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The genus Paragymnopleurus Shipp, 1897 (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Scarabaeinae: Gymnopleurini) is characterized and its constituent taxa are keyed and illustrated. Twelve species and five subspecies are deemed valid, and five species groups are recognized. Three new synonymies include: Paragymnopleurus stipes japonicus Balthasar is synonymized with P. ambiguus Janssens, and P. maurus malayanus Ochi and Kon and P. maurus pauliani Janssens are synonymized with the nominotypical subspecies. First country and provincial records are reported for P. brahminus (Waterhouse), P. maurus (Sharp) and P. sinuatus szechouanicus Balthasar. A lectotype is here designated for Gymnopleurus singularis Waterhouse, validating an unpublished designation. A checklist of valid species and synonyms is provided.
A summary of the milliped faunas of Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Kashmir (Arthropoda: Diplopoda)
(2014)
Three female callipodidan samples from northern Pakistan are assigned to Bollmania kohalana (Attems, 1936) (Caspiopetalidae), the only ordinal representative documented from the country; a new record of Kaschmiriosoma loebli Jeekel, 2003 (Polydesmida: Paradoxosomatidae), is also provided. Localities are summarized for the 14 Pakistani, 6 Kashmirian, and 5 Bangladeshi diplopods. The last include one unidentifi able female of Zephronia Gray, 1832 (Sphaerotheriida: Zephroniidae), and two adventive species, Trachyjulus calvus (Pocock, 1893) (Spirostreptida: Cambalopsidae) and Asiomorpha coarctata (Saussure, 1860) (Polydesmida: Paradoxosomatidae); all constitute new country records. Two obscurely documented Bangladeshi diplopods are Gonoplectus cautus (Attems, 1936) (Spirostreptida: Harpagophoridae), and Trichopeltis watsoni Pocock, 1895 (Polydesmida: Cryptodesmidae). The Pakistani polydesmidan, Quasidesmus puschtun Golovatch, 1991, is transferred from Pyrgodesmidae to Cryptodesmidae.
The present work deals with the integration of variable renewable energy sources, wind and solar energy into the European and US power grid. In contrast to other networks, such as the gas supply mains, the electricity network is practically not able to store energy. Generation and consumption therefore always have tobe balanced. Currently, the load curve is viewed as a rigid boundary condition, which must be followed by the generation system. The basic idea of the approach followed here is that weather-dependent generation causes a shift of focus of the electricity supply. At high shares of wind and solar generation, the role of the rigid boundary condition falls to the residual load, that is, the remaining load after subtraction of renewable generation. The goal is to include the weather dependence as well as the load curve in the design of the future electricity supply.
After a brief introduction, the present work first turns to the underlying weather-, generation and load data, which form the starting point of the analysis. In addition, some basic concepts of energy economics are discussed, which are needed in the following.
In the main part of the thesis, several algorithms are developed to determine the load flow in a network with a high share of wind and solar energy and to determine the backup supply needed at the same time. Minimization of the energy needed from controllable power plants, the capacity variable power plants, and the capacity of storing serve as guiding principles. In addition, the optimization problem of grid extensions is considered. It is shown that it can be formulated as a convex optimization problem. It turns out that with an optimized, international transmission network which is about four times the currently available transmission capacity, much of the potential savings in backup energy (about 40%) in Europe can be reached. In contrast, a twelvefold increase the transmission capacity would be necessary for a complete implementation of all possible savings in dispatchable power plants.
The reduction of the dispatchable generation capacity and storage capacity, however, presents a greater challenge. Due to correlations in the generation of time series of individual countries, it may be reduced only with difficulty, and by only about 30%.
In the following, the influence of the relative share of wind and solar energy is illuminated and examined the interplay with the line capacitance. A stronger transmission network tends to lead to a higher proportion of wind energy being better integrated. With increasing line capacity, the optimal mix in Europe therefore shifts from about 70% to 80% wind. Similar analyses are carried out for the US with comparable results.
In addition, the cost of the overall system can be reduced. It is interesting at this point that the advantages for the network integration may outweigh higher production costs of individual technologies, so that it is more favourable from the viewpoint of the entire system to use the more expensive technologies.
