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“Protection of the environment“ and “sustainability“ are more significant than ever. The legal system contributes an important share to the protection of the environment. However, an overview of the German private environmental liability law shows that conventional tort law is not a suitable basis for civil liability for the environmental consequences of officially approved emissions of greenhouse gases. In general, one of the main problems of private environmental liability law lies in proving the individual causality of the conduct of an emitter, as the lawsuit of a Peruvian homeowner against a German energy company pending before the Higher Regional Court of Hamm illustratively demonstrates. The outcome of this lawsuit, which may have an outstanding significance for the status and development of private environmental liability law in Germany, is awaited with great anticipation. The article also briefly examines recent developments in private environmental liability law outside Germany and the question to what extent insurance can be an instrument to protect the environment.
This paper analyses disclosure duties in insurance contract law in Germany on the basis of questions developed in preparation of the World Congress of the International Insurance Law Association (AIDA) 2018. As risk factors are within the policyholder’s sphere of knowledge, the insurer naturally depends on gaining such knowledge from its policyholder in order to calculate and evaluate premium and risk. Legal approaches as to how the insurer may obtain relevant information and the legal consequences differ in national insurance contract laws around the globe. Taking part in this legal comparison, the paper describes the key elements of such a mechanism from a German perspective and comprises both duties of the policyholder and duties of the insurer.
As for the policyholder, these issues are differences between a duty to (spontaneously) disclose and a duty not to misrepresent as a reaction to questions of the insurer, the prerequisites and remedies of such duty, the subjective standard of the disclosure duty and a duty to notify material changes during the contract term. On the other hand, the paper also addresses an insurer’s duty to investigate, a duty to ascertain the policyholder’s understanding of the policy and a duty to inform during the contract term or after the occurrence of an insured event. In doing so, the paper offers a comprehensive and critical overview on the transfer of knowledge in the insurance (pre-)contractual relationship.
On eight species of the spider genus Synagelides Strand, 1906 from China (Araneae: Salticidae)
(2020)
Six new species of Synagelides Strand, 1906 are diagnosed and described: S. bohdanowiczi sp. nov. (♂♀), S. leigongensis sp. nov. (♂♀), S. logunovi sp. nov. (♂♀), S. subgambosus sp. nov. (♂♀), S. wuliangensis sp. nov. (♂♀) and S. xingdouensis sp. nov. (♂♀). The female of S. forkiforma Yang, Zhu & Song, 2007 and the male of S. longus Song & Chai, 1992 are described for the first time. Photos of the habitus and copulatory organs, as well as a distributional map, are provided.
Five new species of Meta Koch, 1836 (Araneae: Tetragnathidae) from Gaoligong Mountains, China
(2020)
Five new species of the genus Meta C.L. Koch, 1836 from the Gongligong Mountains, Yunnan are described: Meta hamata sp. nov. (♂♀), M. longlingensis sp. nov. (♂), M. tangi sp. nov. (♂♀), M. yani sp. nov. (♂♀) and M. yinae sp. nov. (♂♀). Detailed descriptions of somatic features and genitalic characters, photos of the body and genital organs, line drawings of the copulatory organs and distribution maps are provided.
Synaptic plasticity is the activity dependent alteration of the composition, form and strength of synapses and believed to be the underlying mechanism of learning and memory formation. While initial changes in synaptic transmission are caused by second messenger signaling pathways and rapid modifications in the cytoskeleton, to achieve stable and persistent changes at individual synapses, the expression of new mRNAs and proteins is required. The central dogma postulated that the cell body is the only source of newly synthesized proteins. For neurons, with their unique morphology, this meant that proteins would need be transported long distances, often hundreds of microns, to reach their destined locations in dendrites and at spines. To overcome this limitation, neurons have developed a strategy to regulate protein synthesis locally by distributing thousands of mRNAs into neuronal processes and use them for local protein synthesis. Ample research has demonstrated the importance of local protein synthesis to many forms of long-term synaptic plasticity. One potential regulator of mRNA localization and local translation in neurons are non-coding RNAs. Intensive work over the past decades has highlighted the importance of non-coding RNAs in many aspects of brain function. The aim of this thesis is to obtain a better understanding of the role of non-coding RNAs in synaptic function and plasticity in the murine hippocampus. For this, we focused our studies on two classes of non-coding RNAs.
