6. This evolution disfavours models in which reionization ended early enough that the IGM had time to fully relax hydrodynamically by z = 6, but is qualitatively consistent with models wherein reionization completed at z = 6 or even significantly later. Our mean free path results are most consistent with late reionization models wherein the IGM is still 20 percent neutral at z = 6, although our measurement at z = 6.0 is even lower than these models prefer.
Ice-rich permafrost has been subject to abrupt thaw and thermokarst formation in the past and is vulnerable to current global warming. The ice-rich permafrost domain includes Yedoma sediments that have never thawed since deposition during the late Pleistocene and Alas sediments that were formed by previous thermokarst processes during the Lateglacial and Holocene warming. Permafrost thaw unlocks organic carbon (OC) and minerals from these deposits and exposes OC to mineralization. A portion of the OC can be associated with iron (Fe), a redox-sensitive element acting as a trap for OC. Post-depositional thaw processes may have induced changes in redox conditions in these deposits and thereby affected Fe distribution and interactions between OC and Fe, with knock-on effects on the role that Fe plays in mediating present day OC mineralization. To test this hypothesis, we measured Fe concentrations and proportion of Fe oxides and Fe complexed with OC in unthawed Yedoma and previously thawed Alas deposits. Total Fe concentrations were determined on 1,292 sediment samples from the Yedoma domain using portable X-ray fluorescence; these concentrations were corrected for trueness using a calibration based on a subset of 144 samples measured by inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry after alkaline fusion (R (2) = 0.95). The total Fe concentration is stable with depth in Yedoma deposits, but we observe a depletion or accumulation of total Fe in Alas deposits, which experienced previous thaw and/or flooding events. Selective Fe extractions targeting reactive forms of Fe on unthawed and previously thawed deposits highlight that about 25% of the total Fe is present as reactive species, either as crystalline or amorphous oxides, or complexed with OC, with no significant difference in proportions of reactive Fe between Yedoma and Alas deposits. These results suggest that redox driven processes during past thermokarst formation impact the present-day distribution of total Fe, and thereby the total amount of reactive Fe in Alas versus Yedoma deposits. This study highlights that ongoing thermokarst lake formation and drainage dynamics in the Arctic influences reactive Fe distribution and thereby interactions between Fe and OC, OC mineralization rates, and greenhouse gas emissions.
How biased are our models?
(2021)
Geophysical process simulations play a crucial role in the understanding of the subsurface. This understanding is required to provide, for instance, clean energy sources such as geothermal energy. However, the calibration and validation of the physical models heavily rely on state measurements such as temperature. In this work, we demonstrate that focusing analyses purely on measurements introduces a high bias. This is illustrated through global sensitivity studies. The extensive exploration of the parameter space becomes feasible through the construction of suitable surrogate models via the reduced basis method, where the bias is found to result from very unequal data distribution. We propose schemes to compensate for parts of this bias. However, the bias cannot be entirely compensated. Therefore, we demonstrate the consequences of this bias with the example of a model calibration.
Urban air pollution is a substantial threat to human health. Traffic emissions remain a large contributor to air pollution in urban areas. The mobility restrictions put in place in response to the COVID-19 pandemic provided a large-scale real-world experiment that allows for the evaluation of changes in traffic emissions and the corresponding changes in air quality. Here we use observational data, as well as modelling, to analyse changes in nitrogen dioxide, ozone, and particulate matter resulting from the COVID-19 restrictions at the height of the lockdown period in Spring of 2020. Accounting for the influence of meteorology on air quality, we found that reduction of ca. 30-50 % in traffic counts, dominated by changes in passenger cars, corresponded to reductions in median observed nitrogen dioxide concentrations of ca. 40 % (traffic and urban background locations) and a ca. 22 % increase in ozone (urban background locations) during weekdays. Lesser reductions in nitrogen dioxide concentrations were observed at urban background stations at weekends, and no change in ozone was observed. The modelled reductions in median nitrogen dioxide at urban background locations were smaller than the observed reductions and the change was not significant. The model results showed no significant change in ozone on weekdays or weekends. The lack of a simulated weekday/weekend effect is consistent with previous work suggesting that NOx emissions from traffic could be significantly underestimated in European cities by models. These results indicate the potential for improvements in air quality due to policies for reducing traffic, along with the scale of reductions that would be needed to result in meaningful changes in air quality if a transition to sustainable mobility is to be seriously considered. They also confirm once more the highly relevant role of traffic for air quality in urban areas.