Finally, attention is given to the flexibility of the dispatchable power plants. Starting from a Fourier-like decomposition of the load curve as it was a few years ago, when hardly renewable generation capacity was present, capacities of different flexibility classes of dispatchable power plant are calculated. For this purpose, it is assumed that the power plant park is able to follow the load curve without significant surplusses or deficits. From this examination, it is derived what capacity must at least be available without having to resort to a detailed database of existing power plants.
Assuming a strong European cooperation, with a stronger international transmission network, the dispatchable power capacity can be significantly reduced while maintaining security of supply and generating relatively small surplusses in dispatchable power plants.
Carinostoma elegans new to the Slovakian harvestmen fauna (Opiliones, Dyspnoi, Nemastomatidae)
(2014)
A new genus and species of small harvestman was found for the first time in Slovakia – Carinostoma elegans (Sorensen, 1894). One male and two females were collected in the Mlyňany arboretum of the Slovak Academy of Science (western Slovakia). Descriptions and photographs of both sexes of C. elegans are provided. Additional comments, and a map of distribution of all species of this genus, are provided.
For faunistic research on a certain animal group, knowledge of the situation in surrounding countries is a necessity. The presence of certain species in neighbouring regions, together with notes on their distribution and trends, offers valuable information for the interpretation of the status of these species in one’s own study area. Changes in the national fauna – e.g. the discovery of a new species – can often better be explained when integrating information on the status of species in nearby countries. Distribution atlases are therefore not only valuable publications for the country of concern, but also for other countries in the same region.
Sauron rayi (Simon, 1881) is recorded in Austria for the first time. Male and female specimens of this rare European spider were found in two “Austrian pine forests” in Lower Austria. Data on distribution, habitat, phenology and Red List status from the Austrian localities and from published records in other countries are presented.
Examination of the type material of the forgotten species Liocranum ochraceum Simon, 1867 reveals this species has to be transferred to the genus Anagraphis comb. nov. and that Anagraphis pallida (Hadjissarantos, 1940) is its junior synonym (syn. nov.). Furthermore, the monotypic genus Macedoniella Drensky, 1935 is a junior synonym of Anagraphis and M. karamani a junior synonym of Anagraphis ochraceum (L. Koch, 1867) (syn. nov.).
A survey of spiders of the genus Scytodes Latreille, 1804 in Iran resulted in six species occurring in this country: Scytodes fusca Walckenaer, 1837, S. strandi Spassky, 1941, S. thoracica (Latreille, 1802), S. univittata Simon, 1882 and – recorded for the first time – S. arwa Rheims, Brescovit & van Harten, 2006 and S. makeda Rheims, Brescovit & van Harten, 2006. Illustrations of the newly recorded species and a key to all known Iranian species are presented.
Carniella brignolii Thaler & Steinberger, 1988 was first described based on a male from Austria and still belongs to the rare, scarcely studied species. Based on material from Germany and Switzerland the hitherto unknown female now can be assigned and presented. In this context a new synonymy is also proposed: The cave-dwelling, troglomorphic C. mihaili (Georgescu, 1989) from Romania, originally established as new genus Marianana, is synonymised with C. brignolii.
The spitting spider Scytodes fusca Walckenaer, 1837 is recorded for the first time in Central Europe from both Germany and Slovakia. The species was found in two localities, within the Botanical Garden in Bratislava (Slovakia), specifically from a heated greenhouse with high humidity, and the "Tropical Islands", a tropical holiday resort in Krausnick (Germany). It seems that this Pantropical species has probably been introduced here along with imported plants. A description of diagnostic characters, as well as figures, is given.
An annotated catalogue of the rare mesothele spiders (Araneae: Mesothelae: Liphistiidae) held in the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin is presented. The museum hosts non-type specimens of nine species representing all three currently recognised genera, namely: Liphistius desultor Schiödte, 1849, L. malayanus cameroni Haupt, 1983, L. cf. thaleban Schwendinger, 1990, Heptathela kikuyai Ono, 1998, H. kimurai (Kishida, 1920), H. yanbaruensis Haupt, 1983, Ryuthela ishigakiensis Haupt, 1983, R. nishihirai (Haupt, 1979) and R. tanikawai Ono, 1997 (spec. reval.). The geographical focus of this collection is Malaysia and Japan, and most of the material was collected by the Berlin-based zoologist Joachim Haupt.
