University of Koblenz and Landau

In this work we present OptAB, the first completely data-driven online-updateable antibiotic selection model based on Artificial Intelligence for Sepsis patients accounting for side-effects. OptAB performs an iterative optimal antibiotic selection for real-world Sepsis patients focussing on minimizing the Sepsis-related organ failure score (SOFA-Score) as treatment success while accounting for nephrotoxicity and hepatotoxicity as serious antibiotic side-effects. OptAB provides disease progression forecasts for (combinations of) the antibiotics Vancomycin, Ceftriaxone and Piperacillin/Tazobactam and learns realistic treatment influences on the SOFA-Score and the laboratory values creatinine, bilirubin total and alanine-transaminase indicating possible side-effects. OptAB is based on a hybrid neural network differential equation algorithm and can handle the special characteristics of patient data including irregular measurements, a large amount of missing values and time-dependent confounding. OptAB’s selected optimal antibiotics exhibit faster efficacy than the administered antibiotics.

Many sulfur-oxidizing prokaryotes oxidize sulfur compounds through a combination of initial extracytoplasmic and downstream cytoplasmic reactions. Facultative sulfur oxidizers adjust transcription to sulfur availability. While sulfur-oxidizing enzymes and transcriptional repressors have been extensively studied, sulfur import into the cytoplasm and how regulators sense external sulfur are poorly understood. Addressing this gap, we show that SoxT1A and SoxT1B, which resemble YeeE/YedE-family thiosulfate transporters and are encoded alongside sulfur oxidation and transcriptional regulation genes, fulfill these roles in the Alphaproteobacterium Hyphomicrobium denitrificans. SoxT1A mutants are sulfur oxidation-negative despite high transcription levels of sulfur oxidation genes, showing that SoxT1A delivers sulfur to the cytoplasm for its further oxidation. SoxT1B serves as a signal transduction unit for the transcriptional repressor SoxR, as SoxT1B mutants are sulfur oxidation-negative due to low transcription unless SoxR is also absent. Thus, SoxT1A and SoxT1B play essential but distinct roles in oxidative sulfur metabolism and its regulation.

Les régions oasiennes du Maroc sont confrontées à des changements continus liés à des facteurs comme la rareté de l’eau, les migrations et l’urbanisation, conditionnant la survie de ces espaces millénaires. Cependant, les activités des femmes et leurs contributions sociales et économiques face à ces changements sont peu prises en compte dans le monde académique et par les politiques publiques. La question qui se pose est en particulier de savoir comment les femmes vivent ces changements et de quelle manière elles y contribuent. Pour y répondre, nous nous appuyons sur une étude ethnographique menée entre 2019 et 2023 dans les oasis du sud-est du Maroc (vallées du Drâa et du Todgha). Les résultats soulignent le rôle continu joué par les femmes oasiennes dans la survie d’un espace confronté à la rareté de l’eau. Alors que leurs activités quotidiennes sont bouleversées, elles se lancent dans des activités économiques et sociales tout en cherchant à répondre à leurs aspirations, désirs et besoins. À travers de nouveaux services liés aux secteurs agricole et non agricole, comme les boutiques de beauté, les coopératives et les activités sportives, les femmes oasiennes renouvellent l’espace oasien et le diversifient. Chemin faisant, elles se forgent de nouvelles identités féminines comme commerçante, présidente, membre d’organisation collective, agricultrice, ou encore créatrice, qu’elles cherchent à combiner avec leur identité de mère, d’épouse, de fille, de femme rurale, en négociant les rapports sociaux genrés. Notre analyse permet de décentrer le rôle de l’agriculture dans les dynamiques rurales et de dévoiler d’autres tendances et domaines qui jouent un rôle tout aussi important dans le développement rural, mais elle illustre en même temps la fragilité de ces nouvelles activités et la difficulté de d’élaborer de nouvelles identités féminines rurales.

Control as a core self-evaluation is crucial for processes of action, learning, development, adaptation, and well-being. There is a high demand for short questionnaires suitable for panels, especially during times of crisis. However, one- or two-dimensional measures may obscure the complexity of this construct, particularly from a transcultural perspective. Krampen (1991) developed the German Inventory for Self-efficacy and Externality (I-SEE), comprising 32 items and four primary scales (self-concept of ability, internality, powerful others, and chance) within internal and external domains. This paper introduces and evaluates an abbreviated 12-item version. In two independent samples, the I-SEE-DE-12 demonstrated sufficient internal consistency, test–retest reliability, and adequate construct reliability. Information on convergent and discriminant validity is presented, confirming its correspondence with the longer version. The original factor structure was replicated up to the level of secondary factors. A single-factor model did not fit adequately in the German representative reference sample, further confirming the distinctiveness of four control aspects in two independent control belief domains. Implications for transcultural advancements of the measure and limitations of the current version are discussed.

