Recent publications
Waterlogging is a significant stressor for crops, particularly in lowland regions where soil conditions exacerbate the problem. Waterlogged roots experience hypoxia, disrupting oxidative phosphorylation and triggering metabolic reorganization to sustain energy production. Here, we investigated the metabolic aspects that differentiate two soybean sister lines contrasting for waterlogging tolerance. After 11 days of waterlogging, roots of the tolerant line (PELBR15-7015C) modulated their fermentative metabolism by exporting key metabolites (lactate, malate, and succinate) to the shoot. These metabolites were metabolized in the leaves, supporting photosynthesis and facilitating sugar export to the roots, sustaining a root-shoot-root cycling process. In contrast, the sensitive line (PELBR15-7060) entered a quiescent state, depleting its carbon stock and accumulating protective metabolites. Our study reveals that long-term waterlogging tolerance is primarily achieved through lactate detoxification in the leaves, along with malate and succinate metabolism, enabling root metabolism to withstand hypoxia. This mechanism offers new insights into crop resilience under waterlogged conditions, with implications for modern agriculture as climate change intensifies the frequency and duration of such stress events.
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Purpose
The optimal timing for definitive surgical treatment of pelvic fractures in polytrauma patients remains a topic of ongoing discussion due to the complexity of these injuries. This analysis therefore aims to systematically compare early versus late definitive operative stabilization of pelvic fractures on outcome in polytrauma patients.
Methods
PubMed, CENTRAL and Web of Science were systematically searched to identify relevant completed and ongoing studies from the inception of each database to March 13, 2023. Systematic reviews, randomized control trials (RCTs) and observational studies comparing early (< 24 h) versus late (> 24 h) definitive operative stabilization in adult polytrauma patients admitted to the ICU were included.
Results
Since no systematic reviews and RCTs were available on this subject, one observational study was identified, including a total of 418 polytrauma patients (nearly = 165, nlate = 253), median age: 40.3 years (early 40.1 years, late 40.4 years). Early definitive stabilization was associated with a decreased risk of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) compared to late stabilization of unstable pelvis and acetabulum fractures (RR 0.38, 95% CI 0.18–0.81; RD 78 fewer per 1000, 95% CI 104 fewer to 24 fewer; 1 study, 418 participants; very low certainty of evidence). Furthermore, early definitive stabilization may decrease the risk of pneumonia compared to late stabilization of unstable pelvis and acetabulum fractures (RR 0.50, 95% CI 0.28–0.88; RD 85 fewer per 1000, 95% CI 122 fewer to 20 fewer); 1 study, 418 participants; very low certainty of evidence).
Conclusion
There is limited evidence regarding early definitive fracture repair (≤ 24 h) compared to late repair of pelvic fractures in polytrauma patients. One observational study showed a reduced incidence of septic respiratory complications, ARDS, and multi-organ failure (MOF) in polytrauma patients who received early definitive fracture repair.
Objective. Integrating time-of-flight (ToF) measurements in radiography and computed tomography (CT) enables an approach for scatter rejection in imaging systems that eliminates the need for anti-scatter grids, potentially increasing system sensitivity and image quality. However, present hardware dedicated to the time-correlated measurement of x-rays is limited to a single pixel physically too large for the desired spatial resolution. A switch to highly integrated electronics and detectors is needed to progress towards detector arrays capable of acquiring images, while offering a timing resolution below 300 ps FWHM to achieve scatter rejection comparable to current anti-scatter grids. Approach. Using off-the-shelf scintillators, photodetectors and readouts designed for ToF positron emission tomography (PET) provides a preliminary evaluation of available highly integrated readout systems supporting detector arrays for ToF scatter rejection. The TOFPET2c ASIC from PETSys offers an established development platform necessary for fast and reliable results, with no known limitation regarding time-correlated detection of medical imaging x-rays (20–140 keV). Main results. Reliable photon detection down to 31 keV was achieved, reaching energy resolutions from 23% to 92% FWHM throughout the desired energy range. Optimal detector timing resolution (DTR) from 250 ps FWHM at 130 keV to 678 ps FWHM at 30 keV was reached. Strong time walk effects were observed, showing a time shift of 642 ps up to 1740 ps between events spanning the energies used in x-ray medical imaging. Significance. The TOFPET2c ASIC has shown its potential for ToF scatter rejection, but meets the time resolution requirement of 300 ps FWHM only for limited energies (110–140 keV). This significant timing degradation observed at lower energies limits the use of the TOFPET2c ASIC for ToF scatter rejection, but offers significant advancements regarding the understanding of the phenomenon arising from the time-correlated detection of medical imaging x-rays.