Silometopus ambiguus (O. Pickard-Cambridge, 1905) is a species occurring in coastal habitats from northeastern to western Europe. S. curtus (Simon, 1881), occurring in southern France and north-eastern Spain, was for a long time mixed up with S. ambiguus, even though corrections have been published very early and several times. This contribution summarizes publications on this topic, discusses doubtful records of both species and proposes corrections for the World Spider Catalog; and thus tries to avoid repetitions of the mistake in the future.
The African species Cheiracanthium furculatum Karsch, 1879 was recognised as being introduced to Germany and is re-described and illustrated in the present study. C. tenuipes Roewer, 1961 is recognised as a junior synonym of C. africanum Lessert, 1921 (new synonymy); both subspecies of C. strasseni Strand, 1915, namely C. strasseni strasseni Strand, 1915 and C. strasseni aharonii Strand, 1915, are recognised as junior synonyms of C. mildei L. Koch, 1864 (new synonymies). Photographic images of the copulatory organs of the types of C. cretense Roewer, 1928, recently synonymised with C. mildei, are provided and discussed in the course of intraspecific variation in C. mildei. The female holotype of C. rehobothense Strand, 1915 is re-described and illustrated. Relations of C. rehobothense to other Cheiracanthium species are discussed.
Desertification is a major problem in Sudano-sahelian West Africa, including the loss of biodiversity and vegetation cover. The loss of related ecosystem services is having a severe impact on human wellbeing. To facilitate assessments of these aspects of desertification, we decided to find plant species suitable as indicators. Based on a large database of vegetation plot data for Burkina Faso, we identified species associated with high or low levels of species richness and vegetation cover by calculating average values of these measures from vegetation plots on which they occur. To account for the differences between the dry Sahel and the more humid Sudan, we separated the plots of our study area in three vegetation zones (Sahel, North Sudan, South Sudan). Furthermore, herbs and woody plants were analysed separately, as they were usually represented in different plot sizes in the primary data. For each combination of species richness or vegetation cover, vegetation zone and growth form we identified ten species indicating low and another ten species indicating high values and assigned indicator values based on the average values of these species in the relevés.
Knowledge about useful plants and their various applications in West Africa is scattered over many publications and often in form of grey literature difficult to access. Several online-databases compile large scale information from these sources and provide comprehensive summarized descriptions of plant usages. Our aim is to additionally build up a database (UseDa) for primary ethnobotanical interview data. Thus, quantitative data can be extracted and synthesized and data sets can be treated according to different research questions analyzing for example uses in specific areas, of different ethnic groups or user groups, which is essential for practical applications on a local level. In this article we give an overview on the technical structure and the content of the database and discuss at the end the possible output for practical application. The database was set up in the frame of the EU-funded Project UNDESERT.
Dynamics of juvenile woody plant communities on termite mounds in a West African savanna landscape
(2014)
Termites are keystone species in savanna ecology, and their mounds are thought to be an important source of habitat heterogeneity and structural complexity of the savanna. Macrotermes termitaria have been shown to allow woody plant colonisation of landscapes otherwise dominated by C4 grasses. In this study, we assess how resource-rich Macrotermes mounds affect juvenile woody plant and non-woody plant species diversity, community composition, biomass and population dynamics. We repeatedly sampled paired termite mound and savanna plots in Pendjari National Park (Sudanian vegetation zone, North Benin, West Africa) over the course of two years. Despite considerable overlap in their species pools, plant communities of mound and savanna plots were clearly separated in ordinations. Species richness and diversity of juvenile woody plants was consistently higher on termite mounds, while no differences could be detected for non-woody plants. Evenness of juvenile woody plants was generally lower on mounds, whereas density and basal area were higher on mounds. In contrast, we did not detect any influence of the mound microhabitat on colonisation, mortality and turnover of woody juveniles. Therefore, we suggest that differences in the communities on and off mounds should be strongly influenced by directed diaspore dispersal through zoochory.
The Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) is a mosquito-transmitted alphavirus that causes high fever, rash, and recurrent arthritis in humans. The majority of symptoms disappear after about one week. However, arthritis can last for months or even years (in about 30% of cases), which makes people unable to work during this period. The virus is endemic in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Indian Ocean islands, India, and Southeast Asia. It has additionally caused several large outbreaks in the last few years, affecting millions of people. The mortality rate is very low (0.1%), but the infection rates are high (sometimes 30%) and the number of asymptomatic cases is rare (about 15%). The first CHIKV outbreak in a country with a moderate climate was detected in Italy in 2007. Furthermore, the virus has spread to the Caribbean in late 2013. Due to climate change, globalization, and vector switching, the virus will most likely continue to cause new worldwide outbreaks. Additionally, more temperate regions of the world like Europe or the USA, which have recently reported their first cases, will likely become targets. Alarmingly, there is no specific treatment or vaccination against CHIKV available so far.
The cell entry process of CHIKV is also not understood in detail, and was thusly the focus of study for this project. The E2 envelope protein is responsible for cell attachment and entry. It consists of the domain C, located close to the viral membrane, domain A, in the center of the protein, and domain B, at the distal end, prominently exposed on the viral surface.
In this work, the important role of cell surface glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) for CHIKV cell attachment was uncovered. GAGs consist of long linear chains of heavily sulfated disaccharide units and can be covalently linked to membrane associated proteins. They play an important role in different cell signaling pathways. So far, solely cell culture passage has revealed an increased GAG-dependency of CHIKV due to mutations in E2 domain A, which was associated with virus attenuation in vivo. However, in this work it could be shown that cell surface GAGs promote CHIKV entry using non-cell culture adapted CHIKV envelope (Env) proteins. Transduction and infection of cell surface GAG-deficient pgsA-745 cells with CHIKV Env pseudotyped vector particles (VPs) and with wild-type CHIKV revealed decreased transduction and replication rates. Furthermore, cell entry and transduction rates of GAG-containing cells were also dose-dependently decreased in the presence of soluble GAGs. In contrast, transduction of pgsA-745 cells with CHIKV Env pseudotyped VPs was enhanced by the addition of soluble GAGs. This data suggests a mechanism by which GAGs activate CHIKV particles for subsequent binding to a cellular receptor. However, at least one GAG-independent entry pathway might exist, as CHIKV entry could not be totally inhibited by soluble GAGs and entry into pgsA-745 was, albeit at a lower rate, still possible. Further binding experiments using recombinant CHIKV E2 domains A, B, and C suggest that domain B is responsible for the GAG binding, domain A possibly for receptor binding, and domain C is not involved in cell binding. These results are in line with the geometry of CHIKV Env on the viral surface. They altogether reveal that GAG binding promotes viral cell entry and that the E2 domain B plays a central role for this mechanism.
As no vaccine against CHIKV has been approved so far, another goal of this project was to test new vaccination approaches. It has been published that a single linear epitope of E2 is the target of the majority of early neutralizing antibodies against CHIKV in patients. Artificial E2-derived proteins were created, expressed in E.coli, and successfully purified. They consisted of 5 repeats of the mentioned linear epitope (L), the surface exposed regions of domain A linked by glycine-serine linkers (sA), the whole domain B plus a part of the β-ribbon connector (B+), or a combination of these 3 modules. Vaccination experiments revealed that B+ was necessary and sufficient to induce a neutralizing immune response in mice, with the protein sAB+ yielding the best results. sAB+, as a protein vaccine, efficiently and significantly reduced viral titers in mice upon CHIKV challenge, which was not the case for recombinant Modified Vaccinia virus Ankara (MVA; MVA-CHIKV-sAB+), as a vaccine platform expressing the same protein. These experiments show that a small rationally designed CHIKV Env derived protein might, after optimization of some vaccination parameters, be sufficient as a safe, easy-to-produce, and cheap CHIKV vaccine.
Epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG) is a catechin found in green tea and was, in this work, found to inhibit the CHIKV life cycle at the entry state in in vitro experiments using CHIKV Env VPs and wild-type virus. EGCG was recently published to inhibit attachment of several viruses to cell surface GAGs, which is in line with the role for GAGs in CHIKV entry revealed in this work. EGCG might serve as a lead compound for the development of a small molecule treatment against CHIKV.