The understanding of bidimensional materials dynamics and its electrolyte interface equilibrium, such as graphene oxide (GO), is critical for the development of a capacitive biosensing platform. The interfacial capacitance (C-i) of graphene-based materials may be tuned by experimental conditions such as pH optimization and cation size playing key roles at the enhancement of their capacitive properties allowing their application as novel capacitive biosensors. Here we reported a systematic study of C-i of multilayer GO films in different aqueous electrolytes employing electrochemical impedance spectroscopy for the application in a capacitive detection system. We demonstrated that the presence of ionizable oxygen-containing functional groups within multilayer GO film favors the interactions and the accumulation of cations in the structure of the electrodes enhancing the GO C-i in aqueous solutions, where at pH 7.0 (the best condition) the C-i was 340 mu F mg(-1) at -0.01 V vs Ag/AgCl. We also established that the hydrated cation radius affects the mobility and interaction with GO functional groups and it plays a critical role in the Ci, as demonstrated in the presence of different cations Na+=640 mu F mg(-1), Li+=575 mu F mg(-1) and TMA(+)=477 mu F mg(-1). As a proof-of-concept, the capacitive behaviour of GO was explored as biosensing platform for standard streptavidin-biotin systems. For this system, the C-i varied linearly with the log of the concentration of the targeting analyte in the range from 10 pg mL(-1) to 100 ng mL(-1), showing the promising applicability of capacitive GO based sensors for label-free biosensing.
Design thinking is a well-established practical and educational approach to fostering high-level creativity and innovation, which has been refined since the 1950s with the participation of experts like Joy Paul Guilford and Abraham Maslow. Through real-world projects, trainees learn to optimize their creative outcomes by developing and practicing creative cognition and metacognition. This paper provides a holistic perspective on creativity, enabling the formulation of a comprehensive theoretical framework of creative metacognition. It focuses on the design thinking approach to creativity and explores the role of metacognition in four areas of creativity expertise: Products, Processes, People, and Places. The analysis includes task-outcome relationships (product metacognition), the monitoring of strategy effectiveness (process metacognition), an understanding of individual or group strengths and weaknesses (people metacognition), and an examination of the mutual impact between environments and creativity (place metacognition). It also reviews measures taken in design thinking education, including a distribution of cognition and metacognition, to support students in their development of creative mastery. On these grounds, we propose extended methods for measuring creative metacognition with the goal of enhancing comprehensive assessments of the phenomenon. Proposed methodological advancements include accuracy sub-scales, experimental tasks where examinees explore problem and solution spaces, combinations of naturalistic observations with capability testing, as well as physiological assessments as indirect measures of creative metacognition.
