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Background Heart failure (HF) is a complex, chronic condition that is associated with debilitating symptoms, all of which necessitate close follow-up by health care providers. Lack of disease monitoring may result in increased mortality and more frequent hospital readmissions for decompensated HF. Remote patient management (RPM) in this patient population may help to detect early signs and symptoms of cardiac decompensation, thus enabling a prompt initiation of the appropriate treatment and care before a manifestation of HF decompensation. Objective The objective of the present article is to describe the design of a new trial investigating the impact of RPM on unplanned cardiovascular hospitalisations and mortality in HF patients. Methods The TIM-HF2 trial is designed as a prospective, randomised, controlled, parallel group, open (with randomisation concealment), multicentre trial with pragmatic elements introduced for data collection. Eligible patients with HF are randomised (1:1) to either RPM + usual care or to usual care only and are followed for 12 months. The primary outcome is the percentage of days lost due to unplanned cardiovascular hospitalisations or all-cause death. The main secondary outcomes are all-cause and cardiovascular mortality. Conclusion The TIM-HF2 trial will provide important prospective data on the potential beneficial effect of telemedical monitoring and RPM on unplanned cardiovascular hospitalisations and mortality in HF patients.
The presence of extreme horizontal branch (EHB) and blue hook stars in some Galactic globular clusters (GGCs) constitutes one of the remaining mysteries of stellar evolution. While several evolutionary scenarios have been proposed to explain the characteristics of this peculiar population of evolved stars, their observational verification has been limited by the availability of spectroscopic data for a statistically significant sample of such objects in any single GGC. We recently launched the SHOTGLAS project with the aim of providing a comprehensive picture of this intriguing stellar population in terms of spectroscopic properties for all readily accessible GGCs hosting an EHB. In this first paper, we focus on omega Cen, a peculiar, massive GGC that hosts multiple stellar populations. We use non-LTE model atmospheres to derive atmospheric parameters (Te ff, log g and N(He) / N(H)) and spectroscopic masses for 152 EHB stars in the cluster. This constitutes the largest spectroscopic sample of EHB stars ever analyzed in a GGC and represents similar to 20% of the EHB population of omega Cen. We also search for close binaries among these stars based on radial velocity variations. Our results show that the EHB population of omega Cen is divided into three spectroscopic groups that are very distinct in the Te ff helium abundance plane. The coolest sdB-type stars (Te ff. 30 000 K) have a hydrogen-rich atmosphere, populate the theoretical EHB region in the Te ff log g plane, and form 26% of our sample. The hottest sdO-type stars (Te ff & 42 000 K) make up 10% of the sample, have a hydrogen-rich atmosphere and are thought to be in a post-EHB evolutionary phase. The majority of our sample is found at intermediate temperatures and consists of sdOB stars that have roughly solar or super-solar atmospheric helium abundances. It is these objects that constitute the blue hook at V > 18 : 5 mag in the omega Cen color-magnitude diagram. Interestingly, the helium-enriched sdOBs do not have a significant counterpart population in the Galactic field, indicating that their formation is dependent on the particular environment found in omega Cen and other select GGCs. Another major di ff erence between the EHB stars in omega Cen and the field is the fraction of close binaries. From our radial velocity survey we identify two binary candidates, however no orbital solutions could be determined. We estimate an EHB close binary fraction of similar to 5% in omega Cen. This low fraction is in line with findings for other GGCs, but in sharp contrast to the situation in the field, where around 50% of the sdB stars reside in close binaries. Finally, the mass distribution derived is very similar for all three spectroscopic groups, however the average mass (0.38 M fi) is lower than that expected from stellar evolution theory. While this mass conundrum has previously been noted for EHB stars in omega Cen, it so far appears to be unique to that cluster.
Himalayan rivers are frequently hit by catastrophic floods that are caused by the failure of glacial lake and landslide dams; however, the dynamics and long-term impacts of such floods remain poorly understood. We present a comprehensive set of observations that capture the July 2016 glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF) in the Bhotekoshi/Sunkoshi River of Nepal. Seismic records of the flood provide new insights into GLOF mechanics and their ability to mobilize large boulders that otherwise prevent channel erosion. Because of this boulder mobilization, GLOF impacts far exceed those of the annual summer monsoon, and GLOFs may dominate fluvial erosion and channel-hillslope coupling many tens of kilometers downstream of glaciated areas. Long-term valley evolution in these regions may therefore be driven by GLOF frequency and magnitude, rather than by precipitation.
In Germany, the productivity of professional services, a sector dominated by micro and small firms, declined by 40 percent between 1995 and 2014. This productivity decline also holds true for professional services in other European countries. Using a German firm-level dataset of 700,000 observations between 2003 and 2017, we analyze this largely uncovered phenomenon among professional services, the 4th largest sector in the EU15 business economy, which provide important intermediate services for the rest of the economy. We show that changes in the value chain explain about half of the decline and the increase in part-time employment is a further minor part of the decline. In contrast to expectations, the entry of micro and small firms, despite their lower productivity levels, is not responsible for the decline. We also cannot confirm the conjecture that weakening competition allows unproductive firms to remain in the market.
We present a study of the [O III]/[O II] ratios of star-forming galaxies drawn from Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) data spanning a redshift range 0.28 < z < 0.85. Recently discovered Lyman continuum (LyC) emitters have extremely high oxygen line ratios: [O III]lambda 5007/[O II]lambda lambda 3726, 3729 > 4. Here we aim to understand the properties and the occurrences of galaxies with such high line ratios. Combining data from several MUSE Guaranteed Time Observing (GTO) programmes, we select a population of star-forming galaxies with bright emission lines, from which we draw 406 galaxies for our analysis based on their position in the z-dependent star formation rate (SFR) stellar mass (M*) plane. Out of this sample 15 are identified as extreme oxygen emitters based on their [O III]/[O II] ratios (3.7%) and 104 galaxies have [O III]/[O II] > 1 (26%). Our analysis shows no significant correlation between M*, SFR, and the distance from the SFR M, relation with [O III]/[O II]. We find a decrease in the fraction of galaxies with [O III]/[O II] > 1 with increasing M*, however, this is most likely a result of the relationship between [O III]/[O II] and metallicity, rather than between [O III]/[O II] and M. We draw a comparison sample of local analogues with < z > 0.03 from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, and find similar incidence rates for this sample. In order to investigate the evolution in the fraction of high [O III]/[O II] emitters with redshift, we bin the sample into three redshift subsamples of equal number, but find no evidence for a dependence on redshift. Furthermore, we compare the observed line ratios with those predicted by nebular models with no LyC escape and find that most of the extreme oxygen emitters can be reproduced by low metallicity models. The remaining galaxies are likely LyC emitter candidates.
Although it is theoretically expected that all organic semiconductors support ambipolar charge transport, most organic transistors either transport holes or electrons effectively. Single-layer ambipolar organic field-effect transistors enable the investigation of different mechanisms in hole and electron transport in a single device since the device architecture provides a controllable planar pn-junction within the transistor channel. However, a direct comparison of the injection barriers and of the channel conductivities between electrons and holes within the same device cannot be measured by standard electrical characterization. This article introduces a novel approach for determining threshold gate voltages for the onset of the ambipolar regime from the position of the pn-junction observed by photoluminescence electromodulation (PLEM) microscopy. Indeed, the threshold gate voltage in the ambipolar bias regime considers a vanishing channel length, thus correlating the contact resistance. PLEM microscopy is a valuable tool to directly compare the contact and channel resistances for both carrier types in the same device. The reported results demonstrate that designing the metal/organic semiconductor interfaces by aligning the bulk metal Fermi levels to the highest occupied molecular orbital or lowest unoccupied molecular orbital levels of the organic semiconductors is a too simplistic approach for optimizing the charge injection process in organic field-effect devices.
We report on observations of the pulsar/Be star binary system PSR J2032+4127/MT91 213 in the energy range between 100 GeV and 20 TeV with the Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array and Major Atmospheric Gamma Imaging Cherenkov telescope arrays. The binary orbit has a period of approximately 50 years, with the most recent periastron occurring on 2017 November 13. Our observations span from 18 months prior to periastron to one month after. A new point-like gamma-ray source is detected, coincident with the location of PSR J2032+4127/MT91 213. The gamma-ray light curve and spectrum are well characterized over the periastron passage. The flux is variable over at least an order of magnitude, peaking at periastron, thus providing a firm association of the TeV source with the pulsar/Be star system. Observations prior to periastron show a cutoff in the spectrum at an energy around 0.5 TeV. This result adds a new member to the small population of known TeV binaries, and it identifies only the second source of this class in which the nature and properties of the compact object are firmly established. We compare the gamma-ray results with the light curve measured with the X-ray Telescope on board the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory and with the predictions of recent theoretical models of the system. We conclude that significant revision of the models is required to explain the details of the emission that we have observed, and we discuss the relationship between the binary system and the overlapping steady extended source, TeV J2032+4130.
Thermokarst lakes are prevalent in Arctic coastal lowland regions and sublake permafrost degradation and talik development contributes to greenhouse gas emissions by tapping the large permafrost carbon pool. Whereas lateral thermokarst lake expansion is readily apparent through remote sensing and shoreline measurements, sublake thawed sediment conditions and talik growth are difficult to measure. Here we combine transient electromagnetic surveys with thermal modeling, backed up by measured permafrost properties and radiocarbon ages, to reveal closed-talik geometry associated with a thermokarst lake in continuous permafrost. To improve access to talik geometry data, we conducted surveys along three transient electromagnetic transects perpendicular to lakeshores with different decadal-scale expansion rates of 0.16, 0.38, and 0.58m/year. We modeled thermal development of the talik using boundary conditions based on field data from the lake, surrounding permafrost and a borehole, independent of the transient electromagnetics. A talik depth of 91m was determined from analysis of the transient electromagnetic surveys. Using a lake initiation age of 1400years before present and available subsurface properties the results from thermal modeling of the lake center arrived at a best estimate talk depth of 80m, which is on the same order of magnitude as the results from the transient electromagnetic survey. Our approach has provided a noninvasive estimate of talik geometry suitable for comparable settings throughout circum-Arctic coastal lowland regions.
Vela Jr. (RX J0852.0-4622) is one of just a few known supernova remnants (SNRs) with a resolved shell across the whole electromagnetic spectrum from radio to very-high-energy (>100 GeV; VHE) gamma-rays. Its proximity and large size allow for detailed spatially resolved observations of the source, making Vela Jr. one of the primary sources used for the study of particle acceleration and emission mechanisms in SNRs. High-resolution X-ray observations reveal a steepening of the spectrum toward the interior of the remnant. In this study we aim for a self-consistent radiation model of Vela Jr. which at the same time would explain the broadband emission from the source and its intensity distribution. We solve the full particle transport equation combined with the high-resolution one-dimensional (1D) hydrodynamic simulations (using Pluto code) and subsequently calculate the radiation from the remnant. The equations are solved in the test particle regime. We test two models for the magnetic field profile downstream of the shock: damped magnetic field, which accounts for the damping of strong magnetic turbulence downstream, and transported magnetic field. Neither of these scenarios can fully explain the observed radial dependence of the X-ray spectrum under spherical symmetry. We show, however, that the softening of the spectrum and the X-ray intensity profile can be explained under the assumption that the emission is enhanced within a cone.
The keynote article (Mayberry & Kluender, 2017) makes an important contribution to questions concerning the existence and characteristics of sensitive periods in language acquisition. Specifically, by comparing groups of non-native L1 and L2 signers, the authors have been able to ingeniously disentangle the effects of maturation from those of early language exposure. Based on L1 versus L2 contrasts, the paper convincingly argues that L2 learning is a less clear test of sensitive periods. Nevertheless, we believe Mayberry and Kluender underestimate the evidence for maturational factors in L2 learning, especially that coming from recent research.
The tropical peat swamp forests of South-East Asia are being rapidly converted to agricultural plantations of oil palm and Acacia creating a significant global “hot-spot” for CO2 emissions. However, the effect of this major perturbation has yet to be quantified in terms of global warming potential (GWP) and the Earth's radiative budget. We used a GWP analysis and an impulse-response model of radiative forcing to quantify the climate forcing of this shift from a long-term carbon sink to a net source of greenhouse gases (CO2 and CH4). In the GWP analysis, five tropical peatlands were sinks in terms of their CO2 equivalent fluxes while they remained undisturbed. However, their drainage and conversion to oil palm and Acacia plantations produced a dramatic shift to very strong net CO2-equivalent sources. The induced losses of peat carbon are ~20× greater than the natural CO2 sequestration rates. In contrast, a radiative forcing model indicates that the magnitude of this shift from a net cooling to warming effect is ultimately related to the size of an individual peatland's carbon pool. The continuous accumulation of carbon in pristine tropical peatlands produced a progressively negative radiative forcing (i.e., cooling) that ranged from −2.1 to −6.7 nW/m2 per hectare peatland by 2010 CE, referenced to zero at the time of peat initiation. Peatland conversion to plantations leads to an immediate shift from negative to positive trend in radiative forcing (i.e., warming). If drainage persists, peak warming ranges from +3.3 to +8.7 nW/m2 per hectare of drained peatland. More importantly, this net warming impact on the Earth's radiation budget will persist for centuries to millennia after all the peat has been oxidized to CO2. This previously unreported and undesirable impact on the Earth's radiative balance provides a scientific rationale for conserving tropical peatlands in their pristine state.
Whistler mode exohiss are the structureless hiss waves observed outside the plasma pause with featured equatorward Poynting flux. An event of the amplification of exohiss as well as chorus waves was recorded by Van Allen Probes during the recovery phase of a weak geomagnetic storm. Amplitudes of both types of the waves showed a significant increase at the regions of electron density enhancements. It is found that the electrons resonant with exohiss and chorus showed moderate pitch angle anisotropies. The ratio of the number of electrons resonating with exohiss to total electron number presented in-phase correlation with density variations, which suggests that exohiss can be amplified due to electron density enhancement in terms of cyclotron instability. The calculation of linear growth rates further supports above conclusion. We suggest that exohiss waves have potential to become more significant due to the background plasma fluctuation.