This study aims to establish a hybrid method combining the finite element method (FEM), the mechanical–electrical model, and a back-propagation artificial neural network (BP), to simulate the piezoresistive pavement. First, the tire-pavement FEM model with piezoresistive units was established considering the viscoelasticity of the pavement materials. Subsequently, the mechanical responses of the piezoresistive units under various tire and environmental loads were converted into electrical resistance outputs via the mechanical–electrical model. Finally, BP was trained using simulated data to address challenges associated with the back-calculation of tire loads. Results indicate that the electrical resistance of the piezoresistive unit in complete contact with the tire illustrates an overall rising trend as tire load increases, which is attributed to changes in contact stress. However, the adjacent piezoresistive units display an opposite trend, which can be used to determine the lateral position of the tires. Additionally, electrical resistance shows a non-linear decrease with increasing temperature. The single-hidden-layer BP with 13 neurons was validated to demonstrate higher accuracy compared to multi-hidden-layer BP. Moreover, the Genetic algorithm-optimized single-hidden-layer BP (GA-S-BP) shows further improved performance, achieving an MSE of 1.91 and an MAPE of 8.5%, and a low probability of underestimating tire loads. The GA-S-BP designed in this study can effectively predict tire loads within permissible levels to realize the function of piezoresistive pavement.
Purpose
Predictive language comprehension has become a major topic in psycholinguistic research. The study described in this article aims to investigate if German children with developmental language disorder (DLD) use grammatical gender agreement to predict the continuation of noun phrases in the same way as it has been observed for typically developing (TD) children. The study also seeks to differentiate between specific and general deficits in predictive processing by exploring the anticipatory use of semantic information. Additionally, the research examines whether the processing of gender and semantic information varies with the speed of stimulus presentation.
Method
The study included 30 children with DLD (average age = 8.7 years) and 26 TD children (average age = 8.4 years) who participated in a visual-world eye-tracking study. Noun phrases, consisting of an article, an adjective, and a noun, were presented that matched with only one of two target pictures. The phrases contained a gender cue, a semantic cue, a combination of both, or none of these cues. The cues were provided by the article and/or adjective and could be used to identify the target picture before the noun itself was presented.
Results
Both groups, TD children and those with DLD, utilized predictive processing strategies in response to gender agreement and semantic information when decoding noun phrases. However, children with DLD were only able to consider gender cues when noun phrases were presented at a slower speech rate, and even then, their predictive certainty remained below the typical level for their age.
Conclusion
Based on these findings, the article discusses the potential relevance of the prediction framework for explaining comprehension deficits in children with DLD, as well as the clinical implications of the results.