Case report
(2023)
The increasing prevalence of Long COVID is an imminent public health disaster, and established approaches have not provided adequate diagnostics or treatments. Recently, anesthetic blockade of the stellate ganglion was reported to improve Long COVID symptoms in a small case series, purportedly by "rebooting" the autonomic nervous system. Here, we present a novel diagnostic approach based on the Adaptive Force (AF), and report sustained positive outcome for one severely affected Long COVID patient using individualized pulsed electromagnetic field (PEMF) at the area C7/T1. AF reflects the capacity of the neuromuscular system to adapt adequately to external forces in an isometric holding manner. In case, maximal isometric AF (AFiso(max)) is exceeded, the muscle merges into eccentric muscle action. Thereby, the force usually increases further until maximal AF (AFmax) is reached. In case adaptation is optimal, AFiso(max) is similar to 99-100% of AFmax. This holding capacity (AFiso(max)) was found to be vulnerable to disruption by unpleasant stimulus and, hence, was regarded as functional parameter. AF was assessed by an objectified manual muscle test using a handheld device. Prior to treatment, AFiso(max) was considerably lower than AFmax for hip flexors (62 N = similar to 28% AFmax) and elbow flexors (71 N = similar to 44% AFmax); i.e., maximal holding capacity was significantly reduced, indicating dysfunctional motor control. We tested PEMF at C7/T1, identified a frequency that improved neuromuscular function, and applied it for similar to 15 min. Immediately post-treatment, AFiso(max) increased to similar to 210 N (similar to 100% AFmax) at hip and 184 N (similar to 100% AFmax) at elbow. Subjective Long COVID symptoms resolved the following day. At 4 weeks post-treatment, maximal holding capacity was still on a similarly high level as for immediately post-treatment (similar to 100% AFmax) and patient was symptom-free. At 6 months the patient's Long COVID symptoms have not returned. This case report suggests (1) AF could be a promising diagnostic for post-infectious illness, (2) AF can be used to test effective treatments for post-infectious illness, and (3) individualized PEMF may resolve post-infectious symptoms.
Alcohol intoxication is known to affect many aspects of human behavior and cognition; one of such affected systems is articulation during speech production. Although much research has revealed that alcohol negatively impacts pronunciation in a first language (L1), there is only initial evidence suggesting a potential beneficial effect of inebriation on articulation in a non-native language (L2). The aim of this study was thus to compare the effect of alcohol consumption on pronunciation in an L1 and an L2. Participants who had ingested different amounts of alcohol provided speech samples in their L1 (Dutch) and L2 (English), and native speakers of each language subsequently rated the pronunciation of these samples on their intelligibility (for the L1) and accent nativelikeness (for the L2). These data were analyzed with generalized additive mixed modeling. Participants' blood alcohol concentration indeed negatively affected pronunciation in L1, but it produced no significant effect on the L2 accent ratings. The expected negative impact of alcohol on L1 articulation can be explained by reduction in fine motor control. We present two hypotheses to account for the absence of any effects of intoxication on L2 pronunciation: (1) there may be a reduction in L1 interference on L2 speech due to decreased motor control or (2) alcohol may produce a differential effect on each of the two linguistic subsystems.
Objective:
Depression and coronary heart disease (CHD) are highly comorbid conditions. Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) plays an important role in cardiovascular processes. Depressed patients typically show decreased BDNF concentrations. We analysed the relationship between BDNF and depression in a sample of patients with CHD and additionally distinguished between cognitive-affective and somatic depression symptoms. We also investigated whether BDNF was associated with somatic comorbidity burden, acute coronary syndrome (ACS) or congestive heart failure (CHF).
Methods:
The following variables were assessed for 225 hospitalised patients with CHD: BDNF concentrations, depression [Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9)], somatic comorbidity (Charlson Comorbidity Index), CHF, ACS, platelet count, smoking status and antidepressant treatment.
Results:
Regression models revealed that BDNF was not associated with severity of depression. Although depressed patients (PHQ-9 score >7) had significantly lower BDNF concentrations compared to non-depressed patients (p = 0.04), this was not statistically significant after controlling for confounders (p = 0.15). Cognitive-affective symptoms and somatic comorbidity burden each closely missed a statistically significant association with BDNF concentrations (p = 0.08, p = 0.06, respectively). BDNF was reduced in patients with CHF (p = 0.02). There was no covariate-adjusted, significant association between BDNF and ACS.
Conclusion:
Serum BDNF concentrations are associated with cardiovascular dysfunction. Somatic comorbidities should be considered when investigating the relationship between depression and BDNF.
Der vorliegende Beitrag informiert über 14 deutschsprachige Programme zur Prävention und Intervention bei Hatespeech unter Kindern und Jugendlichen (Jahrgangsstufen 5–12). Inhalte und Durchführungsmodalitäten der Programme sowie Ergebnisse einer kriteriengeleiteten Qualitätseinschätzung anhand von fünf Kriterien werden im Hinblick auf deren Anwendung in der schulischen Praxis beschrieben und erörtert. Der Überblick über Schwerpunkte, Stärken und Entwicklungspotentiale schulbezogener Hatespeech-Programme ermöglicht Leser*innen eine informierte Entscheidung über den Einsatz der Programme in der Schule sowie in der offenen Kinder- und Jugendarbeit.