We study the role and drivers of persistence in the extensive margin of bilateral trade. Motivated by a stylized heterogeneous firms model of international trade with market entry costs, we consider dynamic three-way fixed effects binary choice models and study the corresponding incidental parameter problem. The standard maximum likelihood estimator is consistent under asymptotics where all panel dimensions grow at a constant rate, but it has an asymptotic bias in its limiting distribution, invalidating inference even in situations where the bias appears to be small. Thus, we propose two different bias-corrected estimators. Monte Carlo simulations confirm their desirable statistical properties. We apply these estimators in a reassessment of the most commonly studied determinants of the extensive margin of trade. Both true state dependence and unobserved heterogeneity contribute considerably to trade persistence and taking this persistence into account matters significantly in identifying the effects of trade policies on the extensive margin.
Under global warming scenarios, rising temperatures can constitute heat stress to which species may respond differentially. Within a described species, knowledge on cryptic diversity is of further relevance, as different lineages/cryptic species may respond differentially to environmental change. The Brachionus calyciflorus species complex (Rotifera), which was recently described using integrative taxonomy, is an essential component of aquatic ecosystems. Here, we tested the hypothesis that these (formerly cryptic) species differ in their heat tolerance. We assigned 47 clones with nuclear ITS1 (nuITS1) and mitochondrial COI (mtCOI) markers to evolutionary lineages, now named B. calyciflorus sensu stricto (s.s.) and B. fernandoi. We selected 15 representative clones and assessed their heat tolerance as a bi-dimensional phenotypic trait affected by both the intensity and duration of heat stress. We found two distinct groups, with B. calyciflorus s.s. clones having higher heat tolerance than the novel species B. fernandoi. This apparent temperature specialization among former cryptic species underscores the necessity of a sound species delimitation and assignment, when organismal responses to environmental changes are investigated.
Context. Among the intermediate-mass magnetic chemically peculiar (MCP) stars, CU Vir is one of the most intriguing objects. Its 100% circularly polarized beams of radio emission sweep the Earth as the star rotates, thereby making this strongly magnetic star the prototype of a class of nondegenerate stellar radio pulsars. While CU Vir is well studied in radio, its high-energy properties are not known. Yet, X-ray emission is expected from stellar magnetospheres and confined stellar winds. Aims. Using X-ray data we aim to test CU Vir for intrinsic X-ray emission and investigate mechanisms responsible for its generation. Methods. We present X-ray observations performed with XMM-Newton and Chandra and study obtained X-ray images, light curves, and spectra. Basic X-ray properties are derived from spectral modelling and are compared with model predictions. In this context we investigate potential thermal and nonthermal X-ray emission scenarios. Results. We detect an X-ray source at the position of CU Vir. With LX approximate to 3 x 10(28) erg s(-1) it is moderately X-ray bright, but the spectrum is extremely hard compared to other Ap stars. Spectral modelling requires multi-component models with predominant hot plasma at temperatures of about T-X = 25MK or, alternatively, a nonthermal spectral component. Both types of model provide a virtually equivalent description of the X-ray spectra. The Chandra observation was performed six years later than those by XMM-Newton, yet the source has similar X-ray flux and spectrum, suggesting a steady and persistent X-ray emission. This is further confirmed by the X-ray light curves that show only mild X-ray variability. Conclusions. CU Vir is also an exceptional star at X-ray energies. To explain its full X-ray properties, a generating mechanism beyond standard explanations, like the presence of a low-mass companion or magnetically confined wind-shocks, is required. Magnetospheric activity might be present or, as proposed for fast-rotating strongly magnetic Bp stars, the X-ray emission of CU Vir is predominantly auroral in nature.
Centaurus A (Cen A) is the nearest radio galaxy discovered as a very-high-energy (VHE; 100 GeV-100 TeV) gamma-ray source by the High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.). It is a faint VHE gamma-ray emitter, though its VHE flux exceeds both the extrapolation from early Fermi-LAT observations as well as expectations from a (misaligned) single-zone synchrotron-self Compton (SSC) description. The latter satisfactorily reproduces the emission from Cen A at lower energies up to a few GeV. New observations with H.E.S.S., comparable in exposure time to those previously reported, were performed and eight years of Fermi-LAT data were accumulated to clarify the spectral characteristics of the gamma-ray emission from the core of Cen A. The results allow us for the first time to achieve the goal of constructing a representative, contemporaneous gamma-ray core spectrum of Cen A over almost five orders of magnitude in energy. Advanced analysis methods, including the template fitting method, allow detection in the VHE range of the core with a statistical significance of 12 sigma on the basis of 213 hours of total exposure time. The spectrum in the energy range of 250 GeV-6 TeV is compatible with a power-law function with a photon index Gamma = 2.52 +/- 0.13(stat) +/- 0.20(sys). An updated Fermi-LAT analysis provides evidence for spectral hardening by Delta Gamma similar or equal to 0.4 +/- 0.1 at gamma-ray energies above 2.8(-0.6)(+1.0) GeV at a level of 4.0 sigma. The fact that the spectrum hardens at GeV energies and extends into the VHE regime disfavour a single-zone SSC interpretation for the overall spectral energy distribution (SED) of the core and is suggestive of a new gamma-ray emitting component connecting the high-energy emission above the break energy to the one observed at VHE energies. The absence of significant variability at both GeV and TeV energies does not yet allow disentanglement of the physical nature of this component, though a jet-related origin is possible and a simple two-zone SED model fit is provided to this end.
We analysed recent K2 data of the short-period eclipsing binary system HW Vir, which consists of a hot subdwarf-B type primary with an M-dwarf companion. We determined the mid-times of eclipses, calculated O-C diagrams, and an average shift of the secondary minimum. Our results show that the orbital period is stable within the errors over the course of the 70 days of observations. Interestingly, the offset from mid-orbital phase between the primary and the secondary eclipses is found to be 1.62 s. If the shift is explained solely by light-travel time, the mass of the sdB primary must be 0.26 M-circle dot, which is too low for the star to be core-helium burning. However, we argue that this result is unlikely to be correct and that a number of effects caused by the relative sizes of the stars conspire to reduce the effective light-travel time measurement. After removing the flux variation caused by the orbit, we calculated the amplitude spectrum to search for pulsations. The spectrum clearly shows periodic signal from close to the orbital frequency up to 4600 mu Hz, with the majority of peaks found below 2600 mu Hz. The amplitudes are below 0.1 part-per-thousand, too low to be detected with ground-based photometry. Thus, the high-precision data from the Kepler spacecraft has revealed that the primary of the HW Vir system is a pulsating sdBV star. We argue that the pulsation spectrum of the primary in HW Vir differs from that in other sdB stars due to its relatively fast rotation that is (nearly) phase-locked with the orbit.
Economists are worried that the lack of property rights to natural capital goods jeopardizes the sustainability of the economic growth miracle that has existed since industrialization. This article questions their position. A vertical innovation model with a portfolio of technologies for abatement, adaptation, and general (Harrod-neutral) technology reveals that environmental damage spillovers have a comparable effect on research profits as technology spillovers so that the social costs of depleting public natural capital are internalized. As long as there is free access to information and technology, growth is sustainable and the allocation of research efforts among alternative technologies is socially optimal. While there still is a need to address externalities from monopolistic research markets, no environmental policy is necessary. These results suggest that environmental externalities may originate in restricted access to information and technology, demonstrating that (i) information has a similar effect as an environmental tax and (ii) knowledge and technology transfers have an impact comparable to that of subsidies for research in green technology.
Variation in the speech signal as a window into the cognitive architecture of language production
(2018)
The pronunciation of words is highly variable. This variation provides crucial information about the cognitive architecture of the language production system. This review summarizes key empirical findings about variation phenomena, integrating corpus, acoustic, articulatory, and chronometric data from phonetic and psycholinguistic studies. It examines how these data constrain our current understanding of word production processes and highlights major challenges and open issues that should be addressed in future research.
The paper presents the first study of heavy-mineral sand beaches from the Mediterranean coast of Annaba/Algeria. The studied beaches run along the basement outcrops of the Edough massif, which are mainly composed by micaschists, tourmaline-rich quartzo-feldspathic veins, gneisses, skarns and marbles. Sand samples were taken from three localities (Ain Achir, Plage-Militaire and El Nasr). The heavy-mineral fraction comprises between 74 and 91 vol%. The garnets of the beaches are almandine rich and tourmalines vary with respect to their location from schorl to dravite. Tourmaline at Ain Achir and the Plage-Militaire is schorlits, while at El Nasr beach dravite is ubiquitous. The World Shale Average normalised REE of the sands and the basement outcrops reveal: (i) Ain Achir beach: REE pattern of sand and the coastal rocks from the studied beaches reflects a multiple sources; (ii) Plage-Militaire: the sand and the coastal outcrops show similar LREE and a strong enrichment in HREE, suggesting the presence HREE-rich phases found as inclusions in staurolite; (iii) El Nasr: two types of sand patterns are found: one with flat REE pattern similar to the proximal rocks and other one enriched in HREE suggesting a mixed source.
Editorial
(2018)
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. - Margaret Mead."
With the last issue of this year we want to point out directions towards what will come and what challenges and opportunities lie ahead of us. More needed than ever are joint creative efforts to find ways to collaborate and innovate in order to secure the wellbeing of our earth for the next generation to come. We have found ourselves puzzled that we could assemble a sustainability issue without having a call for papers or a special issue. In fact, many of the submissions we currently receive, deal with sustainable, ecological or novel approaches to management and organizations. As creativity and innovation are undisputable necessary ingredients for reaching the sustainable development goals, empirical proof and research in this area are still in their infancy. While the role of design and design thinking has been highlighted before for solving wicked societal problems, a lot more research is needed which creative and innovative ways organisations and societies can take to find solutions to climate change, poverty, hunger and education. We would therefore like to call to you, our readers and writers to tackle these problems with your research.
The first article in this issue addresses one of the above named challenges - the role of innovation for achieving the transition to a low-carbon energy world. In “Innovating for low-carbon energy through hydropower: Enabling a conservation charity's transition to a low-carbon community”, the authors John Gallagher, Paul Coughlan, A. Prysor Williams and Aonghus McNabola look at how an eco-design approach has supported a community transition to low-carbon. They highlight the importance of effective management as well as external collaboration and how the key for success lay in fostering an open environment for creativity and idea sharing. The second article addresses another of the grand challenges, the future of mobility and uses a design-driven approach to develop scenarios for mobility in cities. In “Designing radical innovations of meanings for society: envisioning new scenarios for smart mobility”, the authors Claudio Dell'Era, Naiara Altuna and Roberto Verganti investigate how new meanings can be designed and proposed to society rather than to individuals in the particular context of smart mobility. Through two case studies the authors argue for a multi-level perspective, taking the perspective of the society to solve societal challenges while considering the needs of the individual. The latter is needed because we will not change if our needs are not addressed. Furthermore, the authors find that both, meaning and technology need to be considered to create radical innovation for society. The role of meaning continues in the third article in this issue. The authors Marta Gasparin and William Green show in their article “Reconstructing meaning without redesigning products: The case of the Serie7 chair” how meaning changes over time even though the product remains the same. Through an in-depth retrospective study of the Serie 7 chair the authors investigate the relationship between meaning and the materiality of the object, and show the importance of materiality in constructing product meaning over long periods. Translating this meaning over the course of the innovation process is an important task of management in order to gain buy-in from all involved stakeholders. In the following article “A systematic approach for new technology development by using a biomimicry-based TRIZ contradiction matrix” the authors Byungun Yoon, Chaeguk Lim, Inchae Park and Dooseob Yoon develop a systematic process combining biomimicry and technology-based TRIZ in order to solve technological problems or develop new technologies based on completely new sources or combinations from technology and biology.
In the fifth article in this issue “Innovating via Building Absorptive Capacity: Interactive Effects of Top Management Support of Learning, Employee Learning Orientation, and Decentralization Structure” the authors Li-Yun Sun, Chenwei Li and Yuntao Dong examine the effect of learning-related personal and contextual factors on organizational absorptive capability and subsequent innovative performance. The authors find positive effects as well as a moderation influence of decentralized organizational decision-making structures. In the sixth article “Creativity within boundaries: social identity and the development of new ideas in franchise systems” the authors Fanny Simon, Catherine Allix-Desfautaux, Nabil Khelil and Anne-Laure Le Nadant address the paradox of balancing novelty and conformity for creativity in a franchise system. This research is one of the first we know to explicitly address creativity and innovation in such a rigid and pre-determined system. Using a social identity perspective, they can show that social control, which may be exerted by manipulating group identity, is an efficient lever to increase both the creation and the diffusion of the idea. Furthermore, they show that franchisees who do not conform to the norm of the group are stigmatized and must face pressure from the group to adapt their behaviors. This has important implications for future research. In the following article “Exploring employee interactions and quality of contributions in intra-organisational innovation platforms” the authors Dimitra Chasanidou, Njål Sivertstol and Jarle Hildrum examine the user interactions in an intra-organisational innovation platform, and also address the influence of user interactions for idea development. The authors find that employees communicate through the innovation platform with different interaction, contribution and collaboration types and propose three types of contribution qualities—passive, efficient and balanced contribution. In the eighth article “Ready for Take-off”: How Open Innovation influences startup success” Cristina Marullo, Elena Casprini, Alberto di Minin and Andrea Piccaluga seek to predict new venture success based on factors that can be observed in the pre-startup phase. The authors introduce different variables of founding teams and how these relate to startup success. Building on large-scale dataset of submitted business plans at UC Berkeley, they can show that teams with high skills diversity and past joint experience are a lot better able to prevent the risk of business failure at entry and to adapt the internal resources to market conditions. Furthermore, it is crucial for the team to integrate many external knowledge sources into their process (openness) in order to be successful. The crucial role of knowledge and how it is communicated and shared is the focal point of Natalya Sergeeva's and Anna Trifilova's article on “The role of storytelling in the innovation process”. They authors can show how storytelling has an important role to play when it comes to motivating employees to innovate and promoting innovation success stories inside and outside the organization. The deep human desire to hear and experience stories is also addressed in the last article in this issue “Gamification Approaches to the Early Stage of Innovation” by Rui Patricio, Antonio Moreira and Francesco Zurlo. Using gamification approaches at the early stage of innovation promises to create better team coherence, let employees experience fun and engagement, improve communication and foster knowledge exchange. Using an analytical framework, the authors analyze 15 articles that have looked at gamification in the context of innovation management before. They find that gamification indeed supports firms in becoming better at performing complex innovation tasks and managing innovation challenges. Furthermore, gamification in innovation creates a space for inspiration, improves creativity and the generation of high potential ideas.