Listening to conversations and remembering their content is a highly demanding task, especially in noisy environments. Previous research has mainly focused on short-term memory using simple cognitive tasks with unrelated words or digits. The present study investigates the listeners’ short-term memory and listening effort in conversations under different listening conditions, with and without soft or moderate noise. To this end, participants were administered a dual-task paradigm, including a primary listening task, in which conversations between two talkers were presented, and an unrelated secondary task. In Experiment 1, this secondary task was a visual number-judgment task, whereas in Experiments 2 and 3, it was a vibrotactile pattern recognition task. All experiments were conducted in a quiet environment or under continuous broadband noise. For the latter, the signal-to-noise ratio in Experiments 1 and 2 was +10 dB (soft-noise condition), while in Experiment 3 it was -3 dB (moderate-noise condition). In Experiments 1 and 2, short-term memory of running speech and listening effort were unaffected by soft-noise listening conditions. In Experiment 3, however, the moderate-noise listening condition impaired performance in the primary listening task, while performance in the vibrotactile secondary task was unaffected. This pattern of results could suggest that the moderate-noise listening condition, with a signal-to-noise ratio of -3 dB, required increased listening effort compared to the soft-noise and quiet listening conditions. These findings indicate that listening situations with moderate noise can reduce short-term memory of heard conversational content and increase listening effort, even when the speech signals remain highly intelligible.
The commercialization of electronic devices based on graphene has not yet been successful, even 20 years after its first isolation. To this end, the European Commission is supporting research toward establishing a European experimental pilot line for electronic and optoelectronic devices based on graphene and related two-dimensional (2D) materials, namely the Experimental Pilot Line (2D-EPL) project. Here, we report the results obtained during the first and third multi-project wafer (MPW) runs completed at the end of 2022 (MPW run 1) and 2023 (MPW run 3) as an outcome of the 2D-EPL. Test devices were measured across the wafers to assess the device quality and variability before delivering the fabricated dies to the customers. Raman spectroscopy confirmed minimal structural changes in the graphene caused by the fabrication process, while electrical measurements of two different device types verified the device specifications defined in the process design kit.
Background
Theoretical models of conduct disorder (CD) highlight that deficits in emotion recognition, learning, and regulation play a pivotal role in CD etiology. With CD being more prevalent in boys than girls, various theories aim to explain this sex difference. The “differential threshold” hypothesis suggests greater emotion dysfunction in conduct-disordered girls than boys, but previous research using conventional statistical analyses has failed to support this hypothesis. Here, we used novel analytic techniques such as machine learning (ML) to uncover potentially sex-specific differences in emotion dysfunction among girls and boys with CD compared to their neurotypical peers.
Methods
Multi-site data from 542 youth with CD and 710 neurotypical controls (64% girls, 9–18 years) who completed emotion recognition, learning, and regulation tasks were analyzed using a multivariate ML classifier to distinguish between youth with CD and controls separately by sex.
Results
Both female and male ML classifiers accurately predicted (above chance level) individual CD status based solely on the neurocognitive features of emotion dysfunction. Notably, the female classifier outperformed the male classifier in identifying individuals with CD. However, the classification and identification performance of both classifiers was below the clinically relevant 80% accuracy threshold (although they still provided relatively fair and realistic estimates of ~ 60% classification performance), probably due to the substantial neurocognitive heterogeneity within such a large and diverse, multi-site sample of youth with CD (and neurotypical controls).
Conclusions
These findings confirm the close association between emotion dysfunction and CD in both sexes, with a stronger association observed in affected girls, which aligns with the “differential threshold” hypothesis. However, the data also underscore the heterogeneity of CD, namely that only a subset of those affected are likely to have emotion dysfunction and that other neurocognitive domains (not tested here) probably also contribute to CD etiology.
Clinical trial number
Not applicable.
The inherent carbohydrate-binding specificities of human galectins can serve as recognition elements in both biotechnological and biomedical applications. The combination of the carbohydrate-recognition domain (CRD) of galectins fused to peptides...
Nicaragua is the largest Central American country and the least densely populated. Endowed with vast renewable energy resources, Nicaragua has often experienced periods of political unrest, economic crisis, and natural disasters that have shaped the country’s energy transition.
This chapter is a recap of the last century of Nicaraguan energy history shedding light on the energy paradox that many developing countries experience: a resource curse.