With the surging reliance on videoconferencing tools, users may find themselves staring at their reflections for hours a day. We refer to this phenomenon as self-referential information (SRI) consumption and examine its consequences and the mechanism behind them. Building on self-awareness research and the strength model of self-control, we argue that SRI consumption heightens the state of self-awareness and thereby depletes participants’ mental resources, eventually undermining virtual meeting (VM) outcomes. Our findings from a European employee sample revealed contrary effects of SRI consumption across speaker vs listener roles. Engagement with self-view is positively associated with self-awareness, which, in turn, is negatively related to satisfaction with VM process, perceived productivity, and enjoyment. Looking at the self while listening to others exhibits adverse direct and indirect (via self-awareness) effects on VM outcomes. However, looking at the self when speaking exhibits positive direct effects on satisfaction with VM process and enjoyment.
Raub mit Luftpumpe
(2023)
Strafbares Heldentum?
(2022)
Heldentum ist kein Straftatbestand. Dennoch kann ein Verhalten, das man ethisch als „heldenhaft“ bewerten würde, straftatbestandsmäßig sein. Leonidas und seine Mitstreiter waren Helden, obwohl sie vorsätzlich viele Perser getötet haben. Strafbar allerdings ist solches Heldentum nicht, sofern es gerechtfertigt oder wenigstens entschuldigt ist. Eine Tat, die nicht gerechtfertigt oder entschuldigt ist, würde man wahrscheinlich auch nicht „heldenhaft“ nennen. Diese Auszeichnung verdienen vor allem Menschen, die ohne Rücksicht auf eigene Sicherheit viel riskieren, sich selbst in Gefahr begeben oder sogar darin „umkommen“, weil sie jemanden, der in Gefahr ist, retten wollen. Dass ein zusätzliches Risiko einer solchen Aktion die Begründung eigener Strafbarkeit sein könnte, überrascht vielleicht. Jedoch besteht das Risiko des Bestraftwerdens, wenn das Strafrecht falsch angewendet wird. Abstrakt gibt es dieses Risiko immer. Strafrechtsanwendende sind nicht unfehlbar, Strafgesetzgebende auch nicht. Aber das Risiko ist verringerbar. Wo der Gesetzgeber keine oder ausfüllungsbedürftige Normen geschaffen hat, sollte die Strafrechtslehre falschen Strafentscheidungen entgegenwirken, indem sie den Gerichten klare Handlungsanweisungen gibt. Die richtige konkrete Einzelfallentscheidung muss sich idealerweise abstrakt bereits in den strafrechtlichen Regeln abzeichnen. Der Held in spe sollte schon anhand des Gesetzes und seiner Erläuterungen durch die wissenschaftliche Literatur erkennen können, wo seine mutige Selbstaufopferung de lege lata in strafbaren Aktionismus umzuschlagen droht. Das kann ihm gegenwärtig noch nicht garantiert werden. Denn bei den Themen, die Gegenstand dieser Abhandlung sind, existiert noch erheblicher Normsetzungs- und Normerläuterungsbedarf.
Der Fall thematisiert klassische und neuartige Probleme der Rechtfertigungsdogmatik im Strafrecht. Neben dem Fehlen eines subjektiven Rechtfertigungselements sind Probleme des § 32 StGB zu bewältigen, die darauf beruhen, dass (scheinbar) weder auf der Seite des Angreifers noch auf der Seite des Angegriffenen ein Mensch unmittelbar am Konflikt beteiligt ist.