Outliers
(2018)
We use Hubble Space Telescope multicolour photometry of the globular cluster 47 Tucanae to uncover a population of 24 objects with no previous classification that are outliers from the single-star model tracks in the colour-magnitude diagram and yet are likely cluster members. By comparing those sources with evolutionary models and X-ray source catalogues, we were able to show that the majority of those sources are likely binary systems that do not have any X-ray source detected nearby, most possibly formed by a white dwarf and a main-sequence star and a small number of possible double-degenerate systems.
Geomagnetic indices are convenient quantities that distill the complicated physics of some region or aspect of near-Earth space into a single parameter. Most of the best-known indices are calculated from ground-based magnetometer data sets, such as Dst, SYM-H, Kp, AE, AL, and PC. Many models have been created that predict the values of these indices, often using solar wind measurements upstream from Earth as the input variables to the calculation. This document reviews the current state of models that predict geomagnetic indices and the methods used to assess their ability to reproduce the target index time series. These existing methods are synthesized into a baseline collection of metrics for benchmarking a new or updated geomagnetic index prediction model. These methods fall into two categories: (1) fit performance metrics such as root-mean-square error and mean absolute error that are applied to a time series comparison of model output and observations and (2) event detection performance metrics such as Heidke Skill Score and probability of detection that are derived from a contingency table that compares model and observation values exceeding (or not) a threshold value. A few examples of codes being used with this set of metrics are presented, and other aspects of metrics assessment best practices, limitations, and uncertainties are discussed, including several caveats to consider when using geomagnetic indices. Plain Language Summary One aspect of space weather is a magnetic signature across the surface of the Earth. The creation of this signal involves nonlinear interactions of electromagnetic forces on charged particles and can therefore be difficult to predict. The perturbations that space storms and other activity causes in some observation sets, however, are fairly regular in their pattern. Some of these measurements have been compiled together into a single value, a geomagnetic index. Several such indices exist, providing a global estimate of the activity in different parts of geospace. Models have been developed to predict the time series of these indices, and various statistical methods are used to assess their performance at reproducing the original index. Existing studies of geomagnetic indices, however, use different approaches to quantify the performance of the model. This document defines a standardized set of statistical analyses as a baseline set of comparison tools that are recommended to assess geomagnetic index prediction models. It also discusses best practices, limitations, uncertainties, and caveats to consider when conducting a model assessment.
During a cue-distractor task, participants repeatedly produce syllables prompted by visual cues. Distractor syllables are presented to participants via headphones 150 ms after the visual cue (before any response). The task has been used to demonstrate perceptuomotor integration effects (perception effects on production): response times (RTs) speed up as the distractor shares more phonetic properties with the response. Here it is demonstrated that perceptuomotor integration is not limited to RTs. Voice Onset Times (VOTs) of the distractor syllables were systematically varied and their impact on responses was measured. Results demonstrate trial-specific convergence of response syllables to VOT values of distractor syllables.
First ground-based measurement of sub-20 GeV to 100 GeV gamma-Rays from the Vela pulsar with HESS II
(2018)
Aims. We report on the measurement and investigation of pulsed high-energy y-ray emission from the Vela pulsar, PSR B0833-45, based on observations with the largest telescope of H.E.S.S., CT5, in monoscopic mode, and on data obtained with the Fermi-LAT. Methods. Data from 40.3 h of observations carried out with the H.E.S.S. II array from 2013 to 2015 have been used. A dedicated very low-threshold event reconstruction and analysis pipeline was developed to achieve the lowest possible energy threshold. Eight years of Fermi-LAT data were analysed and also used as reference to validate the CT5 telescope response model and analysis methods. Results. A pulsed gamma-ray signal at a significance level of more than 15 sigma is detected from the P2 peak of the Vela pulsar light curve. Of a total of 15 835 events, more than 6000 lie at an energy below 20 GeV, implying a significant overlap between H.E.S.S. II-CT5 and the Fermi-LAT. While the investigation of the pulsar light curve with the LAT confirms characteristics previously known up to 20 GeV in the tens of GeV energy range, CT5 data show a change in the pulse morphology of P2, i.e. an extreme sharpening of its trailing edge, together with the possible onset of a new component at 3.4 sigma significance level. Assuming a power-law model for the P2 spectrum, an excellent agreement is found for the photon indices (Gamma similar or equal to 4.1) obtained with the two telescopes above 10 GeV and an upper bound of 8% is derived on the relative offset between their energy scales. Using data from both instruments, it is shown however that the spectrum of P2 in the 10-100 GeV has a pronounced curvature; this is a confirmation of the sub-exponential cut-off form found at lower energies with the LAT. This is further supported by weak evidence of an emission above 100 GeV obtained with CT5. In contrast, converging indications are found from both CT5 and LAT data for the emergence of a hard component above 50 GeV in the leading wing (LW2) of P2, which possibly extends beyond 100 GeV. Conclusions. The detection demonstrates the performance and understanding of CT5 from 100 GeV down to the sub-20 GeV domain, i.e. unprecedented low energy for ground-based gamma-ray astronomy. The extreme sharpening of the trailing edge of the P2 peak found in the H.E.S.S. II light curve of the Vela pulsar and the possible extension beyond 100 GeV of at least one of its features, LW2, provide further constraints to models of gamma-Ray emission from pulsars.
Trait emotional intelligence (TEI) is an important individual difference variable that is related to the quality of romantic relationships. The present study investigated the associations between TEI, dyadic coping, and relationship satisfaction. A convenience sample of N = 136 heterosexual couples was recruited online. When the actor-partner interdependence model was applied to the data, TEI showed a positive actor effect and a positive partner effect on relationship satisfaction. The actor effect and partner effect of TEI on relationship satisfaction were partially mediated through positive dyadic coping and common dyadic coping, respectively. A small total indirect actor effect was also found for negative dyadic coping. Controlling for potential content overlap between TEI and relationship satisfaction did not alter the results. However, removing variance from the TEI score that was shared with the Big Five trait factors attenuated TEI’s actor and partner effects on relationship satisfaction and rendered all but one actor effect for TEI on dyadic coping and all but one indirect effect nonsignificant. The results underline the importance of TEI for the quality of romantic relationships and they shed light on underlying mechanisms. Implications for theory, research, and applications in counseling contexts will be discussed.
A series of phenolic-acid-based 2-oxazoline monomers with methoxy-substituted phenyl and cinnamyl side chains is synthesized and polymerized in a microwave reactor at 140 °C using methyl tosylate as the initiator. The obtained poly(2-oxazoline)s are characterized by NMR spectroscopy, MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry, and size-exclusion chromatography (SEC). Kinetic studies reveal that the microwave-assisted polymerization is fast and completed within less than ≈10 min for low monomer-to-initiator ratios of ≤25. Polymers with number-average molar masses of up to 6500 g mol−1 and low dispersity (1.2–1.3) are produced. The aryl methyl ethers are successfully cleaved with aluminum triiodide/N,N′-diisopropylcarbodiimide to give a poly(2-oxazoline) with pendent catechol groups.
Environmental drivers interactively affect individual tree growth across temperate European forests
(2018)
Forecasting the growth of tree species to future environmental changes requires abetter understanding of its determinants. Tree growth is known to respond to global‐change drivers such as climate change or atmospheric deposition, as well as to localland‐use drivers such as forest management. Yet, large geographical scale studiesexamining interactive growth responses to multiple global‐change drivers are relativelyscarce and rarely consider management effects. Here, we assessed the interactiveeffects of three global‐change drivers (temperature, precipitation and nitrogen deposi-tion) on individual tree growth of three study species (Quercus robur/petraea, Fagus syl-vatica and Fraxinus excelsior). We sampled trees along spatial environmental gradientsacross Europe and accounted for the effects of management for Quercus. We collectedincrement cores from 267 trees distributed over 151 plots in 19 forest regions andcharacterized their neighbouring environment to take into account potentially confounding factors such as tree size, competition, soil conditions and elevation. Wedemonstrate that growth responds interactively to global‐change drivers, with species ‐specific sensitivities to the combined factors. Simultaneously high levels of precipita-tion and deposition benefited Fraxinus, but negatively affected Quercus’ growth, high-lighting species‐specific interactive tree growth responses to combined drivers. ForFagus, a stronger growth response to higher temperatures was found when precipita-tion was also higher, illustrating the potential negative effects of drought stress underwarming for this species. Furthermore, we show that past forest management canmodulate the effects of changing temperatures on Quercus’ growth; individuals in plotswith a coppicing history showed stronger growth responses to higher temperatures.Overall, our findings highlight how tree growth can be interactively determined by glo-bal‐change drivers, and how these growth responses might be modulated by past for-est management. By showing future growth changes for scenarios of environmentalchange, we stress the importance of considering multiple drivers, including past man-agement and their interactions, when predicting tree growth.
This is a correction notice for ‘Post-adiabatic supernova remnants in an interstellar magnetic field: oblique shocks and non-uniform environment’ (DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/sty1750), which was published in MNRAS 479, 4253–4270 (2018). The publisher regrets to inform that the colour was missing from the colour scales in Figs 8(a)–(d) and Figs 9(a) and (b). This has now been corrected online. The publisher apologizes for this error.
Specialisation and diversity of multiple trophic groups are promoted by different forest features
(2019)
While forest management strongly influences biodiversity, it remains unclear how the structural and compositional changes caused by management affect different community dimensions (e.g. richness, specialisation, abundance or completeness) and how this differs between taxa. We assessed the effects of nine forest features (representing stand structure, heterogeneity and tree composition) on thirteen above- and belowground trophic groups of plants, animals, fungi and bacteria in 150 temperate forest plots differing in their management type. Canopy cover decreased light resources, which increased community specialisation but reduced overall diversity and abundance. Features increasing resource types and diversifying microhabitats (admixing of oaks and conifers) were important and mostly affected richness. Belowground groups responded differently to those aboveground and had weaker responses to most forest features. Our results show that we need to consider forest features rather than broad management types and highlight the importance of considering several groups and community dimensions to better inform conservation.
Against a background of increasing violence against non-natives, we estimate the effect of hate crime on refugees’ mental health in Germany. For this purpose, we combine two datasets: administrative records on xenophobic crime against refugee shelters by the Federal Criminal Office and the IAB-BAMF-SOEP Survey of Refugees. We apply a regression discontinuity in time design to estimate the effect of interest. Our results indicate that hate crime has a substantial negative effect on several mental health indicators, including the Mental Component Summary score and the Patient Health Questionnaire-4 score. The effects are stronger for refugees with closer geographic proximity to the focal hate crime and refugees with low country-specific human capital. While the estimated effect is only transitory, we argue that negative mental health shocks during the critical period after arrival have important long-term consequences. Keywords: Mental health, hate crime, migration, refugees, human capital.
The shapes of phytoplankton units (unicellular organisms and colonies) are extremely diverse, and no unique relationship exists between their volume, V, and longest linear dimension, L. However, an approximate scaling between these parameters can be found because the shape variations within each size class are constrained by cell physiology, grazing pressure, and optimality of resource acquisition. To determine this scaling and to test for its seasonal and interannual variation under changing environmental conditions, we performed weighted regression analysis of time-dependent length-volume relations of the phytoplankton community in large deep Lake Constance from 1979 to 1999. We show that despite a large variability in species composition, the V(L) relationship can be approximated as a power law, V similar to L-alpha, with a scaling exponent alpha = 3 for small cells (L < 25 mu m) and alpha = 1.7 if the fitting is performed over the entire length range, including individual cells and colonies. The best description is provided by a transitional power function describing a regime change from a scaling exponent of 3 for small cells to an exponent of 0.4 in the range of large phytoplankton. Testing different weighted fitting approaches we show that remarkably the best prediction of the total community biovolume from measurements of L and cell density is obtained when the regression is weighted with the squares of species abundances. Our approach should also be applicable to other systems and allows converting phytoplankton length distributions (e.g., obtained with automatic monitoring such as flow cytometry) into distributions of biovolume and biovolume-related phytoplankton traits.
Winter is an important season for many limnological processes, which can range from biogeochemical transformations to ecological interactions. Interest in the structure and function of lake ecosystems under ice is on the rise. Although limnologists working at polar latitudes have a long history of winter work, the required knowledge to successfully sample under winter conditions is not widely available and relatively few limnologists receive formal training. In particular, the deployment and operation of equipment in below 0 degrees C temperatures pose considerable logistical and methodological challenges, as do the safety risks of sampling during the ice-covered period. Here, we consolidate information on winter lake sampling and describe effective methods to measure physical, chemical, and biological variables in and under ice. We describe variation in snow and ice conditions and discuss implications for sampling logistics and safety. We outline commonly encountered methodological challenges and make recommendations for best practices to maximize safety and efficiency when sampling through ice or deploying instruments in ice-covered lakes. Application of such practices over a broad range of ice-covered lakes will contribute to a better understanding of the factors that regulate lakes during winter and how winter conditions affect the subsequent ice-free period.
Non-predatory mortality of zooplankton provides an abundant, yet, little studied source of high quality labile organic matter (LOM) in aquatic ecosystems. Using laboratory microcosms, we followed the decomposition of organic carbon of fresh C-13-labelled Daphnia carcasses by natural bacterioplankton. The experimental setup comprised blank microcosms, that is, artificial lake water without any organic matter additions (B), and microcosms either amended with natural humic matter (H), fresh Daphnia carcasses (D) or both, that is, humic matter and Daphnia carcasses (HD). Most of the carcass carbon was consumed and respired by the bacterial community within 15 days of incubation. A shift in the bacterial community composition shaped by labile carcass carbon and by humic matter was observed. Nevertheless, we did not observe a quantitative change in humic matter degradation by heterotrophic bacteria in the presence of LOM derived from carcasses. However, carcasses were the main factor driving the bacterial community composition suggesting that the presence of large quantities of dead zooplankton might affect the carbon cycling in aquatic ecosystems. Our results imply that organic matter derived from zooplankton carcasses is efficiently remineralized by a highly specific bacterial community, but does not interfere with the bacterial turnover of more refractory humic matter.