In the first part of my thesis, I describe our efforts on characterizing circular RNAs, a novel and peculiar family of non-coding RNAs, in the murine hippocampus by combining high throughput RNA-Sequencing with fluorescence in situ hybridization. Furthermore, we investigated the mechanisms of circular RNA biogenesis in hippocampal neurons by temporarily inhibiting spliceosome activity and analyzing the differentially regulated circular RNAs.
A list of authors and their affiliations appears at the end of the paper New-particle formation is a major contributor to urban smog, but how it occurs in cities is often puzzling. If the growth rates of urban particles are similar to those found in cleaner environments (1–10 nanometres per hour), then existing understanding suggests that new urban particles should be rapidly scavenged by the high concentration of pre-existing particles. Here we show, through experiments performed under atmospheric conditions in the CLOUD chamber at CERN, that below about +5 degrees Celsius, nitric acid and ammonia vapours can condense onto freshly nucleated particles as small as a few nanometres in diameter. Moreover, when it is cold enough (below −15 degrees Celsius), nitric acid and ammonia can nucleate directly through an acid–base stabilization mechanism to form ammonium nitrate particles. Given that these vapours are often one thousand times more abundant than sulfuric acid, the resulting particle growth rates can be extremely high, reaching well above 100 nanometres per hour. However, these high growth rates require the gas-particle ammonium nitrate system to be out of equilibrium in order to sustain gas-phase supersaturations. In view of the strong temperature dependence that we measure for the gas-phase supersaturations, we expect such transient conditions to occur in inhomogeneous urban settings, especially in wintertime, driven by vertical mixing and by strong local sources such as traffic. Even though rapid growth from nitric acid and ammonia condensation may last for only a few minutes, it is nonetheless fast enough to shepherd freshly nucleated particles through the smallest size range where they are most vulnerable to scavenging loss, thus greatly increasing their survival probability. We also expect nitric acid and ammonia nucleation and rapid growth to be important in the relatively clean and cold upper free troposphere, where ammonia can be convected from the continental boundary layer and nitric acid is abundant from electrical storms.
This article reports an investigation of how inhibition contributes to fluid reasoning when it is decomposed into the reasoning ability, item-position, and speed components to control for possible method effects. Working memory was also taken into consideration. A sample of 223 university students completed a fluid reasoning scale, two tasks tapping prepotent response inhibition, and two working memory tasks. Fixed-links modeling was used to separate the effect of reasoning ability from the effects of item-position and speed. The goodness-of-fit results confirmed the necessity to consider the reasoning ability, item-position, and speed components simultaneously. Prepotent response inhibition was only associated with reasoning ability. This association disappeared when working memory served as a mediator. Taken together, these results reflect the inhomogeneity of what is tapped by the fluid reasoning scale on one hand and, on the other, suggest inhibition as an important component of working memory.
All extant species of the planthopper genus Limois Stål (Hemiptera: Fulgoromorpha: Fulgoridae) were studied. One new species, Limois sordida sp. nov., is described and illustrated from China. Six known species are re-described and photos and illustrations of male genitalia are provided. A key to all extant species of this genus is also given.
One individual referable to Calliopiidae G.O. Sars, 1893 was collected from a chemically reduced habitat, the hydrothermal vent systems in Okinawa Trough, and was identified as a new genus and species belonging to this family after a morphological examination. A formal description of this new species and a discussion of the relationship of the new genus within Calliopiidae are presented.
New species of Trachyderini from Mexico and Central America (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae: Cerambycinae)
(2020)
Three new trachyderine species in the subtribe Trachyderina (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae: Cerambycinae: Trachyderini) are described: Entomosterna kovariki Wappes and Santos-Silva, new species, from Belize; Gortonia sumideroensis Wappes and Santos-Silva, new species, from Mexico (Chiapas); and Sphaenothecus vandenberghei Wappes and Santos-Silva, new species, from Nicaragua. A new key to Entomosterna species, and a previous Sphaenothecus key by Chemsak and Noguera (1998) is modified to include the new species, with both provided herein.
Five new species and one new genus in Neotropical Lamiinae (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae) are de-scribed: Cotycicuiara lingafelteri Wappes and Santos-Silva, from Panama (Acanthoderini); Nesozineus morrisi Wappes and Santos-Silva, from Bolivia (Acanthoderini); Trichoanoreina panamensis Wappes and Santos-Silva, from Panama (Acanthoderini); Callisema skillmani Wappes and Santos-Silva, from Bolivia (Calliini); Rileyellus panamensis Wappes and Santos-Silva, new genus and species, from Panama (Desmiphorini). Callia pulchra Melzer, 1930 is placed in synonymy with Callia axillaris (Dalman, 1823).