Rspr. und Strafrechtswissenschaft tun sich schwer mit der Behandlung von Taten, deren Akteure als „Lebensmittelerpresser“ bezeichnet werden. Das hat der Fall gezeigt, über den der 1. Strafsenat des BGH am BGH 5.6.2019 nach Revision des Angekl. gegen die Verurteilung durch das LG Ravensburg entschieden hat. Sowohl das Gericht als auch die Kommentatoren der BGH-Entscheidung beschäftigen sich ausführlich mit den Problemen des Rücktritts vom Versuch (§ STGB § 24 StGB). Die Tatbestandsmerkmale der (versuchten) qualifizierten räuberischen Erpressung werden hingegen fast gänzlich außer Acht gelassen. Bei genauerem Hinsehen erkennt man, dass schon die Erfüllung des Grundtatbestandes „versuchte Erpressung“ (§§ STGB § 253, STGB § 22 StGB) zweifelhaft ist und einer nicht ganz unkomplizierten Begründung bedarf. Erst recht problematisch sind sodann sämtliche Qualifikationsstufen, also §§ STGB § 255, STGB § 250 und STGB § 251 StGB. Der BGH und die Literatur – so hat es den Anschein − erachten dies als weitgehend unproblematisch. Am Beispiel des Friedrichshafener Falles soll aufgezeigt werden, was gegen eine Strafbarkeit des Täters aus §§ STGB § 253, STGB § 255, STGB § 250, STGB § 251, STGB § 22 StGB sprechen könnte und wie sich die Bedenken – teilweise − überwinden lassen.
We use the prolonged Greek crisis as a case study to understand how a lasting economic shock affects the innovation strategies of firms in economies with moderate innovation activities. Adopting the 3-stage CDM model, we explore the link between R&D, innovation, and productivity for different size groups of Greek manufacturing firms during the prolonged crisis. At the first stage, we find that the continuation of the crisis is harmful for the R&D engagement of smaller firms while it increased the willingness for R&D activities among the larger ones. At the second stage, among smaller firms the knowledge production remains unaffected by R&D investments, while among larger firms the R&D decision is positively correlated with the probability of producing innovation, albeit the relationship is weakened as the crisis continues. At the third stage, innovation output benefits only larger firms in terms of labor productivity, while the innovation-productivity nexus is insignificant for smaller firms during the lasting crisis.
Paid parental leave schemes have been shown to increase women’s employment rates but to decrease their wages in case of extended leave duration. In view of these potential trade-offs, many countries are discussing the optimal design of parental leave policies. We analyze the impact of a major parental leave reform on mothers’ long-term earnings. The 2007 German parental leave reform replaced a means-tested benefit with a more generous earnings-related benefit that is granted for a shorter period of time. Additionally, a ”daddy quota” of two months was introduced. To identify the causal effect of this policy mix on long-run earnings of mothers, we use a difference-in-differences approach that compares labor market outcomes of mothers who gave birth just before and right after the reform and nets out seasonal effects by including the year before. Using administrative social security data, we confirm previous findings and show that the average duration of employment interruptions increased for mothers with high pre-birth earnings. Nevertheless, we find a positive long-run effect on earnings for mothers in this group. This effect cannot be explained by changes in the selection of working mothers, working hours or changes in employer stability. Descriptive evidence suggests that the stronger involvement of fathers, incentivized by the ”daddy months”, could have facilitated mothers’ re-entry into the labor market and thereby increased earnings. For mothers with low pre-birth earnings, however, we do not find beneficial long-run effects of this parental leave reform.
Gender stereotypes influence subjective beliefs about the world, and this is reflected in our use of language. But do gender biases in language transparently reflect subjective beliefs? Or is the process of translating thought to language itself biased? During the 2016 United States (N = 24,863) and 2017 United Kingdom (N = 2,609) electoral campaigns, we compared participants' beliefs about the gender of the next head of government with their use and interpretation of pronouns referring to the next head of government. In the United States, even when the female candidate was expected to win, she pronouns were rarely produced and induced substantial comprehension disruption. In the United Kingdom, where the incumbent female candidate was heavily favored, she pronouns were preferred in production but yielded no comprehension advantage. These and other findings suggest that the language system itself is a source of implicit biases above and beyond previously known biases, such as those measured by the Implicit Association Test.