A tale of lakes and volcanoes, where the country, despite the availability of vast renewable energy resources, remains highly reliant on imported fossil fuels. This chronicle highlights the interlinkages between energy, society, politics, the economy, the environment, and Nicaraguan culture.
Analytical data in chemistry and other disciplines is usually generated in different formats and lacks common data and metadata standards that are necessary for a FAIR handling of research data. In the work presented herein, we describe a workflow that uses non-standardized, in some cases proprietary, data formats from cyclic voltammetry measurements coming from individual devices as an instructive example, to yield open, standardized data that are annotated with rich metadata. The presented workflow includes concepts, software and infrastructure that can be used to support the whole data life cycle from the measurement of data to the publication of data and metadata in repositories. Components used for this workflow were made available as open source, allowing the re-use of this approach in other laboratories. The methods described for cyclic voltammetry can be adapted and used for other measurements and experimental data collections, allowing for an easy way to integrate new methods for digitalized research and FAIR data management.
Zusammenfassung
Die Energiewende in Deutschland steht vor einer großen Herausforderung: Der geplante Zuwachs von Windenergie und Photovoltaik verstärkt die Schwankungen im Stromnetz. Das Ziel, Treibhausgas‐Emissionen bis Mitte des Jahrhunderts vollständig zu vermeiden, erfordert einen massiven Ausbau an Kurzzeit‐Stromspeichern, so dass Photovoltaik‐ und Windanlagen möglichst nicht abgeschaltet werden müssen. Derzeit werden drei Speicherkonzepte diskutiert: grüner Wasserstoff, Batterien und Pumpspeicherkraftwerke. Die Wasserstofferzeugung per Elektrolyse als chemische Speicher eignet sich eher für die Langzeitspeicherung, zudem müssten die Elektrolyseanlagen in Deutschland massiv erweitert werden. Die elektrochemische Speicherung in Akkumulatoren, zum Beispiel Lithium‐Ionenbatterien, steht in Konkurrenz mit der E‐Mobilität. Zudem sind die global verfügbaren Rohstoffe begrenzt, und die Zyklenzahl ist limitiert. Bei Pumpspeicher‐Kraftwerken gibt es diese Probleme nicht. Sie sind seit gut hundert Jahren bewährt, benötigen kaum Personal und Wartung und erreichen Wirkungsgrade bis an die 80 %. Allerdings fehlt es an geeigneten Standorten für den Ausbau herkömmlicher Pumpspeicher‐Kraftwerke. Als Alternative bieten stillgelegte Tagebaugruben die Chance, mit innovativen Unterwasser‐Pumpspeicherkraftwerken zügig große Speicherkapazitäten aufzubauen. Dieser Teil 1 des Zweiteilers stellt das Projekt im „Hambacher Loch“ als ein Beispiel für solche smarten Lösungen vor. Teil 2 widmet sich dann dem Zweispeichermodell und zwei Bauformen von Pumpspeicher‐Kraftwerken in Tagebaulöchern.
Background
Allergic contact dermatitis and chronic actinic dermatitis are frequently observed among florists and gardeners due to exposure to potentially allergenic plants and plant products. Tulipalin A, an alpha-methylene-gamma-butyrolactone, is a common allergen synthesized by Tulipa genera, but its natural occurrence across Plantae remains unexplored.
Results
Here, we demonstrated the secondary electrospray ionization coupled Orbitrap mass spectrometry (SESI-Orbitrap MS) methodology for quantifying tulipalin A release from plants upon injury. By outlining temperature treatment, homogenization strategies and plant organ distribution, we show that processing flower samples stored at room temperature using a garlic press yielded the highest tulipalin A release upon injury. Via real-time monitoring, tulipalin A release was demonstrated to occur immediately upon homogenization. Next, the biosynthesis of tulipalin A across spring flowers was landscaped. Highlighting Rosa, Gerbera, Neapolitanum, Ranunculus, Othocalis, Muscari, Galanthus, Tulipa and Alstroemeria to release detectable amounts of tulipalin A upon injury. Tulipalin A was predominantly released from the Tulipa and Alstroemeria species, both belonging to the Liliales order, as stated in previous clinical and research studies.