Mountain rivers respond to strong earthquakes by rapidly aggrading to accommodate excess sediment delivered by co-seismic landslides. Detailed sediment budgets indicate that rivers need several years to decades to recover from seismic disturbances, depending on how recovery is defined. We examine three principal proxies of river recovery after earthquake-induced sediment pulses around Pokhara, Nepal's second largest city. Freshly exhumed cohorts of floodplain trees in growth position indicate rapid and pulsed sedimentation that formed a fan covering 150 km2 in a Lesser Himalayan basin with tens of metres of debris between the 11th and 15th centuries AD. Radiocarbon dates of buried trees are consistent with those of nearby valley deposits linked to major medieval earthquakes, such that we can estimate average rates of re-incision since. We combine high-resolution digital elevation data, geodetic field surveys, aerial photos, and dated tree trunks to reconstruct geomorphic marker surfaces. The volumes of sediment relative to these surfaces require average net sediment yields of up to 4200 t km–2 yr–1 for the 650 years since the last inferred earthquake-triggered sediment pulse. The lithological composition of channel bedload differs from that of local bedrock, confirming that rivers are still mostly evacuating medieval valley fills, locally incising at rates of up to 0.2 m yr–1. Pronounced knickpoints and epigenetic gorges at tributary junctions further illustrate the protracted fluvial response; only the distal portions of the earthquake-derived sediment wedges have been cut to near their base. Our results challenge the notion that mountain rivers recover speedily from earthquakes within years to decades. The valley fills around Pokhara show that even highly erosive Himalayan rivers may need more than several centuries to adjust to catastrophic perturbations. Our results motivate some rethinking of post-seismic hazard appraisals and infrastructural planning in active mountain regions.
The NADH:ubiquinone oxidoreductase (respiratory complex I) is the main entry point for electrons into the Escherichia coli aerobic respiratory chain. With its sophisticated setup of 13 different subunits and 10 cofactors, it is anticipated that various chaperones are needed for its proper maturation. However, very little is known about the assembly of E. coli complex I, especially concerning the incorporation of the iron-sulfur clusters. To identify iron-sulfur cluster carrier proteins possibly involved in the process, we generated knockout strains of NfuA, BolA, YajL, Mrp, GrxD and IbaG that have been reported either to be involved in the maturation of mitochondrial complex I or to exert influence on the clusters of bacterial complex. We determined the NADH and succinate oxidase activities of membranes from the mutant strains to monitor the specificity of the individual mutations for complex I. The deletion of NfuA, BolA and Mrp led to a decreased stability and partially disturbed assembly of the complex as determined by sucrose gradient centrifugation and native PAGE. EPR spectroscopy of cytoplasmic membranes revealed that the BolA deletion results in the loss of the binuclear Fe/S cluster N1b.
We continue our study of invariant forms of the classical equations of mathematical physics, such as the Maxwell equations or the Lam´e system, on manifold with boundary. To this end we interpret them in terms of the de Rham complex at a certain step. On using the structure of the complex we get an insight to predict a degeneracy deeply encoded in the equations. In the present paper we develop an invariant approach to the classical Navier-Stokes equations.
Schulische und vor allem unterrichtliche Implementationsprozesse zielen zumeist auf die Professionalisierung der Lehrkräfte ab. Die intendierte Veränderung des Unterrichts beginnt dabei mit einer gewünschten Veränderung von Einstellungen und Verhaltensweisen der Lehrkräfte, welche erst zu einer veränderten Handlungsroutine in der Arbeitspraxis führen kann. Das Modell der Stages of Concern von Hall und Hord (2006) stellt eine der wenigen Möglichkeiten dar, die individuelle Perspektive der Lehrkräfte im Implementationsprozess modellbasiert und standardisiert zu untersuchen. Der vorliegende Beitrag betrachtet anhand dieses Modells die affektiv-kognitive Auseinandersetzung der Beteiligten im Implementationsprozess sowie deren Zusammenhänge mit verschiedenen Aspekten der Kommunikation und der wahrgenommenen Entwicklung. Auf Basis einer Stichprobe von N = 66 Lehrkräften kann dabei gezeigt werden, dass insbesondere die Aspekte Häufigkeit der Kooperation, Kommunikation im Kollegium und Erfahrungen im Team die affektiv-kognitive Auseinandersetzung vorhersagen. Diese Auseinandersetzung - insbesondere mit den Konsequenzen der Neuerung - bedingt wiederum die wahrgenommene Entwicklung im Implementationsprozess.
Small repeating earthquakes are thought to represent rupture of isolated asperities loaded by surrounding creep. The observed scaling between recurrence interval and seismic moment, T-r approximate to M-1/6, contrasts with expectation assuming constant stress drop and no aseismic slip (T-r approximate to M-1/3). Here we demonstrate that simple crack models of velocity-weakening asperities in a velocity-strengthening fault predict the M-1/6 scaling; however, the mechanism depends on asperity radius, R. For small asperities ( , where R is the nucleation radius) numerical simulations with rate-state friction show interseismic creep penetrating inward from the edge, and earthquakes nucleate in the center and rupture the entire asperity. Creep penetration accounts for approximate to 25% of the slip budget, the nucleation phase takes up a larger fraction of slip. Stress drop increases with increasing R; the lack of self-similarity being due to the finite nucleation dimension. For 2R<R less than or similar to 6Rsimulations exhibit simple cycles with ruptures nucleating from the edge. Asperities with R6R exhibit complex cycles of partial and full ruptures. Here T-r is explained by an energy criterion: full rupture requires that the energy release rate everywhere on the asperity at least equals the fracture energy, leading to the scaling T-r approximate to M-1/6. Remarkably, in spite of the variability in behavior with source dimension, the scaling of T-r with stress drop , nucleation length and creep rate v(pl) is the same across all regimes: Tr approximate to vpl. This supports the use of repeating earthquakes as creepmeters and provides a physical interpretation for the scaling observed in nature. Plain Language Summary While most earthquake sequences have complex temporal patterns, some small earthquakes are quite predictable: they repeat periodically. The time between consecutive events (recurrence interval) grows with earthquake size: as intuitive, it takes longer to accumulate the mechanical energy for large earthquakes. However, the scaling between the recurrence interval and earthquake energy (seismic moment) is not what simple physical considerations predict. It is often assumed that faults are locked between events and seismic slip must therefore keep up with long-term plate motion. This leads to the scaling: Tr approximate to M01/3, but the observed scaling is . In fact, faults are not fully locked between earthquakes: they can slip slowly, or release part of the energy in smaller quakes between the larger ones. Here we use numerical simulations, and ideas from fracture mechanics, to understand what controls the time between repeating quakes. The main results are (1) analytical expressions of the recurrence interval as a function of earthquake size, predicting the observed scaling; (2) explanation of the differences between the cycle of small and large earthquakes (fraction of slow slip, direction of rupture propagation, and the occurrence of smaller quakes between large ones) and the quantities determining these transitions.
Previous cross-modal priming studies showed that lexical decisions to words after a pronoun were facilitated when these words were semantically related to the pronoun's antecedent. These studies suggested that semantic priming effectively measured antecedent retrieval during coreference. We examined whether these effects extended to implicit reading comprehension using the N400 response. The results of three experiments did not yield strong evidence of semantic facilitation due to coreference. Further, the comparison with two additional experiments showed that N400 facilitation effects were reduced in sentences (vs. word pair paradigms) and were modulated by the case morphology of the prime word. We propose that priming effects in cross-modal experiments may have resulted from task-related strategies. More generally, the impact of sentence context and morphological information on priming effects suggests that they may depend on the extent to which the upcoming input is predicted, rather than automatic spreading activation between semantically related words.
A hotspot at a position compatible with the BL. Lac object 1ES 2322-409 was serendipitously detected with H.E.S.S. during observations performed in 2004 and 2006 on the blazar PKS 2316-423. Additional data on 1ES 2322-409 were taken in 2011 and 2012, leading to a total live-time of 22.3 h. Point-like very-high-energy (VHE; E > 100 GeV) gamma-ray emission is detected from a source centred on the IFS 2322-409 position, with an excess of 116.7 events at a significance of 6.0 sigma. The average VHE gamma-ray spectrum is well described with a power law with a photon index Gamma = 3.40 +/- 0.66(stat) +/- 0.20(sys) and an integral flux Phi(E > 200 GeV) = (3.11 +/- 0.71(stat) 0.62(sys)) x 10(-2)cm(-2)s(-1), which corresponds to 1.1 per cent of the Crab nebula flux above 200 GeV. Multiwavelength data obtained with Fermi LAT, Swift XRT and UVOT, RXTE PCA, ATOM, and additional data from WISE, GROND, and Catalina are also used to characterize the broad-band non-thermal emission of lES 2322-409. The multiwavelength behaviour indicates day-scale variability. Swift UVOT and XRT data show strong variability at longer scales. A spectral energy distribution (SED) is built from contemporaneous observations obtained around a high state identified in Swift data. A modelling of the SED is performed with a stationary homogeneous one-zone synchrotronself-Compton leptonic model. The redshift of the source being unknown, two plausible values were tested for the modelling. A systematic scan of the model parameters space is performed, resulting in a well-constrained combination of values providing a good description of the broad-band behaviour of 1ES 2322-409.
The presence of ultrahigh excitation (UHE) absorption lines (e.g. OVIII) in the optical spectra of several of the hottest white dwarfs poses a decades-long mystery and is something that has never been observed in any other astrophysical object. The occurrence of such features requires a dense environment with temperatures near 10(6) K, by far exceeding the stellar effective temperature. Here we report the discovery of a new hot wind white dwarf, GALEXJ014636.8+323615. Astonishingly, we found for the first time rapid changes of the equivalent widths of the UHE features, which are correlated to the rotational period of the star (P=0.242035 d). We explain this with the presence of a wind-fed circumstellar magnetosphere in which magnetically confined wind shocks heat up the material to the high temperatures required for the creation of the UHE lines. The photometric and spectroscopic variability of GALEXJ014636.8+323615 can then be understood as consequence of the obliquity of the magnetic axis with respect to the rotation axis of the white dwarf. This is the first time a wind-fed circumstellar magnetosphere around an apparently isolated white dwarf has been discovered and finally offers a plausible explanation of the ultrahot wind phenomenon.
Peer cultural socialisation
(2019)
This study investigated how peers can contribute to cultural minority students’ cultural identity, life satisfaction, and school values (school importance, utility, and intrinsic values) by talking about cultural values, beliefs, and behaviours associated with heritage and mainstream culture (peer cultural socialisation). We further distinguished between heritage and mainstream identity as two separate dimensions of cultural identity. Analyses were based on self-reports of 662 students of the first, second, and third migrant generation in Germany (Mean age = 14.75 years, 51% female). Path analyses revealed that talking about heritage culture with friends was positively related to heritage identity. Talking about mainstream culture with friends was negatively associated with heritage identity, but positively with mainstream identity as well as school values. Both dimensions of cultural identity related to higher life satisfaction and more positive school values. As expected, heritage and mainstream identity mediated the link between peer cultural socialisation and adjustment outcomes. Findings highlight the potential of peers as socialisation agents to help promote cultural belonging as well as positive adjustment of cultural minority youth in the school context.
We discuss canonical representations of the de Rham cohomology on a compact manifold with boundary. They are obtained by minimising the energy integral in a Hilbert space of differential forms that belong along with the exterior derivative to the domain of the adjoint operator. The corresponding Euler-Lagrange equations reduce to an elliptic boundary value problem on the manifold, which is usually referred to as the Neumann problem after Spencer.
Der enge Zusammenhang von sprachlichen Kompetenzen und fachlichem Lernen ist empirisch gut belegt. Ebenfalls umfassend untersucht und beschrieben sind die vielfältigen Wechselwirkungen zwischen sprachlichen und kognitiven Prozessen, dies gilt insbesondere für das Kindesalter. Bisher liegt jedoch keine integrierende Übersicht über die Zusammenhänge von sprachlichen und kognitiven Funktionen sowie fachlichem Lernen im Schulkontext vor. Dieser Beitrag bietet einen Überblick, wie sich Sprache und kognitive Prozesse in ihrer Entwicklung gegenseitig beeinflussen und welche Konsequenzen sich daraus für das fachliche Lernen in der Schule ableiten lassen. Auf der Basis der dargestellten Befunde wird dann skizziert, welche Prinzipien im fachlichen Unterricht berücksichtigt werden sollten, um sprachliche und fachliche Lerngelegenheiten zu verbinden. Sprache kann sich so zu einem immer besseren Werkzeug des Lernens entwickeln. Sprachliche Kompetenzen in ihrer kommunikativen und kognitiven Funktion sind in diesem Sinne also nicht nur Voraussetzung, sondern auch Ziel fachlichen Lernens.
Militärgeschichte und Wissensgeschichte bilden zwei in den vergangenen Jahrzehnten international prosperierende Forschungsfelder, die bislang aber selten miteinander in Dialog getreten sind. Das Themenheft nimmt dies zum Anlass, exemplarisch die Potentiale wissensgeschichtlicher Perspektiven für die (früh-)neuzeitliche Militärgeschichte auszuloten und dabei zugleich den bislang oft unreflektierten Zäsurcharakter der Jahre um 1800 kritisch zu beleuchten. Gab es eine eigene militärische Wissenskultur oder inwieweit partizipierte das Militär an den zivilen Wissenskulturen seiner sozialen Umwelt? Welche Akteure, welche Praktiken und welche Medien spielten eine Rolle bei der Verwissenschaftlichung des Militärischen im Wandel von der Kriegskunst zur Kriegswissenschaft? Gerade der geweitete analytische Horizont der Wissensgeschichte ermöglicht es, der Vielfalt der Wissensformen Rechnung zu tragen und entsprechende Entwicklungen angemessen in ihren historischen Kontexten zu verorten. Darüber hinaus bietet der epochenübergreifende Zuschnitt die Chance, nicht nur Brüche, sondern auch mögliche Kontinuitäten zwischen frühneuzeitlichem und neuzeitlichem Militärwesen sowie dessen Beziehungen zum Wissen aufzuzeigen und etwaige Ungenauigkeiten oder historiographisch bedingte Verkürzungen durch neue Akzentsetzungen zu korrigieren.
Stuck in the past?
(2019)
After the Civil War the Spanish army functioned as a guardian of domestic order, but suffered from antiquated material and little financial means. These factors have been described as fundamental reasons for the army’s low potential wartime capability. This article draws on British and German sources to demonstrate how Spanish military culture prevented an augmented effectiveness and organisational change. Claiming that the army merely lacked funding and modern equipment, falls considerably short in grasping the complexities of military effectiveness and organisational cultures, and might prove fatal for current attempts to develop foreign armed forces in conflict or post-conflict zones.