Due to their ability to capture attention, emotional stimuli tend to benefit from enhanced perceptual processing, which can be helpful when such stimuli are task-relevant but hindering when they are task-irrelevant. Altered emotion-attention interactions have been associated with symptoms of affective disturbances, and emerging research focuses on improving emotion-attention interactions to prevent or treat affective disorders. In line with the Human Affectome Project's emphasis on linguistic components, we also analyzed the language used to describe attention-related aspects of emotion, and highlighted terms related to domains such as conscious awareness, motivational effects of attention, social attention, and emotion regulation. These terms were discussed within a broader review of available evidence regarding the neural correlates of (1) Emotion-Attention Interactions in Perception, (2) Emotion-Attention Interactions in Learning and Memory, (3) Individual Differences in Emotion-Attention Interactions, and (4) Training and Interventions to Optimize Emotion-Attention Interactions. This comprehensive approach enabled an integrative overview of the current knowledge regarding the mechanisms of emotion-attention interactions at multiple levels of analysis, and identification of emerging directions for future investigations.
In contrast to the common conception that the interfacial energy-level alignment is affixed once the interface is formed, we demonstrate that heterojunctions between organic semiconductors and metal-halide perovskites exhibit huge energy-level realignment during photoexcitation. Importantly, the photoinduced level shifts occur in the organic component, including the first molecular layer in direct contact with the perovskite. This is caused by charge-carrier accumulation within the organic semiconductor under illumination and the weak electronic coupling between the junction components.
This study is trying to understand the pre-eruptive magma storage and crystallization conditions of the Middle Miocene aged, silica-saturated trachytic rocks of the Afyon Volcanic Complex (AVC) in Western Anatolia, Turkey. Those rocks can be divided by their high K2O, K2O/Na2O ratio and Mg# into two groups, namely the intermediate-potassic (IPG) and the ultrapotassic (UPG). Here we are comparing calculated pressure (P) - temperature (T) conditions derived from geothermobarometric calculations of natural samples with results of high-pressure, high-temperature phase equilibria experiments. IPG samples are richer in silica (57-64 wt% SiO2), whereas UPG samples show intermediate SiO2 contents of 56-58 wt%. UPG are having high K2O contents ((>)9 wt %), K2O/Na2O ratios ((>)10 wt%) and Mg# values (75-77). IPG phenocrysts comprise plagioclase + biotite + amphibole + clinopyroxene +/- orthopyroxene +/- sanidine +/- phlogopite and oxides, while UPG mineralogical assemblage consists of amphibole + phlogopite + clinopyroxene + olivine + sanidine and oxides. IPG and UPG are enriched in Large-Ion Lithophile Elements (LILE), and both have negative anomalies in Nb, Sr, Zr and Ti elements. Additionally, IPG shows positive anomalies in Pb. Both IPG and UPG display enrichment in Light Rare Earth Elements (LREE), while IPG shows a more significant negative anomaly in Eu when compared to UPG. Plagioclase fractionation may play a role in magma generation. In IPG samples Ni and Cr values range between (3.3-18.8 ppm) and (2.6-27.8 ppm), respectively; whereas UPG samples have (119.1-120.7 ppm) Ni and (212.1-219.9 ppm) Cr. Dy/Yb ratios of IPG and UPG are higher than 2 and may indicate that garnet was present in the source. Geothermobarometric calculations for natural IPG clinopyroxene-melt pairs imply higher PT conditions (Dogan-Kulahci et al., 2015), while in this study high-pressure/high-temperature (HP/HT) phase equilibria experiments recreated the natural mineral assemblage at 2-4 kbar, 6-9 km and c. 900 degrees C. New plagioclase-melt calculations have confirmed lower mean magma storage temperatures, which are closer to the experimental results but still slightly elevated. Thus, trace element results of the natural rocks and experimental data may imply that a deep garnet-bearing magma source mixed with shallower magmas (IPG) was feeding the volcanic eruption.