Various research studies have been conducted on the topic of students’ conceptions of artificial intelligence (AI), but there is insufficient research into how these conceptions can be changed. In computer science education, there is a need to empirically research solutions or activities for conceptions that have already been discovered in order to make them usable in terms of educational reconstruction and integrate them into instruction. However, this is hardly ever done yet. Our work addresses this issue and can be transferred as a prototype study to other areas of conceptions research in computer science education. To this end, a teaching intervention was conducted with 10th and 11th grade secondary school students in Germany in order to measure the change in their agreement to specific conceptions with the help of pre- and post-tests. This study was conducted with N = 76 students who were divided into an experimental and control group. The results of the study show that conceptual change texts are a promising teaching method for expanding students’ conceptions of AI. This is indicated by the results of the post-test, in which students who worked with the conceptual change text were able to demonstrate greater agreement to the conception presented. However, the results of the study needs to be critically discussed in terms of validity and future perspectives.

Objectives Being affected by a natural disaster or helping victims can impact mental health. This study aimed to examine whether a digital mindfulness intervention positively affects self-compassion, life satisfaction, and positive affect, and alleviates negative affect, perceived stress, and pathological symptoms in victims and volunteers of the flood disaster in Germany in July 2021. Method Participants were 146 people affected by the flood (via house, n = 88; friends, n = 100; workplace, n = 54) and/or volunteered after the disaster (n = 86). After the randomized assignment, 74 received a 6-week application-based mindfulness intervention, and 72 were allocated to the wait-control condition. The control group received the same intervention 6 weeks later. Before (T1) and after (T2) the intervention of the first group and after the intervention of the control group (T3), participants filled out questionnaires regarding different aspects of mental health. Results We found significant interaction effects of time and intervention for all variables (self-compassion, life satisfaction, positive and negative affect, perceived stress, and pathological symptoms), indicating effectiveness of the digital mindfulness intervention. No deterioration were found between T2 and T3 in the intervention group for any of the variables. Conclusions The 6-week digital mindfulness program positively affected the mental health of both disaster victims and volunteers. Therefore, a digital mindfulness intervention could be a good alternative in situations where group programs or face-to-face meetings are infeasible.

Following Gert Schubring’s findings on the almost failed teacher’s exam of Karl Weierstraß and Schubring’s analysis of those events, we study the somewhat bumpy start of the academic career of Weierstaß further on. The main part of the present contribution analyzes mathematical contents of the first publication of Weierstraß, a treatise on analytic factorials which appeared in a school program. In connection with this, we will present clues pointing at a more ambitious aim connected with this research. But there are also indications that Weierstraß stung into a wasps’ nest of personal vanities with it.

Customization is a general trend in software engineering, demanding systems that support variable stakeholder requirements. Two opposing strategies are commonly used to create variants: software clone & own and software configuration with an integrated platform. Organizations often start with the former, which is cheap and agile, but does not scale. The latter scales by establishing an integrated platform that shares software assets between variants, but requires high up-front investments or risky migration processes. So, could we have a method that allows an easy transition or even combine the benefits of both strategies? We propose a method and tool that supports a truly incremental development of variant-rich systems, exploiting a spectrum between the opposing strategies. We design, formalize, and prototype a variability-management framework: the virtual platform. Virtual platform bridges clone & own and platform-oriented development. Relying on programming-language independent conceptual structures representing software assets, it offers operators for engineering and evolving a system, comprising: traditional, asset-oriented operators and novel, feature-oriented operators for incrementally adopting concepts of an integrated platform. The operators record meta-data that is exploited by other operators to support the transition. Among others, they eliminate expensive feature-location effort or the need to trace clones. A cost-and-benefit analysis of using the virtual platform to simulate the development of a real-world variant-rich system shows that it leads to benefits in terms of saved effort and time for clone detection and feature location. Furthermore, we present a user study indicating that the virtual platform effectively supports exploratory and hands-on tasks, outperforming manual development concerning correctness. We also observed that participants were significantly faster when performing typical variability management tasks using the virtual platform. Furthermore, participants perceived manual development to be significantly more difficult than using the virtual platform, preferring virtual platform for all our tasks. We supplement our findings with recommendations on when to use virtual platform and on incorporating the virtual platform in practice.