The making of Tupaia’s map
(2019)
Tupaia’s Map is one of the most famous and enigmatic artefacts to emerge from the early encounters between Europeans and Pacific Islanders. It was drawn by Tupaia, an arioi priest, chiefly advisor and master navigator from Ra‘iātea in the Leeward Society Islands in collaboration with various members of the crew of James Cook’s Endeavour, in two distinct moments of mapmaking and three draft stages between August 1769 and February 1770. To this day, the identity of many islands on the chart, and the logic of their arrangement have posed a riddle to researchers. Drawing in part on archival material hitherto overlooked, in this long essay we propose a new understanding of the chart’s cartographic logic, offer a detailed reconstruction of its genesis, and thus for the first time present a comprehensive reading of Tupaia’s Map. The chart not only underscores the extent and mastery of Polynesian navigation, it is also a remarkable feat of translation between two very different wayfinding systems and their respective representational models.
Based on data from the ESA Gaia Data Release 2 (DR2) and several ground-based, multi-band photometry surveys we have compiled an all-sky catalogue of 39 800 hot subluminous star candidates selected in Gaia DR2 by means of colour, absolute magnitude, and reduced proper motion cuts. We expect the majority of the candidates to be hot subdwarf stars of spectral type B and O, followed by blue horizontal branch stars of late B-type (HBB), hot post-AGB stars, and central stars of planetary nebulae. The contamination by cooler stars should be about 10%. The catalogue is magnitude limited to Gaia G < 19 mag and covers the whole sky. Except within the Galactic plane and LMC/SMC regions, we expect the catalogue to be almost complete up to about 1.5 kpc. The main purpose of this catalogue is to serve as input target list for the large-scale photometric and spectroscopic surveys which are ongoing or scheduled to start in the coming years. In the long run, securing a statistically significant sample of spectroscopically confirmed hot subluminous stars is key to advance towards a more detailed understanding of the latest stages of stellar evolution for single and binary stars.
Context. HD 93129A was classified as the earliest O-type star in the Galaxy (O2 If*) and is considered as the prototype of its spectral class. However, interferometry shows that this object is a binary system, while recent observations even suggest a triple configuration. None of the previous spectral analyses of this object accounted for its multiplicity. With new high-resolution UV and optical spectra, we have the possibility to reanalyze this key object, taking its binary nature into account for the first time. Aims. We aim to derive the fundamental parameters and the evolutionary status of HD 93129A, identifying the contributions of both components to the composite spectrum Results. Despite the similar spectral types of the two components, we are able to find signatures from each of the components in the combined spectrum, which allows us to estimate the parameters of both stars. We derive log(L/L-circle dot) = 6.15, T-eff = 52 kK, and log (M)over dot = -4.7[M-circle dot yr(-1)] for the primary Aa, and log(L/L-circle dot) = 5.58, T-eff = 45 kK, and log (M)over dot = -5.8 [M(circle dot)yr(-1)] for the secondary Ab. Conclusions. Even when accounting for the binary nature, the primary of HD 93129A is found to be one of the hottest and most luminous O stars in our Galaxy. Based on the theoretical decomposition of the spectra, we assign spectral types O2 If* and O3 III(f*) to components Aa and Ab, respectively. While we achieve a good fit for a wide spectral range, specific spectral features are not fully reproduced. The data are not sufficient to identify contributions from a hypothetical third component in the system.
Shrub encroachment in semi-arid savannas is induced by interacting effects of climate, fire suppression, and unsustainable livestock farming; it carries a severe risk of land degradation and strongly influences natural communities that provide key ecosystem functions. However, species-specific effects of shrub cover on many animal groups that act as indicators of degradation remain largely unknown. We analysed the consequences of shrub encroachment for ground-dwelling beetles in a semi-arid Namibian savanna rangeland, where beetles and vegetation were recorded along a shrub cover gradient (30%). Focusing on species niche breadths and optima, we identified two crucial shrub cover thresholds (2.9% and 10.0%), corresponding to major changes in the beetle communities with implications for savanna ecosystem functioning. Niche optima of most species were between the first and second thresholds; beyond the second threshold, saprophagous, coprophagous, and rare predatory beetles declined in numbers and diversity. This is problematic because beetles provide important ecosystem functions, such as decomposition and nutrient cycling. However, we also found that certain species were adapted to high shrub cover, thus providing examples of niche differentiation. Despite the predominantly negative effects of heavy shrub encroachment on beetle communities, shrubs in their early life stages apparently provide essential structures, which enhance habitat quality for ground-dwelling beetles. Our results demonstrate that shrub encroachment can have mixed effects on ground-dwelling beetle communities and hence on savanna ecosystem functioning. We, therefore, conclude that rangeland management and restoration should consider the complex trade-offs between species-specific effects and the level of encroachment for sustainable land use.
The study of massive stars in different metallicity environments is a central topic of current stellar research. The spectral analysis of massive stars requires adequate model atmospheres. The computation of such models is difficult and time-consuming. Therefore, spectral analyses are greatly facilitated if they can refer to existing grids of models. Here we provide grids of model atmospheres for OB-type stars at metallicities corresponding to the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds, as well as to solar metallicity. In total, the grids comprise 785 individual models. The models were calculated using the state-of-the-art Potsdam Wolf-Rayet (PoWR) model atmosphere code. The parameter domain of the grids was set up using stellar evolution tracks. For all these models, we provide normalized and flux-calibrated spectra, spectral energy distributions, feedback parameters such as ionizing photons, Zanstra temperatures, and photometric magnitudes. The atmospheric structures (the density and temperature stratification) are available as well. All these data are publicly accessible through the PoWR website.
During development in human erythrocytes, the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum internalizes a large part of the cellular content of the host cell. The internalized cytosol, consisting largely of hemoglobin, is transported to the parasite’s food vacuole where it is degraded, providing nutrients and space for growth. This host cell cytosol uptake (HCCU) is crucial for parasite survival but the parasite proteins mediating this process remain obscure. Here, we identify P. falciparum VPS45 as an essential factor in HCCU. Conditional inactivation of PfVPS45 led to an accumulation of host cell cytosol-filled vesicles within the parasite and inhibited the delivery of hemoglobin to the parasite's digestive vacuole, resulting in arrested parasite growth. A proportion of these HCCU vesicle intermediates was positive for phosphatidylinositol 3-phosphate, suggesting endosomal characteristics. Thus PfVPS45 provides insight into the elusive machinery of the ingestion pathway in a parasite that contains an endolysosomal system heavily repurposed for protein secretion.
The Galactic WC and WO stars
(2019)
Wolf-Rayet stars of the carbon sequence (WC stars) are an important cornerstone in the late evolution of massive stars before their core collapse. As core-helium burning, hydrogen-free objects with huge mass-loss, they are likely the last observable stage before collapse and thus promising progenitor candidates for type Ib/c supernovae. Their strong mass-loss furthermore provides challenges and constraints to the theory of radiatively driven winds. Thus, the determination of the WC star parameters is of major importance for several astrophysical fields. With Gaia DR2, for the first time parallaxes for a large sample of Galactic WC stars are available, removing major uncertainties inherent to earlier studies. In this work, we re-examine a previously studied sample of WC stars to derive key properties of the Galactic WC population. All quantities depending on the distance are updated, while the underlying spectral analyzes remain untouched. Contrasting earlier assumptions, our study yields that WC stars of the same subtype can significantly vary in absolute magnitude. With Gaia DR2, the picture of the Galactic WC population becomes more complex: We obtain luminosities ranging from log L/L-circle dot = 4.9-6.0 with one outlier (WR 119) having log L/L-circle dot = 4.7. This indicates that the WC stars are likely formed from a broader initial mass range than previously assumed. We obtain mass-loss rates ranging between log(M) over dot = -5.1 and -4.1, with (M) over dot proportional to L-0.68 and a linear scaling of the modified wind momentum with luminosity. We discuss the implications for stellar evolution, including unsolved issues regarding the need of envelope inflation to address the WR radius problem, and the open questions in regard to the connection of WR stars with Gamma-ray bursts. WC and WO stars are progenitors of massive black holes, collapsing either silently or in a supernova that most-likely has to be preceded by a WO stage.
Context. We present a detailed view of the pulsar wind nebula (PWN) HESS J1825-137. We aim to constrain the mechanisms dominating the particle transport within the nebula, accounting for its anomalously large size and spectral characteristics. Aims. The nebula was studied using a deep exposure from over 12 years of H.E.S.S. I operation, together with data from H.E.S.S. II that improve the low-energy sensitivity. Enhanced energy-dependent morphological and spatially resolved spectral analyses probe the very high energy (VHE, E > 0.1 TeV) gamma-ray properties of the nebula. Methods. The nebula emission is revealed to extend out to 1.5 degrees from the pulsar, similar to 1.5 times farther than previously seen, making HESS J1825-137, with an intrinsic diameter of similar to 100 pc, potentially the largest gamma-ray PWN currently known. Characterising the strongly energy-dependent morphology of the nebula enables us to constrain the particle transport mechanisms. A dependence of the nebula extent with energy of R proportional to E alpha with alpha = -0.29 +/- 0.04(stat) +/- 0.05(sys) disfavours a pure diffusion scenario for particle transport within the nebula. The total gamma-ray flux of the nebula above 1 TeV is found to be (1.12 +/- 0.03(stat) +/- 0.25(sys)) +/- 10(-11) cm(-2) s(-1), corresponding to similar to 64% of the flux of the Crab nebula. Results. HESS J1825-137 is a PWN with clearly energy-dependent morphology at VHE gamma-ray energies. This source is used as a laboratory to investigate particle transport within intermediate-age PWNe. Based on deep observations of this highly spatially extended PWN, we produce a spectral map of the region that provides insights into the spectral variation within the nebula.
Being at the western fringe of Europe, Iberia had a peculiar prehistory and a complex pattern of Neolithization. A few studies, all based on modern populations, reported the presence of DNA of likely African origin in this region, generally concluding it was the result of recent gene flow, probably during the Islamic period. Here, we provide evidence of much older gene flow from Africa to Iberia by sequencing whole genomes from four human remains from northern Portugal and southern Spain dated around 4000 years BP (from the Middle Neolithic to the Bronze Age). We found one of them to carry an unequivocal sub-Saharan mitogenome of most probably West or West-Central African origin, to our knowledge never reported before in prehistoric remains outside Africa. Our analyses of ancient nuclear genomes show small but significant levels of sub-Saharan African affinity in several ancient Iberian samples, which indicates that what we detected was not an occasional individual phenomenon, but an admixture event recognizable at the population level. We interpret this result as evidence of an early migration process from Africa into the Iberian Peninsula through a western route, possibly across the Strait of Gibraltar.
Inducible defences against predation are widespread in the natural world, allowing prey to economise on the costs of defence when predation risk varies over time or is spatially structured. Through interspecific interactions, inducible defences have major impacts on ecological dynamics, particularly predator-prey stability and phase lag. Researchers have developed multiple distinct approaches, each reflecting assumptions appropriate for particular ecological communities. Yet, the impact of inducible defences on ecological dynamics can be highly sensitive to the modelling approach used, making the choice of model a critical decision that affects interpretation of the dynamical consequences of inducible defences. Here, we review three existing approaches to modelling inducible defences: Switching Function, Fitness Gradient and Optimal Trait. We assess when and how the dynamical outcomes of these approaches differ from each other, from classic predator-prey dynamics and from commonly observed eco-evolutionary dynamics with evolving, but non-inducible, prey defences. We point out that the Switching Function models tend to stabilise population dynamics, and the Fitness Gradient models should be carefully used, as the difference with evolutionary dynamics is important. We discuss advantages of each approach for applications to ecological systems with particular features, with the goal of providing guidelines for future researchers to build on.
Die Entwicklung von Aufgaben zum „Erweiterten Fachwissen für den schulischen Kontext“ für Lehramtsstudierende wird vorgestellt. Die Kriterien für die Erstellung der Aufgaben werden an Beispielaufgaben erläutert. Der Einsatz der Aufgaben in den Übungen zur Vorlesung „Organische Experimentalchemie I“ wird evaluiert und diskutiert.
The number-weight illusion
(2018)
When objects are manually lifted to compare their weight, then smaller objects are judged to be heavier than larger objects of the same physical weights: the classical size-weight illusion (Gregory, 2004). It is also well established that increasing numerical magnitude is strongly associated with increasing physical size: the number-size congruency effect e.g., (Besner & Coltheart Neuropsychologia, 17, 467-472 1979); Henik & Tzelgov Memory & Cognition, 10, 389-395 1982). The present study investigates the question suggested by combining these two classical effects: if smaller numbers are associated with smaller size, and objects of smaller size appear heavier, then are numbered objects (balls) of equal weight and size also judged as heavier when they carry smaller numbers? We present two experiments testing this hypothesis for weight comparisons of numbered (1 to 9) balls of equal size and weight, and report results which largely conform to an interpretation in terms of a new number-weight illusion.
Background: Epidemiological studies suggest that an increased red meat intake is associated with a higher risk of type 2 diabetes, whereas an increased fiber intake is associated with a lower risk. Objectives: We conducted an intervention study to investigate the effects of these nutritional factors on glucose and lipid metabolism, body-fat distribution, and liver fat content in subjects at increased risk of type 2 diabetes. Methods: This prospective, randomized, and controlled dietary intervention study was performed over 6 mo. All groups decreased their daily caloric intake by 400 kcal. The "control" group (N = 40) only had this requirement. The "no red meat" group (N = 48) in addition aimed to avoid the intake of red meat, and the "fiber" group (N = 44) increased intake of fibers to 40 g/d. Anthropometric parameters and frequently sampled oral glucose tolerance tests were performed before and after intervention. Body-fat mass and distribution, liver fat, and liver iron content were assessed by MRI and single voxel proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy. Results: Participants in all groups lost weight (mean 3.3 +/- 0.5 kg, P < 0.0001). Glucose tolerance and insulin sensitivity improved (P < 0.001), and body and visceral fat mass decreased in all groups (P < 0.001). These changes did not differ between groups. Liver fat content decreased significantly (P < 0.001) with no differences between the groups. The decrease in liver fat correlated with the decrease in ferritin during intervention (r(2) = 0.08, P = 0.0021). This association was confirmed in an independent lifestyle intervention study (Tuebingen Lifestyle Intervention Program, N = 229, P = 0.0084). Conclusions: Our data indicate that caloric restriction leads to a marked improvement in glucose metabolism and body-fat composition, including liver-fat content. The marked reduction in liver fat might be mediated via changes in ferritin levels. In the context of caloric restriction, there seems to be no additional beneficial impact of reduced red meat intake and increased fiber intake on the improvement in cardiometabolic risk parameters. This trial was registered at clinicaltrials.gov as NCT03231839.