The following new species of Eupogonius LeConte, 1852 (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae: Lamiinae) are described: E. tlanchinolensis Wappes and Santos-Silva (Mexico, Hidalgo); E. albofasciatus Wappes and Santos- Silva (Mexico, Puebla); E. sonorensis Wappes and Santos-Silva (Mexico, Sonora); E. guerrerensis Wappes and Santos-Silva (Mexico, Guerrero); E. boteroi Wappes and Santos-Silva (Mexico, Guerrero); E. nascimentoi Wappes and Santo-Silva (Mexico, Jalisco and Colima); and E. monzoni Wappes and Santos-Silva (Guatemala, Alta Verapaz). Additionally, a detailed description of the female of Eupogonius fulvovestitus Schaeffer, 1905 is provided for the first time, along with notes on the likely host of the species. New state records in Mexico are provided for Eupogonius comus Bates, 1885, and E. stellatus Chemsak and Noguera, 1995. Other taxonomic or nomenclatural actions included herein are: Eupogonius knabi Fisher, 1925 is transferred to Atelodesmis Chevrolat, 1841, new combination; the gender of the species-group name in Eupogonius azteca Martins, Santos-Silva and Galileo, 2015 is commented on; notes on the geographical distribution of Eupogonius affinis Breuning, 1942, and the problematic morphology of E. infimus (Thomson, 1868) are presented; Eupogonius subaeneus Bates, 1872, and E. marmoratus Fisher, 1925 are revalidated, and E. columbianus Breuning, 1942 is a new synonym of E. subaeneus”.
Cyrtinus pygmaeus (Haldeman, 1847) (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae: Lamiinae) is redescribed and newly recorded from Mexico. The female of Decarthria stephensii Hope, 1834 is also redescribed, the number of specimens in the type series is corrected, as is the depository of the types, and the species is newly recorded from Dominica. Two new species of Cyrtinus LeConte, 1852 are described from Mexico: C. fisheri Wappes, Santos-Silva and Nascimento; and C. howdeni Wappes, Santos-Silva and Nascimento. A key to species of Decarthria Hope, 1834 (adapted from an earlier key to Cyrtinini) is provided.
Background: Data on Candida bloodstream infections in pediatric patients in Europe are limited. We performed a retrospective multicenter European study of the epidemiology and outcome of neonatal and pediatric candidemia.
Material and Methods: All first positive blood cultures from patients ≤ 18 years of age with candidemia were registered. Patients’ demographic and clinical characteristics and causative Candida species were collected and analyzed. Regression analysis was used to identify factors independently associated with mortality.
Results: One thousand three hundred ninety-five episodes of candidemia (57.8% male) were reported from 23 hospitals in 10 European countries. Of the 1395 episodes, 36.4% occurred in neonates (≤ 44 weeks postmenstrual age), 13.8% in infants (> 44 weeks postmenstrual age to 1 year) and 49.8% in children and adolescents. Candida albicans (52.5%) and Candida parapsilosis (28%) were the predominant species. A higher proportion of candidemia caused by C. albicans was observed among neonatal patients (60.2%) with highest rates of C. parapsilosis seen among infants (42%). Children admitted to hematology-oncology wards presented the highest rates of non-albicans Candida species. Candidemia because of C. albicans was more frequent than non-albicans Candida in Northern versus Southern Europe (odds ratio, 2.3; 95% confidence interval, 1.8–2.9; P < 0.001). The all-cause mortality at 30 days was 14.4%. All-cause mortality was higher among patients admitted to the neonatal or pediatric intensive care units than other wards. Over time, no significant changes in species distribution were observed.
Conclusions: This first multicenter European study shows unique characteristics of the epidemiology of pediatric candidemia. The insights obtained from this study will be useful to guide clinical management and antifungal stewardship.
French suffixations in -age, -ion and -ment are considered roughly equivalent, yet some differences have been pointed out regarding the semantics of the resulting nominalizations. In this study, we confirm the existence of a semantic distinction between them on the basis of a large scale distributional analysis. We show that the distinction is partially determined by the degree of technicality of the denoted action: -age nominals tend to be more technical than -ion ones. We examine this hypothesis through the statistical modeling of technicality. To this end, we propose a linguistic definition of technicality, which we implement using empirical, quantitative criteria estimated in corpora and lexical resources. We show to what extent the differences with respect to these criteria adequately approximate technicality. Our study indicates that this definition of technicality, while amendable, provides new perspectives for the characterization of action nouns.