We traced diatom composition and diversity through time using diatom-derived sedimentary ancient DNA (sedaDNA) from eastern continental slope sediments off Kamchatka (North Pacific) by applying a short, diatom-specific marker on 63 samples in a DNA metabarcoding approach. The sequences were assigned to diatoms that are common in the area and characteristic of cold water. SedaDNA allowed us to observe shifts of potential lineages from species of the genus Chaetoceros that can be related to different climatic phases, suggesting that pre-adapted ecotypes might have played a role in the long-term success of species in areas of changing environmental conditions. These sedaDNA results complement our understanding of the long-term history of diatom assemblages and their general relationship to environmental conditions of the past. Sea-ice diatoms (Pauliella taeniata [Grunow] Round & Basson, Attheya septentrionalis [ostrup] R. M. Crawford and Nitzschia frigida [Grunow]) detected during the late glacial and Younger Dryas are in agreement with previous sea-ice reconstructions. A positive correlation between pennate diatom richness and the sea-ice proxy IP25 suggests that sea ice fosters pennate diatom richness, whereas a negative correlation with June insolation and temperature points to unfavorable conditions during the Holocene. A sharp increase in proportions of freshwater diatoms at similar to 11.1 cal kyr BP implies the influence of terrestrial runoff and coincides with the loss of 42% of diatom sequence variants. We assume that reduced salinity at this time stabilized vertical stratification which limited the replenishment of nutrients in the euphotic zone.
Prior research suggests that teachers with higher levels of empathy are more willing to intervene in bullying among students. However, these findings are based on hypothetical bullying situations and teachers' self-reports. In this study with 2,071 German students and their 556 teachers, we analysed reactions to hypothetical relational bullying situations as well as retrospectively reported bullying situations both from the teachers' as well as the students' perspectives. Results showed that teachers with higher levels of empathy reported stronger intentions to intervene in hypothetical relational bullying situations but were not more likely to intervene in retrospectively reported bullying situations. From the students' perspective, teachers' empathy was neither connected to the teachers' intention to intervene nor to the likelihood of intervention in the retrospectively reported situations. These different results could be taken as an opportunity to investigate whether existing findings could be influenced by methodological aspects such as teachers' self-reports. Implications for future research are discussed.
Cyanobacteria are important primary producers in temperate freshwater ecosystems. However, studies on the seasonal and spatial distribution of cyanobacteria in deep lakes based on high-throughput DNA sequencing are still rare. In this study, we combined monthly water sampling and monitoring in 2019, amplicon sequence variants analysis (ASVs; a proxy for different species) and quantitative PCR targeting overall cyanobacteria abundance to describe the seasonal and spatial dynamics of cyanobacteria in the deep hard-water oligo-mesotrophic Lake Tiefer See, NE Germany. We observed significant seasonal variation in the cyanobacterial community composition (p < 0.05) in the epi- and metalimnion layers, but not in the hypolimnion. In winter-when the water column is mixed-picocyanobacteria (Synechococcus and Cyanobium) were dominant. With the onset of stratification in late spring, we observed potential niche specialization and coexistence among the cyanobacteria taxa driven mainly by light and nutrient dynamics. Specifically, ASVs assigned to picocyanobacteria and the genus Planktothrix were the main contributors to the formation of deep chlorophyll maxima along a light gradient. While Synechococcus and different Cyanobium ASVs were abundant in the epilimnion up to the base of the euphotic zone from spring to fall, Planktothrix mainly occurred in the metalimnetic layer below the euphotic zone where also overall cyanobacteria abundance was highest in summer. Our data revealed two potentially psychrotolerant (cold-adapted) Cyanobium species that appear to cope well under conditions of lower hypolimnetic water temperature and light as well as increasing sediment-released phosphate in the deeper waters in summer. The potential cold-adapted Cyanobium species were also dominant throughout the water column in fall and winter. Furthermore, Snowella and Microcystis-related ASVs were abundant in the water column during the onset of fall turnover. Altogether, these findings suggest previously unascertained and considerable spatiotemporal changes in the community of cyanobacteria on the species level especially within the genus Cyanobium in deep hard-water temperate lakes.