Mosses in Low Earth Orbit
(2019)
As a part of the European Space Agency mission "EXPOSE-R2" on the International Space Station (ISS), the BIOMEX (Biology and Mars Experiment) experiment investigates the habitability of Mars and the limits of life. In preparation for the mission, experimental verification tests and scientific verification tests simulating different combinations of abiotic space- and Mars-like conditions were performed to analyze the resistance of a range of model organisms. The simulated abiotic space- and Mars-stressors were extreme temperatures, vacuum, and Mars-like surface ultraviolet (UV) irradiation in different atmospheres. We present for the first time simulated space exposure data of mosses using plantlets of the bryophyte genus Grimmia, which is adapted to high altitudinal extreme abiotic conditions at the Swiss Alps. Our preflight tests showed that severe UVR200-400nm irradiation with the maximal dose of 5 and 6.8 x 10(5) kJ center dot m(-2), respectively, was the only stressor with a negative impact on the vitality with a 37% (terrestrial atmosphere) or 36% reduction (space- and Mars-like atmospheres) in photosynthetic activity. With every exposure to UVR200-400nm 10(5) kJ center dot m(-2), the vitality of the bryophytes dropped by 6%. No effect was found, however, by any other stressor. As the mosses were still vital after doses of ultraviolet radiation (UVR) expected during the EXPOSE-R2 mission on ISS, we show that this earliest extant lineage of land plants is highly resistant to extreme abiotic conditions.
Cold regulated protein 15A (COR15A) is a nuclear encoded, intrinsically disordered protein that is found in Arabidopsis thaliana. It belongs to the Late Embryogenesis Abundant (LEA) family of proteins and is responsible for increased freezing tolerance in plants. COR15A is intrinsically disordered in dilute solutions and adopts a helical structure upon dehydration or in the presence of co-solutes such as TFE and ethylene glycol. This helical structure is thought to be important for protecting plants from dehydration induced by freezing. Multiple protein sequence alignments revealed the presence of several conserved glycine residues that we hypothesize keeps COR15A from becoming helical in dilute solutions. Using AGADIR, the change in helical content of COR15A when these conserved glycine residues were mutated to alanine residues was predicted. Based on the predictions, glycine to alanine mutants were made at position 68, and 54,68,81, and 84. Labeled samples of wildtype COR15A and mutant proteins were purified and NMR experiments were performed to examine any structural changes induced by the mutations. To test the effects of dehydration on the structure of COR15A, trifluoroethanol, an alcohol based co solvent that is proposed to induce/stabilize helical structure in peptides was added to the NMR samples, and the results of the experiment showed an increase in helical content, compared to the samples without TFE. To test the functional differences between wild type and the mutants, liposome leakage assays were performed. The results from these assays suggest the more helical mutants may augment membrane stability.
Breakup Without Borders
(2019)
Relative plate motions during continental rifting result from the interplay of local with far-field forces. Here we study the dynamics of rifting and breakup using large-scale numerical simulations of mantle convection with self-consistent evolution of plate boundaries. We show that continental separation follows a characteristic evolution with four distinctive phases: (1) an initial slow rifting phase with low divergence velocities and maximum tensional stresses, (2) a synrift speed-up phase featuring an abrupt increase of extension rate with a simultaneous drop of tensional stress, (3) the breakup phase with inception of fast sea-floor spreading, and (4) a deceleration phase occurring in most but not all models where extensional velocities decrease. We find that the speed-up during rifting is compensated by subduction acceleration or subduction initiation even in distant localities. Our study illustrates new links between local rift dynamics, plate motions, and subduction kinematics during times of continental separation.
Context. In supergiant X-ray binaries (SgXB), a compact object captures a fraction of the wind of an O/B supergiant on a close orbit. Proxies exist to evaluate the efficiency of mass and angular momentum accretion, but they depend so dramatically on the wind speed that given the current uncertainties, they only set loose constraints. Furthermore, these proxies often bypass the impact of orbital and shock effects on the flow structure. Aims. We study the wind dynamics and angular momentum gained as the flow is accreted. We identify the conditions for the formation of a disk-like structure around the accretor and the observational consequences for SgXB. Methods. We used recent results on the wind launching mechanism to compute 3D streamlines, accounting for the gravitational and X-ray ionizing influence of the compact companion on the wind. Once the flow enters the Roche lobe of the accretor, we solved the hydrodynamics equations with cooling. Results. A shocked region forms around the accretor as the flow is beamed. For wind speeds on the order of the orbital speed, the shock is highly asymmetric compared to the axisymmetric bow shock obtained for a purely planar homogeneous flow. With net radiative cooling, the flow always circularizes for sufficiently low wind speeds. Conclusions. Although the donor star does not fill its Roche lobe, the wind can be significantly beamed and bent by the orbital effects. The net angular momentum of the accreted flow is then sufficient to form a persistent disk-like structure. This mechanism could explain the proposed limited outer extension of the accretion disk in Cygnus X-1 and suggests the presence of a disk at the outer rim of the neutron star magnetosphere in Vela X-1 and has dramatic consequences on the spinning up of the accretor.
Context. Metal-poor massive stars are assumed to be progenitors of certain supernovae, gamma-ray bursts, and compact object mergers that might contribute to the early epochs of the Universe with their strong ionizing radiation. However, this assumption remains mainly theoretical because individual spectroscopic observations of such objects have rarely been carried out below the metallicity of the Small Magellanic Cloud. Aims. Here we explore the predictions of the state-of-the-art theories of stellar evolution combined with those of stellar atmospheres about a certain type of metal-poor (0.02 Z(circle dot)) hot massive stars, the chemically homogeneously evolving stars that we call Transparent Wind Ultraviolet INtense (TWUIN) stars. Methods. We computed synthetic spectra corresponding to a broad range in masses (20 130 M-circle dot) and covering several evolutionary phases from the zero-age main-sequence up to the core helium-burning stage. We investigated the influence of mass loss and wind clumping on spectral appearance and classified the spectra according to the Morgan-Keenan (MK) system. Results. We find that TWUIN stars show almost no emission lines during most of their core hydrogen-burning lifetimes. Most metal lines are completely absent, including nitrogen. During their core helium-burning stage, lines switch to emission, and even some metal lines (oxygen and carbon, but still almost no nitrogen) are detected. Mass loss and clumping play a significant role in line formation in later evolutionary phases, particularly during core helium-burning. Most of our spectra are classified as an early-O type giant or supergiant, and we find Wolf-Rayet stars of type WO in the core helium-burning phase. Conclusions. An extremely hot, early-O type star observed in a low-metallicity galaxy could be the result of chemically homogeneous evolution and might therefore be the progenitor of a long-duration gamma-ray burst or a type Ic supernova. TWUIN stars may play an important role in reionizing the Universe because they are hot without showing prominent emission lines during most of their lifetime.
Microplastics (MP) provide a unique and extensive surface for microbial colonization in aquatic ecosystems. The formation of microorganism-microplastic complexes, such as biofilms, maximizes the degradation of organic matter and horizontal gene transfer. In this context, MP affect the structure and function of microbial communities, which in turn render the physical and chemical fate of MP. This new paradigm generates challenges for microbiology, ecology, and ecotoxicology. Dispersal of MP is concomitant with that of their associated microorganisms and their mobile genetic elements, including antibiotic resistance genes, islands of pathogenicity, and diverse metabolic pathways. Functional changes in aquatic microbiomes can alter carbon metabolism and food webs, with unknown consequences on higher organisms or human microbiomes and hence health. Here, we examine a variety of effects of MP pollution from the microbial ecology perspective, whose repercussions on aquatic ecosystems begin to be unraveled. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Editorial
(2019)
The new year starts and many of us have right away been burdened with conference datelines, grant proposal datelines, teaching obligations, paper revisions and many other things. While being more or less successful in fulfilling To‐Do lists and ticking of urgent (and sometimes even important) things, we often feel that our ability to be truly creative or innovative is rather restrained by this (external pressure). With this, we are not alone. Many studies have shown that stress does influence overall work performance and satisfaction. Furthermore, more and more students and entry‐levels look for work‐life balance and search for employers that offer a surrounding and organization considering these needs. High‐Tech and start‐up companies praise themselves for their “Feel‐Good managers” or Yoga programs. But is this really helpful? Is there indeed a relationship between stress, adverse work environment and creativity or innovation? What are the supporting factors in a work environment that lets employees be more creative? What kind of leadership do we need for innovative behaviour and to what extent can an organization create support structures that reduce the stress we feel? The first issue of Creativity and Innovation Management in 2019 gives some first answers to these questions and hopefully some food for thought.
The first paper written by Dirk De Clercq, and Imanol Belausteguigoitia starts with the question which impact work overload has on creative behaviour. The authors look at how employees' perceptions of work overload reduces their creative behaviour. While they find empirical proof for this relationship, they can also show that the effect is weaker with higher levels of passion for work, emotion sharing, and organizational commitment. The buffering effects of emotion sharing and organizational commitment are particularly strong when they are combined with high levels of passion for work. Their findings give first empirical proof that organizations can and should take an active role in helping their employees reducing the effects of adverse work conditions in order to become or stay creative. However, not only work overload is harming creative behaviour, also the fear of losing one's job has detrimental effects on innovative work behaviour. Anahi van Hootegem, Wendy Niesen and Hans de Witte verify that stress and adverse environmental conditions shape our perception of work. Using threat rigidity theory and an empirical study of 394 employees, they show that the threat of job loss impairs employees' innovativeness through increased irritation and decreased concentration. Organizations can help their employees coping better with this insecurity by communicating more openly and providing different support structures. Support often comes from leadership and the support of the supervisor can clearly shape an employee's motivation to show creative behaviour. Wenjing Cai, Evgenia Lysova, Bart A. G. Bossink, Svetlana N. Khapova and Weidong Wang report empirical findings from a large‐scale survey in China where they find that supervisor support for creativity and job characteristics effectively activate individual psychological capital associated with employee creativity.
On a slight different notion, Gisela Bäcklander looks at agile practices in a very well‐known High Tech firm. In “Doing Complexity Leadership Theory: How agile coaches at Spotify practice enabling leadership”, she researches the role of agile coaches and how they practice enabling leadership, a key balancing force in complexity leadership. She finds that the active involvement of coaches in observing group dynamics, surfacing conflict and facilitating and encouraging constructive dialogue leads to a positive working environment and the well‐being of employees. Quotes from the interviews suggest that the flexible structure provided by the coaches may prove a fruitful way to navigate and balance autonomy and alignment in organizations.
The fifth paper of Frederik Anseel, Michael Vandamme, Wouter Duyck and Eric Rietzchel goes a little further down this road and researches how groups can be motivated better to select truly creative ideas. We know from former studies that groups often perform rather poorly when it comes to selecting creative ideas for implementation. The authors find in an extensive field experiment that under conditions of high epistemic motivation, proself motivated groups select significantly more creative and original ideas than prosocial groups. They conclude however, that more research is needed to understand better why these differences occur. The prosocial behaviour of groups is also the theme of Karin Moser, Jeremy F. Dawson and Michael A. West's paper on “Antecedents of team innovation in health care teams”. They look at team‐level motivation and how a prosocial team environment, indicated by the level of helping behaviour and information‐sharing, may foster innovation. Their results support the hypotheses of both information‐sharing and helping behaviour on team innovation. They suggest that both factors may actually act as buffer against constraints in team work, such as large team size or high occupational diversity in cross‐functional health care teams, and potentially turn these into resources supporting team innovation rather than acting as barriers.
Away from teams and onto designing favourable work environments, the seventh paper of Ferney Osorio, Laurent Dupont, Mauricio Camargo, Pedro Palominos, Jose Ismael Pena and Miguel Alfaro looks into innovation laboratories. Although several studies have tackled the problem of design, development and sustainability of these spaces for innovation, there is still a gap in understanding how the capabilities and performance of these environments are affected by the strategic intentions at the early stages of their design and functioning. The authors analyse and compare eight existing frameworks from literature and propose a new framework for researchers and practitioners aiming to assess or to adapt innovation laboratories. They test their framework in an exploratory study with fifteen laboratories from five different countries and give recommendations for the future design of these laboratories. From design to design thinking goes our last paper from Rama Krishna Reddy Kummitha on “Design Thinking in Social Organisations: Understanding the role of user engagement” where she studies how users persuade social organisations to adopt design thinking. Looking at four social organisations in India during 2008 to 2013, she finds that the designer roles are blurred when social organisations adopt design thinking, while users in the form of interconnecting agencies reduce the gap between designers and communities.
The last two articles were developed from papers presented at the 17th International CINet conference organized in Turin in 2016 by Paolo Neirotti and his colleagues. In the first article, Fábio Gama, Johan Frishammar and Vinit Parida focus on ideation and open innovation in small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises. They investigate the relationship between systematic idea generation and performance and the moderating role of market‐based partnerships. Based on a survey among manufacturing SMEs, they conclude that higher levels of performance are reached and that collaboration with customers and suppliers pays off most when idea generation is done in a highly systematic way. The second article, by Anna Holmquist, Mats Magnusson and Mona Livholts, resonates the theme of the CINet conference ‘Innovation and Tradition; combining the old and the new’. They explore how tradition is used in craft‐based design practices to create new meaning. Applying a narrative ‘research through design’ approach they uncover important design elements, and tensions between them.
Please enjoy this first issue of CIM in 2019 and we wish you creativity and innovation without too much stress in the months to come.
SpiderMAEn
(2019)
A growing energy demand requires new and preferably renewable energy sources. The infinite availability of solar radiation makes its conversion into storable and transportable energy forms attractive for research as well as for the industry. One promising example of a transportable fuel is hydrogen (H-2), making research into eco-friendly hydrogen production meaningful. Here, a hybrid system was developed using newly designed recombinant spider silk protein variants as a template for mineralization with inorganic titanium dioxide and gold. These bioinspired organic/inorganic hybrid materials allow for hydrogen production upon light irradiation. To begin with, recombinant spider silk proteins bearing titanium dioxide and gold-binding moieties were created and processed into structured films. These films were modified with gold and titanium dioxide in order to produce a photocatalyst. Subsequent testing revealed hydrogen production as a result of light-induced hydrolysis of water. Therefore, the novel setup presented here provides access to a new principle of generating advanced hybrid materials for sustainable hydrogen production and depicts a promising platform for further studies on photocatalytic production of hydrogen, the most promising future fuel.