Conclusions
In conclusion, a rapid method using the SESI-Orbitrap MS is reported to detect and track tulipalin A synthesis across plant organs and outline its cross-species distribution. Our methodology can be easily adapted for mapping other volatile plant defense metabolites and identify potentially allergenic plants. By addressing these aspects, we can ensure a safer work environment for florists and gardeners.
Interstitial lung disease (ILD) is a clinical term that refers to a diverse group of non-neoplastic lung diseases. This group includes idiopathic and secondary pulmonary entities that are often associated with progressive pulmonary fibrosis. Currently, therapeutic approaches based on specific structural targeting of pulmonary fibrosis are limited to nintedanib and pirfenidone, which can only slow down disease progression leading to a lower mortality rate. Lung transplantation is currently the only available curative treatment, but it is associated with high perioperative mortality. The pulmonary vasculature plays a central role in physiological lung function, and vascular remodelling is considered a hallmark of the initiation and progression of pulmonary fibrosis. Different patterns of pulmonary fibrosis commonly exhibit detectable pathological features such as morphomolecular changes, including intussusceptive and sprouting angiogenesis, vascular morphometry, broncho-systemic anastomoses, and aberrant angiogenesis-related gene expression patterns. Dynamic cellular interactions within the fibrovascular interface, such as endothelial activation and endothelial–mesenchymal transition, are also observed. This review aims to summarise the current clinical, radiological and pathological diagnostic algorithm for different ILDs, including usual interstitial pneumonia/idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, non-specific interstitial pneumonia, alveolar fibroelastosis/pleuroparenchymal fibroelastosis, hypersensitivity pneumonitis, systemic sclerosis-related ILD and coronavirus disease 2019 injury. It emphasises an interdisciplinary clinicopathological perspective. Additionally, the review covers current therapeutic strategies and knowledge about associated vascular abnormalities.
This recommendation is an outcome of the work carried out by RILEM Technical Committee 309-MCP “Mineral Carbonation for the Production of Construction Materials”. To facilitate exchange in the rapidly developing field of mineral carbonation for construction materials, technical terminology covering specific terms of common interest is proposed. This terminology was developed in an iterative feedback process within the technical committee.
The presented terminology is recommended for use in the field of mineral carbonation technology applied to the production of construction materials and products.
Achieving control over properties such as density and lateral distribution of catalytic nanoparticles under operating conditions is a major challenge for the development of active and durable catalysts for green hydrogen-based energy technologies, where nanoparticle coarsening often causes performance degradation. While metal exsolution catalysts are regarded to be robust against this degradation mode, coarsening and increased densities of exsolved metal nanoparticles have been detected near extended defects. This study examines the role of dislocations in metal exsolution reactions and explores the potential of dislocation-engineering for the synthesis of dislocationassociated nanoparticles. We demonstrate an atomic-level correlation between bulk dislocations and surface nanoparticle locations through a novel approach for engineering epitaxial thin films with confined regions of increased dislocation densities in combination with in-situ scanning transmission electron microscopy. While nanoparticle exsolution proceeds across the entire sample, two primary reasons for the frequent nucleation of dislocation-associated nanoparticles are identified: the accumulation of exsolution-active acceptors along dislocations and lattice distortions expected to lower the energy barrier for nanoparticle nucleation. This work establishes a proof of concept for using engineered dislocations in exsolution catalysts to synthesize nanoparticles with modified nanoparticle-support properties relevant for the thermal stability and the lateral distribution of exsolved nanoparticles.
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Address
Aachen, Germany
Head of institution
Dr. rer. nat. Dr. h. c. mult., Universitätsprofessor Ulrich Rüdiger
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