We point out potential drawbacks of some of Leising et al.’s (2022a) proposed ways how personality science can be improved. We argue that it is ill-advised to use only one measure for a concept. Also, we argue that researchers should not refrain from conducting a study when a high level of statistical power is precluded. Then, we go one step further and formulate additional ideas of how to improve research. Specifically, we argue that it is a good thing to use different methods rather than only one when attempting to generalize across these methods. Moreover, we argue for a more theory-driven strategy for specifying factor analytic models, and we emphasize that high-quality research is often interdisciplinary. Finally, we point to a particular risk associated with any formal reward system.

Listening comprehension is central to language learning, yet it remains the least understood and least researched skill. This statement is still relevant today, as there is insufficient research to explore listening comprehension from the perspective of family-related multilingualism and to consider the complete linguistic repertoire of multilingual speakers. Moreover, with regard to home language, listening comprehension is assumed to be a more developed language competence than reading or writing. Based on the mentioned research, the aim of the present study is to investigate listening comprehension and its influencing factors specifically in German-Russian simultaneous bilinguals aged 13–19 (n = 99) by considering the home- and majority language. The study uses quantitative data collection methods such as linguistic tests in Russian and German for the elicitation in different levels of listening and questionnaires for strategy use and background. The research questions are as follows: What does the language proficiency and input in Russian look like? (1) Regarding listening comprehension in Russian as a home language, are there differences between the speakers within comprehension on different levels, e.g., is sound decoding easier than sentence parsing? (2) If there are differences in Russian as a home language, which linguistic and background variables can correlate with the performance of listening comprehension on its different levels? Concerning the first research question, the results show relevant differences between four different levels of listening comprehension (phoneme, word, sentence, and text level), which strengthened the assumed complexity of listening comprehension in the home language. In addition, the results show different connections between the listening comprehension competence and the input from different family members, as well as exposure to film and television in the home and majority language.

Variation in coat color is a prominent feature in carnivores, thought to be shaped by environmental factors. As new traits could allow populations to occupy novel niches and habitats, color polymorphism may be maintained by balancing selection. Consequently, color polymorphic species may speciate more rapidly and can give rise to monomorphic daughter species. We thus predicted that, within the Carnivora, (i) speciation rate is higher in polymorphic lineages, (ii) divergence between color polymorphic lineages is more recent, and (iii) within closely related groups, polymorphic lineages are ancestral and monomorphic lineages derived. We also tested whether accelerated speciation rates relate to niche breadth, measured by the number of occupied habitats and range size. We collected data of 48 polymorphic and 192 monomorphic carnivore species, and assessed speciation rates using phylogenetic comparative methods. We found that polymorphic carnivores had higher speciation rates (λ1 = 0.29, SD = 0.13) than monomorphic species (λ0 = 0.053, SD = 0.044). Hidden and quantitative state speciation and extinction models inferred that color polymorphism was the main contributing factor, and that niche breadth was not of influence. Therefore, other selective forces than spatial niche segregation, such as predator-prey coevolution, may contribute to color polymorphism in wild carnivores.

The aim of the present study was to develop and validate the Immigration‐Related Political Ideology Scale (IRPIS), designed to measure diverse political perspectives on immigration among US voters. The IRPIS was developed following a series of focus groups and refined through a systematic item‐generation process involving expert panels. The scale was validated using a two‐step factor analysis with a nationally representative sample of 1292 US voters, divided into exploratory ( n = 632) and confirmatory ( n = 660) sub‐samples. The exploratory factor analysis identified seven distinct factors: conservative views, welcoming attitudes, world regions, flexibility, assimilationist expectations, multicultural expectations, and undocumented immigrant rights. Confirmatory factor analysis provided an acceptable fit (CFI = .901; RMSEA = .050), and the scale demonstrated high internal consistency (Cronbach's alphas ranging from .89 to .97). Inter‐factor correlations varied, with strong links observed among welcoming attitudes, flexibility, and multicultural expectations ( r ’s > .80), confirming a polarization between liberal and conservative stances on immigration. These findings suggest that the IRPIS is the first scale specifically designed to assess immigration‐related political orientations in a polarized US context. This tool has important implications for political strategy and policymaking, especially in the context of rising immigration rates and political polarization. Public Significance Statement The present study validates the Immigration‐Related Political Ideology Scale (IRPIS) using a nationally representative sample of 1292 US voters. Immigration remains a highly polarizing issue, with deeply entrenched ideological differences influencing policy preferences and public discourse. Exploratory factor analysis identified seven distinct factors and confirmed a clear polarization between liberal and conservative views on immigration. The IRPIS represents a critical tool for research, political strategy, and policymaking.

Despite various developments in the application of quantitative nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (qNMR) on microplastic within recent years, the method still lacks a suitable sample preparation and fractioning procedure. As...