Growing attention to phytoplankton mixotrophy as a trophic strategy has led to significant revisions of traditional pelagic food web models and ecosystem functioning. Although some empirical estimates of mixotrophy do exist, a much broader set of in situ measurements are required to (i) identify which organisms are acting as mixotrophs in real time and to (ii) assess the contribution of their heterotrophy to biogeochemical cycling. Estimates are needed through time and across space to evaluate which environmental conditions or habitats favour mixotrophy: conditions still largely unknown. We review methodologies currently available to plankton ecologists to undertake estimates of plankton mixotrophy, in particular nanophytoplankton phago-mixotrophy. Methods are based largely on fluorescent or isotopic tracers, but also take advantage of genomics to identify phylotypes and function. We also suggest novel methods on the cusp of use for phago-mixotrophy assessment, including single-cell measurements improving our capacity to estimate mixotrophic activity and rates in wild plankton communities down to the single-cell level. Future methods will benefit from advances in nanotechnology, micromanipulation and microscopy combined with stable isotope and genomic methodologies. Improved estimates of mixotrophy will enable more reliable models to predict changes in food web structure and biogeochemical flows in a rapidly changing world.
While a growing body of literature finds positive impacts of Start-Up Subsidies (SUS) on labor market outcomes of participants, little is known about how the design of these programs shapes their effectiveness and hence how to improve policy. As experimental variation in program design is unavailable, we exploit the 2011 reform of the current German SUS program for the unemployed which strengthened case-workers’ discretionary power, increased entry requirements and reduced monetary support. We estimate the impact of the reform on the program’s effectiveness using samples of participants and non-participants from before and after the reform. To control for time-constant unobserved heterogeneity as well as differential selection patterns based on observable characteristics over time, we combine Difference-in-Differences with inverse probability weighting using covariate balancing propensity scores. Holding participants’ observed characteristics as well as macroeconomic conditions constant, the results suggest that the reform was successful in raising employment effects on average. As these findings may be contaminated by changes in selection patterns based on unobserved characteristics, we assess our results using simulation-based sensitivity analyses and find that our estimates are highly robust to changes in unobserved characteristics. Hence, the reform most likely had a positive impact on the effectiveness of the program, suggesting that increasing entry requirements and reducing support in-creased the program’s impacts while reducing the cost per participant.
The large literature that aims to find evidence of climate migration delivers mixed findings. This meta-regression analysis i) summarizes direct links between adverse climatic events and migration, ii) maps patterns of climate migration, and iii) explains the variation in outcomes. Using a set of limited dependent variable models, we meta-analyze thus-far the most comprehensive sample of 3,625 estimates from 116 original studies and produce novel insights on climate migration. We find that extremely high temperatures and drying conditions increase migration. We do not find a significant effect of sudden-onset events. Climate migration is most likely to emerge due to contemporaneous events, to originate in rural areas and to take place in middle-income countries, internally, to cities. The likelihood to become trapped in affected areas is higher for women and in low-income countries, particularly in Africa. We uniquely quantify how pitfalls typical for the broader empirical climate impact literature affect climate migration findings. We also find evidence of different publication biases.
In this work we present spectra of all gamma-ray burst (GRB) afterglows that have been promptly observed with the X-shooter spectrograph until 31/03/2017. In total, we have obtained spectroscopic observations of 103 individual GRBs observed within 48 hours of the GRB trigger. Redshifts have been measured for 97 per cent of these, covering a redshift range from 0.059 to 7.84. Based on a set of observational selection criteria that minimise biases with regards to intrinsic properties of the GRBs, the follow-up effort has been focused on producing a homogeneously selected sample of 93 afterglow spectra for GRBs discovered by the Swift satellite. We here provide a public release of all the reduced spectra, including continuum estimates and telluric absorption corrections. For completeness, we also provide reductions for the 18 late-time observations of the underlying host galaxies. We provide an assessment of the degree of completeness with respect to the parent GRB population, in terms of the X-ray properties of the bursts in the sample and find that the sample presented here is representative of the full Swift sample. We have constrained the fraction of dark bursts to be <28 per cent and confirm previous results that higher optical darkness is correlated with increased X-ray absorption. For the 42 bursts for which it is possible, we have provided a measurement of the neutral hydrogen column density, increasing the total number of published HI column density measurements by similar to 33 per cent. This dataset provides a unique resource to study the ISM across cosmic time, from the local progenitor surroundings to the intervening Universe.
From face to face
(2019)
Despite advances in the conceptualisation of facial mimicry, its role in the processing of social information is a matter of debate. In the present study, we investigated the relationship between mimicry and cognitive and emotional empathy. To assess mimicry, facial electromyography was recorded for 70 participants while they completed the Multifaceted Empathy Test, which presents complex context-embedded emotional expressions. As predicted, inter-individual differences in emotional and cognitive empathy were associated with the level of facial mimicry. For positive emotions, the intensity of the mimicry response scaled with the level of state emotional empathy. Mimicry was stronger for the emotional empathy task compared to the cognitive empathy task. The specific empathy condition could be successfully detected from facial muscle activity at the level of single individuals using machine learning techniques. These results support the view that mimicry occurs depending on the social context as a tool to affiliate and it is involved in cognitive as well as emotional empathy.
Following the classical work of Moyer and Landauer (1967), experimental studies investigating the way in which humans process and compare symbolic numerical information regularly used one of two experimental designs. In selection tasks, two numbers are presented, and the task of the participant is to select (for example) the larger one. In classification tasks, a single number is presented, and the participant decides if it is smaller or larger than a predefined standard. Many findings obtained with these paradigms fit in well with the notion of a mental analog representation, or an Approximate Number System (ANS; e.g., Piazza 2010). The ANS is often conceptualized metaphorically as a mental number line, and data from both paradigms are well accounted for by diffusion models based on the stochastic accumulation of noisy partial numerical information over time. The present study investigated a categorization paradigm in which participants decided if a number presented falls into a numerically defined central category. We show that number categorization yields a highly regular, yet considerably more complex pattern of decision times and error rates as compared to the simple monotone relations obtained in traditional selection and classification tasks. We also show that (and how) standard diffusion models of number comparison can be adapted so as to account for mean and standard deviations of all RTs and for error rates in considerable quantitative detail. We conclude that just as traditional number comparison, the more complex process of categorizing numbers conforms well with basic notions of the ANS.
In this paper, we study the effect of exogenous global crop price changes on migration from agricultural and non-agricultural households in Sub-Saharan Africa. We show that, similar to the effect of positive local weather shocks, the effect of a locally-relevant global crop price increase on household out-migration depends on the initial household wealth. Higher international producer prices relax the budget constraint of poor agricultural households and facilitate migration. The order of magnitude of a standardized price effect is approx. one third of the standardized effect of a local weather shock. Unlike positive weather shocks, which mostly facilitate internal rural-urban migration, positive income shocks through rising producer prices only increase migration to neighboring African countries, likely due to the simultaneous decrease in real income in nearby urban areas. Finally, we show that while higher producer prices induce conflict, conflict does not play a role for the household decision to send a member as a labor migrant.
French participants learned English pseudowords either with the orthographic form displayed under the corresponding picture (Audio-Ortho) or without (Audio). In a naming task, pseudowords learned in the Audio-Ortho condition were produced faster and with fewer errors, providing a first piece of evidence that orthographic information facilitates the learning and on-line retrieval of productive vocabulary in a second language. Formant analyses, however, showed that productions from the Audio-Ortho condition were more French-like (i.e., less target-like), a result confirmed by a vowel categorization task performed by native speakers of English. It is argued that novel word learning and pronunciation accuracy should be considered together. (C) 2019 Acoustical Society of America
An essential, respected, and critical aspect of the modern practice of science and scientific publishing is peer review. The process of peer review facilitates best practices in scientific conduct and communication, ensuring that manuscripts published are as accurate, valuable, and clearly communicated. The over 216 papers published in Tectonics in 2018 benefit from the time, effort, and expertise of our reviewers who have provided thoughtfully considered advice on each manuscript. This role is critical to advancing our understanding of the evolution of the continents and their margins, as these reviews lead to even clearer and higher-quality papers. In 2018, the over 443 papers submitted to Tectonics were the beneficiaries of more than 1,010 reviews provided by 668 members of the tectonics community and related disciplines. To everyone who has volunteered their time and intellect to peer reviewing, thank you for helping Tectonics and all other AGU Publications provide the best science possible.
In this paper we report a rare and fortunate event of fast magnetosonic (MS, also called equatorial noise) waves modulated by compressional ultralow frequency (ULF) waves measured by Van Allen Probes. The characteristics of MS waves, ULF waves, proton distribution, and their potential correlations are analyzed. The results show that ULF waves can modulate the energetic ring proton distribution and in turn modulate the MS generation. Furthermore, the variation of MS intensities is attributed to not only ULF wave activities but also the variation of background parameters, for example, number density. The results confirm the opinion that MS waves are generated by proton ring distribution and propose a new modulation phenomenon.
Moving arms
(2018)
Embodied cognition postulates a bi-directional link between the human body and its cognitive functions. Whether this holds for higher cognitive functions such as problem solving is unknown. We predicted that arm movement manipulations performed by the participants could affect the problem-solving solutions. We tested this prediction in quantitative reasoning tasks that allowed two solutions to each problem (addition or subtraction). In two studies with healthy adults (N=53 and N=50), we found an effect of problem-congruent movements on problem solutions. Consistent with embodied cognition, sensorimotor information gained via right or left arm movements affects the solution in different types of problem-solving tasks.
Using behavioral observation for the longitudinal study of anger regulation in middle childhood
(2019)
Assessing anger regulation via self-reports is fraught with problems, especially among children. Behavioral observation provides an ecologically valid alternative for measuring anger regulation. The present study uses data from two waves of a longitudinal study to present a behavioral observation approach for measuring anger regulation in middle childhood. At T1, 599 children from Germany (6-10 years old) were observed during an anger eliciting task, and the use of anger regulation strategies was coded. At T2, 3 years later, the observation was repeated with an age-appropriate version of the same task. Partial metric measurement invariance over time demonstrated the structural equivalence of the two versions. Maladaptive anger regulation between the two time points showed moderate stability. Validity was established by showing correlations with aggressive behavior, peer problems, and conduct problems (concurrent and predictive criterion validity). The study presents an ecologically valid and economic approach to assessing anger regulation strategies in situ.
3-Bromopyruvic acid (3BP) is a potential anticancer drug, the action of which on cellular metabolism is not yet entirely clear. The presence of a bromine atom suggests that it is also reactive towards low-energy electrons, which are produced in large quantities during tumour radiation therapy. Detailed knowledge of the interaction of 3BP with secondary electrons is a prerequisite to gain a complete picture of the effects of 3BP in different forms of cancer therapy. Herein, dissociative electron attachment (DEA) to 3BP in the gas phase has been studied both experimentally by using a crossed-beam setup and theoretically through scattering and quantum chemical calculations. These results are complemented by a vacuum ultraviolet absorption spectrum. The main fragmentation channel is the formation of Br- close to 0 eV and within several resonant features at 1.9 and 3-8 eV. At low electron energies, Br- formation proceeds through sigma* and pi* shape resonances, and at higher energies through core-excited resonances. It is found that the electron-capture cross-section is clearly increased compared with that of non-brominated pyruvic acid, but, at the same time, fragmentation reactions through DEA are significantly altered as well. The 3BP transient negative ion is subject to a lower number of fragmentation reactions than those of pyruvic acid, which indicates that 3BP could indeed act by modifying the electron-transport chains within oxidative phosphorylation. It could also act as a radio-sensitiser.
Testing the Consensus Model
(2018)
The structure and definition of professional knowledge is a continuing focus of science education research. In 2012, a pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) summit was held and it suggested a model of professional knowledge and skill including PCK, which was later often called the Consensus Model (Gess-Newsome, 2015. A model of teacher professional knowledge and skill including PCK: Results of the thinking from the PCK summit. In A. Berry, P. J. Friedrichsen, & J. Loughran (Eds.), Teaching and learning in science series. Re-examining pedagogical content knowledge in science education (1st ed., pp. 28–42). New York, NY: Routledge). The Consensus Model proposes a potential powerful framework for the relations among teachers’ different professional knowledge bases, but to date it has neither been investigated empirically nor systematically. In this study, we investigated the relationships suggested by the Consensus Model among different aspects of teachers’ knowledge and skill. A sample of 35 physics teachers and their classes participated in the investigation; both teachers and their students in these classes took paper-and-pencil tests. Furthermore, a lesson taught by each of the teachers was videotaped and analysed. The video analysis focused on the interconnectedness of the content structure of the lesson as representation of the in-class actions of the teachers. The interconnectedness is understood as a direct result of the application of professional knowledge of the teachers to their teaching. The teachers’ knowledge showed no significant influence on the interconnectedness of the lesson content structure. However, the results confirmed the influence of interconnectedness and certain aspects of professional knowledge on students’ outcomes. Therefore, interconnectedness of content structure could be verified as one indicator of teachers’ instructional quality.