Human-induced changes in the environment have increased the number of stressors impacting aquatic organism. In the light of climate change and plastic pollution, thermal stress and microplastics (MP) have become two of the most intensively studied stressors in aquatic ecosystems. Previous studies, however, mostly evaluated the impacts of thermal and MP stress in isolation, thereby neglecting joint effects.
To examine the combined effects of both, we exposed the freshwater mussel Dreissena polymorpha to irregular polystyrene MP (6.4, 160, 4000, 100,000 p mL−1) at either 14, 23 or 27 °C for 14 days and analyzed mortality, mussel activity and clearance rate, energy reserves, oxidative stress and the immunological state. Further, we exposed the mussels to diatomite (natural particle equivalent, 100,000 p mL−1) at each of the three water temperatures to compare MP and natural particle toxicity.
An increase in water temperature has a pronounced effect on D. polymorpha and significantly affects the activity, energy reserves, oxidative stress and immune function. In contrast, the effects by MP are limited to a change in the antioxidative capacity without any interactive effects between MP and thermal exposure. The comparison of the MP with a diatomite exposure revealed only limited influence of the particle type on the response of D. polymorpha to high concentrations of suspended particles.
The results indicate that MPs have minor effects on a freshwater mussel compared to thermal stress, neither alone nor as interactive effect. Limited MP toxicity could be based on adaptation mechanism of dreissenids to suspended solids. Nonetheless, MP may contribute to environmental impacts of multiple anthropogenic stressors, especially if their levels increase in the future. Therefore, we suggest integrating MP into the broader context of multiple stressor studies to understand and assess their joint impacts on freshwater ecosystems.
The interaction of microplastics with freshwater biota and their interaction with other stressors is still not very well understood. Therefore, we investigated the ingestion, excretion and toxicity of microplastics in the freshwater gastropod Lymnaea stagnalis.
MP ingestion was analyzed as tissues levels in L. stagnalis after 6–96 h of exposure to 5–90 μm spherical polystyrene (PS) microplastics. To understand the excretion, tissue levels were determined after 24 h of exposure followed by a 12 h–7 d depuration period. To assess the toxicity, snails were exposed for 28 d to irregular PS microplastics (<63 μm, 6.4–100,000 particles mL−1), both alone and in combination with copper as additional stressor. To compare the toxicity of natural and synthetic particles, we also included diatomite particles. Microplastics ingestion and excretion significantly depended on the particle size and the exposure/depuration duration. An exposure to irregular PS had no effect on survival, reproduction, energy reserves and oxidative stress. However, we observed slight effects on immune cell phagocytosis. Exposure to microplastics did not exacerbate the reproductive toxicity of copper. In addition, there was no pronounced difference between the effects of microplastics and diatomite. The tolerance towards microplastics may originate from an adaptation of L. stagnalis to particle-rich environments or a general stress resilience. In conclusion, despite high uptake rates, PS fragments do not appear to be a relevant stressor for stress tolerant freshwater gastropods considering current environmental levels of microplastics.
Background and purpose: The aim of the study was to determine the effects of post-traumatically released High Mobility Group Box-1 protein (HMGB1) and extracellular histones on cardiomyocytes (CM). We also evaluated a therapeutic option to capture circulating histones after trauma, using a hemadsorption filter to treat CM dysfunction. Experimental Approach: We evaluated cell viability, calcium handling and mitochondrial respiration of human cardiomyocytes in the presence of HMGB-1 and extracellular histones. In a translational approach, a hemadsorption filter was applied to either directly eliminate extracellular histones or to remove them from blood samples obtained from multiple injured patients. Key results: Incubation of human CM with HMGB-1 or histones is associated with changes in calcium handling, a reduction of cell viability and a substantial reduction of the mitochondrial respiratory capacity. Filtrating plasma from injured patients with a hemadsorption filter reduces histone concentration ex vivo and in vitro, depending on dosage. Conclusion and implications: Danger associated molecular patterns such as HMGB-1 and extracellular histones impair human CM in vitro. A hemadsorption filter could be a therapeutic option to reduce high concentrations of histones.