The Norwegian young sea ICE (N-ICE2015) expedition was designed to investigate the atmosphere-snow-ice-ocean interactions in the young and thin sea ice regime north of Svalbard. Radiosondes were launched twice daily during the expedition from January to June 2015. Here we use these upper air measurements to study the multiple cyclonic events observed during N-ICE2015 with respect to changes in the vertical thermodynamic structure, moisture content, and boundary layer characteristics. We provide statistics of temperature inversion characteristics, static stability, and boundary layer extent. During winter, when radiative cooling is most effective, we find the strongest impact of synoptic cyclones. Changes to thermodynamic characteristics of the boundary layer are associated with transitions between the radiatively "clear" and "opaque" atmospheric states. In spring, radiative fluxes warm the surface leading to lifted temperature inversions and a statically unstable boundary layer. Further, we compare the N-ICE2015 static stability distributions to corresponding profiles from ERA-Interim reanalysis, from the closest land station in the Arctic North Atlantic sector, Ny-Alesund, and to soundings from the SHEBA expedition (1997/1998). We find similar stability characteristics for N-ICE2015 and SHEBA throughout the troposphere, despite differences in location, sea ice thickness, and snow cover. For Ny-Alesund, we observe similar characteristics above 1000 m, while the topography and ice-free fjord surrounding Ny-Alesund generate great differences below. The long-term radiosonde record (1993-2014) from Ny-Alesund indicates that during the N-ICE2015 spring period, temperatures were close to the climatological mean, while the lowest 3000 m were 1-3 degrees C warmer than the climatology during winter. Plain Language Summary The Norwegian young sea ICE (N-ICE2015) expedition was designed to investigate the atmosphere-snow-ice-ocean interactions in the young and thin sea ice regime north of Svalbard. Radiosondes were launched twice daily during the expedition from January to June 2015. Here we use these upper air measurements to study the multiple cyclonic events observed during N-ICE2015 with respect to changes in the vertical thermodynamic structure, moisture content, and the atmospheric boundary layer characteristics. During winter, we find the strongest impact of synoptic cyclones, which transport warm and moist air into the cold and dry Arctic atmosphere. In spring, incoming solar radiation warms the surface. This leads to very different thermodynamic conditions and higher moisture content, which reduces the contrast between stormy and calm periods. Further, we compare the N-ICE2015 measurements to corresponding profiles from ERA-Interim reanalysis, from the closest land station in the Arctic North Atlantic sector, Ny-Alesund, and to soundings from the SHEBA expedition (1997/1998). We find similar stability characteristics for N-ICE2015 and SHEBA throughout the troposphere, despite differences in location, sea ice thickness, and snow cover. The comparisons highlight the value of the N-ICE2015 observation and show the importance of winter time observations in the Arctic North Atlantic sector.
Forging an Italian hero?
(2019)
Over the last two decades, Amedeo Guillet (1909–2010) has been turned into a public and military hero. His exploits as a guerrilla leader in Italian East Africa in 1941 have been exaggerated to forge a narrative of an honourable resistance against overwhelming odds. Thereby, Guillet has been showcased as a romanticized colonial explorer who was an apolitical and timeless Italian officer. He has been compared to Lawrence of Arabia in order to raise his international visibility, while his genuine Italian brand is perpetuated domestically. By elevating him to an official role model, the Italian Army has gained a focal point for military heroism that was also acceptable in the public memory as the embodiment of a ‘glorious’ defeat narrative.
Previous research with younger adults has revealed differences between native (L1) and non-native late-bilingual (L2) speakers with respect to how morphologically complex words are processed. This study examines whether these L1/L2 differences persist into old age. We tested masked-priming effects for derived and inflected word forms in older L1 and L2 speakers of German and compared them to results from younger L1 and L2 speakers on the same experiment (mean ages: 62 vs. 24). We found longer overall response times paired with better accuracy scores for older (L1 and L2) participants than for younger participants. The priming patterns, however, were not affected by chronological age. While both L1 and L2 speakers showed derivational priming, only the L1 speakers demonstrated inflectional priming. We argue that general performance in both L1 and L2 is affected by aging, but that the more profound differences between native and non-native processing persist into old age.
Home range estimation is routine practice in ecological research. While advances in animal tracking technology have increased our capacity to collect data to support home range analysis, these same advances have also resulted in increasingly autocorrelated data. Consequently, the question of which home range estimator to use on modern, highly autocorrelated tracking data remains open. This question is particularly relevant given that most estimators assume independently sampled data. Here, we provide a comprehensive evaluation of the effects of autocorrelation on home range estimation. We base our study on an extensive data set of GPS locations from 369 individuals representing 27 species distributed across five continents. We first assemble a broad array of home range estimators, including Kernel Density Estimation (KDE) with four bandwidth optimizers (Gaussian reference function, autocorrelated‐Gaussian reference function [AKDE], Silverman's rule of thumb, and least squares cross‐validation), Minimum Convex Polygon, and Local Convex Hull methods. Notably, all of these estimators except AKDE assume independent and identically distributed (IID) data. We then employ half‐sample cross‐validation to objectively quantify estimator performance, and the recently introduced effective sample size for home range area estimation ( N̂ area
) to quantify the information content of each data set. We found that AKDE 95% area estimates were larger than conventional IID‐based estimates by a mean factor of 2. The median number of cross‐validated locations included in the hold‐out sets by AKDE 95% (or 50%) estimates was 95.3% (or 50.1%), confirming the larger AKDE ranges were appropriately selective at the specified quantile. Conversely, conventional estimates exhibited negative bias that increased with decreasing N̂ area. To contextualize our empirical results, we performed a detailed simulation study to tease apart how sampling frequency, sampling duration, and the focal animal's movement conspire to affect range estimates. Paralleling our empirical results, the simulation study demonstrated that AKDE was generally more accurate than conventional methods, particularly for small N̂ area. While 72% of the 369 empirical data sets had >1,000 total observations, only 4% had an N̂ area >1,000, where 30% had an N̂ area <30. In this frequently encountered scenario of small N̂ area, AKDE was the only estimator capable of producing an accurate home range estimate on autocorrelated data.
The one-dimensional (1-D) approach is still the dominant method to incorporate site effects in engineering applications. To bridge the 1-D to multidimensional site response analysis, we develop quantitative criteria and a reproducible method to identify KiK-net sites with significant deviations from 1-D behavior. We found that 158 out of 354 show two-dimensional (2-D) and three-dimensional (3-D) effects, extending the resonance toward shorter periods at which 2-D or 3-D site effects exceed those of the classic 1-D configurations and imposing an additional amplification to that caused by the impedance contrast alone. Such 2-D and 3-D effects go along with a large within-station ground motion variability. Remarkably, these effects are found to be more pronounced for small impedance contrasts. While it is hardly possible to identify common features in ground motion behavior for stations with similar topography typologies, it is not over-conservative to apply a safety factor to account for 2-D and 3-D site effects in ground motion modeling.
We investigate how inviting students to set task-based goals affects usage of an online learning platform and course performance. We design and implement a randomized field experiment in a large mandatory economics course with blended learning elements. The low-cost treatment induces students to use the online learning system more often, more intensively, and to begin earlier with exam preparation. Treated students perform better in the course than the control group: they are 18.8% (0.20 SD) more likely to pass the exam and earn 6.7% (0.19 SD) more points on the exam. There is no evidence that treated students spend significantly more time, rather they tend to shift to more productive learning methods. The heterogeneity analysis suggests that higher treatment effects are associated with higher levels of behavioral bias but also with poor early course behavior.
Durkheim in Germany
(2017)
The lipid hydrolase enzyme acid sphingomyelinase (ASM) is required for the conversion of the lipid cell membrane component sphingomyelin into ceramide. In cancer cells, ASM-mediated ceramide production is important for apoptosis, cell proliferation, and immune modulation, highlighting ASM as a potential multimodal therapeutic target. In this study, we demonstrate elevated ASM activity in the lung tumor environment and blood serum of patients with non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). RNAi-mediated attenuation of SMPD1 in human NSCLC cells rendered them resistant to serum starvation-induced apoptosis. In a murine model of lung adenocarcinoma, ASM deficiency reduced tumor development in a manner associated with significant enhancement of Th1-mediated and cytotoxic T-cell-mediated antitumor immunity. Our findings indicate that targeting ASM in NSCLC can act by tumor cell-intrinsic and-extrinsic mechanisms to suppress tumor cell growth, most notably by enabling an effective antitumor immune response by the host. (C) 2017 AACR.
Проведен анализ пространственной семантики различных категорий русских существительных, входящих в психолингви-стическую базуданных; особое внимание уделяется абстрактным концептам. Выявлены различия пространственной семантики наименований физических ощущений и действий, эмоций, ментальных процессов. Полученны ерезультаты обсуждаются с точки зрения отдельных подходов в рамках теории воплощенного познания – теории концептуальной метафоры, теории слов как социальных инструментов (WAT, Words As social Tools), нейросемантики.
The conversion of light energy into other molecular energetic degrees of freedom is often dominated by ultrafast, non-adiabatic processes. Femtosecond spectroscopy with optical pulses has helped in shaping our understanding of crucial processes in molecular energy-conversion. The advent of new, ultrashort and bright X-ray free electron laser sources opens the possibility to use X-ray-typical element and site sensitivity for ultrafast molecular research. We present two types of spectroscopy, ultrafast Auger and ultrafast X-ray absorption spectroscopy, and discuss their sensitivity to molecular processes. While Auger spectroscopy is able to monitor bond distance changes in the vicinity of an X-ray created core hole, near-edge absorption spectroscopy can deliver high-fidelity information on non-adiabatic transitions involving lone-pair orbitals. We demonstrate these features on the example of the UV-excited nucleobase thymine, investigated at the oxygen K-edge. We find a C-O bond elongation in the Auger data in addition to pi pi*/n pi* non-adiabatic transition in X-ray near-edge absorption. We compare the results from both methods and draw a conclusive scenario of non-adiabatic molecular relaxation after UV excitation.
The Upper Cretaceous (Campanian-Maastrichtian) bioclastic wedge of the Orfento Formation in the Montagna della Maiella, Italy, is compared to newly discovered contourite drifts in the Maldives. Like the drift deposits in the Maldives, the Orfento Formation fills a channel and builds a Miocene delta-shaped and mounded sedimentary body in the basin that is similar in size to the approximately 350 km(2) large coarse-grained bioclastic Miocene delta drifts in the Maldives. The composition of the bioclastic wedge of the Orfento Formation is also exclusively bioclastic debris sourced from the shallow-water areas and reworked clasts of the Orfento Formation itself. In the near mud-free succession, age-diagnostic fossils are sparse. The depositional textures vary from wackestone to float-rudstone and breccia/conglomerates, but rocks with grainstone and rudstone textures are the most common facies. In the channel, lensoid convex-upward breccias, cross-cutting channelized beds and thick grainstone lobes with abundant scours indicate alternating erosion and deposition from a high-energy current. In the basin, the mounded sedimentary body contains lobes with a divergent progradational geometry. The lobes are built by decametre thick composite megabeds consisting of sigmoidal clinoforms that typically have a channelized topset, a grainy foreset and a fine-grained bottomset with abundant irregular angular clasts. Up to 30 m thick channels filled with intraformational breccias and coarse grainstones pinch out downslope between the megabeds. In the distal portion of the wedge, stacked grainstone beds with foresets and reworked intraclasts document continuous sediment reworking and migration. The bioclastic wedge of the Orfento Formation has been variously interpreted as a succession of sea-level controlled slope deposits, a shoaling shoreface complex, or a carbonate tidal delta. Current-controlled delta drifts in the Maldives, however, offer a new interpretation because of their similarity in architecture and composition. These similarities include: (i) a feeder channel opening into the basin; (ii) an excavation moat at the exit of the channel; (iii) an overall mounded geometry with an apex that is in shallower water depth than the source channel; (iv) progradation of stacked lobes; (v) channels that pinch out in a basinward direction; and (vi) smaller channelized intervals that are arranged in a radial pattern. As a result, the Upper Cretaceous (Campanian-Maastrichtian) bioclastic wedge of the Orfento Formation in the Montagna della Maiella, Italy, is here interpreted as a carbonate delta drift.
Language and aging research
(2019)
Our introduction to the special collection gives an overview of the research projects which were originally presented at the third CLARe network conference. We group the research under four cross-sectional topics that unite the different contributions: the data used in the research, the theoretical frameworks, the languages and varieties which are represented and the situational contexts which are examined. These projects represent the current state of research in this field and allows the reader to orient themselves within this diverse field but also leaves many questions open and provides impetus for future lines of research. The interaction and collaboration between diverse disciplines is the central aspect which unites all contributions to the special collection.
Das Rahmenkonzept der Universitätsschule Potsdam beschreibt die Wertegrundlage und das pädagogisch-didaktische sowie das wissenschaftliche Fundament einer zu gründenden Universitätsschule Potsdam. Wie andere Universitätsschulen soll sich auch diese Schule durch eine enge und institutionalisierte Beziehung zwischen Schule und Universität auszeichnen, die den ständigen Wissenstransfer zwischen Schulpraxis, Wissenschaft, Lehrkräftebildung und Schulverwaltung unterstützt. Das Rahmenkonzept legt die Grundlagen für eine inklusive Schule, deren Schüler:innen einen Querschnitt der Gesellschaft abbilden, und die in ungleichheitssensiblen Bildungsangeboten alle Bildungsabschlüsse des Landes Brandenburg anbietet. Die Universitätsschule soll den starken Segregationsprozessen in Potsdam entgegenwirken.
Im Leitbild werden die Grundwerte (Nachhaltigkeit, Inklusion und Bildungsgerechtigkeit, Menschenrechte und Demokratie, Gemeinschaft, Ganzheitlichkeit) und die Bildungsziele (Transferfähigkeit, kritisch-reflexives Denken und lebensbegleitendes Lernen, Diversitätsbewusstsein und Transkulturalität, Selbstkompetenz und Beziehungskompetenz, Kulturtechniken und digitale Kompetenz) der Universitätsschule dargestellt. Das Pädagogische Konzept veranschaulicht, wie Werte und Bildungsziele in den Bereichen Schulform, Schulkultur, Lernkultur sowie Lernorte und Lernumgebung ausgestaltet werden können. Schließlich wird die Universitätsschule als lernende und lehrende Institution beschrieben, die ein Ort des Transfers von Bildungsinnovationen ist. Dafür soll eine Transferwerkstatt in der Schule verankert werden, die den Wissensaustausch der schulrelevanten Akteur:innen unterstützt und gestaltet.
Die ersten 40 Rechtsprofessoren der Viadrina immatrikulierten sich von 1506 bis 1571 in Frankfurt an der Oder. Sie lassen sich in zwei Gruppen einteilen, die von der Gründung der Universität 1506 bis 1539 Immatrikulierten und die nach Einführung der Reformation im Kurfürstentum Brandenburg 1539/40 bis zum Regierungsantritt des Kurfürsten Johann Georg von Brandenburg 1571 an der Viadrina eingeschriebenen Juristen. Die Profile der vorreformatorischen und der nachreformatorischen Rechtsexperten weisen Gemeinsamkeiten, z.B. die Eheschließung, aber auch Unterschiede auf. Am besten illustriert das Beispiel der Rechtsprofessorendynastien Zoch und Köppen die "Familienuniversität" Viadrina.