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This chapter is a journey of thought exploring decolonial critique as a situated practice while thinking through exilic consciousness and its constitutive conditions. I begin by reflecting on decolonialities to gesture toward varied forms of decolonial projects that need to be situated, given that each location generates different sets of questions/problems that demand different answers. In this way, I reconfigure the exilic condition, and the space of displacement in general, as a plurilingual space that unsettles various colonial forms of epistemic monolingualism predicated on the selfsufficiency of thought. To this end, I reflect on the potentiality of exilic consciousness to generate decolonial critique when thinking from/about the Global South. Finally, this chapter demonstrates the significance of acknowledging the diverse locations and trajectories of decolonial critique and the plurality of thought embedded within the exilic intellectual formation that can potentially undo colonial forms of knowledge-making and being in the world.
In this reflection piece, I look at the feminist artistic landscape emerging in Berlin with its growing, diverse migrant community. I examine the ways in which women* artists challenge the imposed notions of their migrant status in the city and their states of belonging within it. I demonstrate this through two feminist initiatives I have been involved in that aim to amplify the voices of women* artists whose creative practices disrupt carefully constructed frameworks relating to borders of inclusion and exclusion. I argue that the artistic practices of women* in these networks are killjoy because they unapologetically get in the way, dismantling carefully constructed frameworks that delineate borders of inclusion and exclusion. By reflecting on homemaking practices in exile, I exemplify how feminisms from the global south decentralize claims to truth by taking the means of production into their own hands. By framing the chapter around the recent protests in Berlin unfolding in solidarity with the feminist revolution in Iran, I reveal the possible limits of such actions when they do not embrace intersectionality. Ultimately, I propose to invest in feminist artistic practices that destabilize exclusionary politics by creating visibility and bridging theory and practice.
The ICH M13A draft bioequivalence guideline allows the exclusion of very low plasma profiles from the statistical evaluation in exceptional cases, i.e., if such phenomenon occurs due to non-compliance of subjects (not swallowing the product). Moreover, the draft ICH guideline requests additional bioequivalence studies for medicinal products with pH-dependent solubility after concomitant administration of gastric pH modifying preparations, e.g., proton pump inhibitors. Both regulations are scientifically sound, however, would need further specification. Main problem in this context is that compounds with very low solubility and slow intrinsic dissolution in the intestinal environment will cause significant bioavailability problems if their solid oral dosage forms are emptied from the stomach undisintegrated. Also very low plasma profiles may result under these circumstances. Such cases can occur accidentally and are not resultant of non-compliance. Thus, limitation for one case per study only as suggested in the guideline is not justified.
Virtual currencies have gained popularity as part of the digital transformation of the financial system. In particular stablecoins are becoming increasingly popular with consumers. The tokens, which are pegged to a value and - according to their name - promise price stability, pose significant risks from which consumers need to be protected. This article focuses first on consumerspecific risks (B.) and German consumer protection law and in particular on the applicability of a right of withdrawal from the acquisition of stablecoins (C.). Subsequently, the EU legislator’s effort to minimize price stability as well as transparency and exchangeability risks, the Markets in Crypto-assets Regulation (2023/1114), is examined in terms of its consumer protection instruments (D.).
Mit dem am 22. September 2021 neu in Kraft getretenen § 126a StGB, der nun explizit das Anlegen von Feindeslisten unter Strafe stellt, sollen Menschen (noch) besser gegen Hass und Hetze im Internet geschützt werden. So legitim diese Intention auch ist, drängt sich gleichsam die Frage auf, ob diesem Phänomen wirkungsvoll mit dem Strafrecht entgegnet werden kann und aus rechtsstaatlicher Perspektive überhaupt werden darf. Unter dieser Prämisse wird kritisch eruiert, ob und inwiefern sich § 126a StGB in das dogmatische Gerüst des Strafrechts einordnen lässt. Dabei ist § 126a StGB dem modernen Präventionsstrafrecht zuzuordnen. Dieses verfolgt den Ansatz, durch eine Vorverlagerung der Strafbarkeit das Strafrecht als funktionales Mittel zur Erhöhung des Sicherheitsgefühls zu instrumentalisieren. Nach der Bewertung der tatsächlichen Bedrohungslage wird der Handlungsunwert der Verbreitung von Feindeslisten analysiert. Daneben werden weitere Grenzen der strafrechtlichen Vorverlagerung beleuchtet, namentlich die fundamentalen Prinzipien des Tatstrafrechts, des Bestimmtheitsgebots und des Ultima-Ratio-Grundsatzes, an denen sich § 126a StGB messen lassen muss.
Der Beitrag knüpft an die vergangenes Jahr intensiv geführte Debatte um die strafrechtliche Bewertung von Klima-Protesten an und lenkt die Aufmerksamkeit auf einen bislang kaum beachteten Aspekt, nämlich die Frage, ob sich Klima-Aktivistinnen und Aktivisten dem Unrecht ihres Verhaltens im Rahmen von Protestaktionen mit Blick auf die mögliche „Klimakatastrophe“ (stets) bewusst sind und entfaltet erste Überlegungen im Hinblick auf mögliche Verbotsirrtümer. In diesem Zusammenhang geht der Beitrag auch auf die Frage ein, ob eine Rechtfertigung von Protestaktionen wegen eines rechtfertigenden (Klima-)Notstands oder eines möglichen verfassungswidrigen Staatshandelns im Zusammenhang mit der Klimaschutzpolitik denkbar ist.
Die Anwendung des kartellrechtlichen Diskriminierungsverbots auf marktbeherrschende Intermediäre
(2024)
Nach deutschem und europäischem Wettbewerbsrecht ist marktbeherrschenden Unternehmen eine ungerechtfertigte Diskriminierung ihrer Geschäftspartner versagt, § 19 Abs. 1, 2 Nr. 1 GWB. Dieses kartellrechtliche Diskriminierungsverbot bietet mit seiner auf die Marktoffenheit gerichteten Zielsetzung einen konzeptionellen Anknupfungspunkt fur die wettbewerblichen Gefahren konzentrationsgeneigter mehrseitiger Markte mit marktbeherrschenden Intermediaren, insbesondere in der Digitalokonomie. Der Zugang zu Vermittlungsleistungen kann hier von sachgerechten, angemessenen und diskriminierungsfrei gehandhabten Kriterien abhängig gemacht werden. Sind die Vermittler zudem vertikal integriert, kann aus § 19 Abs. 2 Nr. 1 GWB auch ein Selbstbevorzugungsverbot abgeleitet werden. Trotz neuer Instrumente behält das klassische kartellrechtliche Diskriminierungsverbot auch in solchen Fällen Bedeutung.
Zwei nennenswerte Autoren des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts sind Heinrich Brunner sowie Rudolf His. Beiden gelang es durch intensive Quellenauswertung Licht in das vielmals als düster betrachtete Mittelalter zu bringen. Der Beitrag geht der Frage nach, wie Brunner und His die mittelalterlichen Quellen am Beispiel der Strafen zu Haut und Haar deuteten und was wir anhand der gezogenen Erkenntnisse über die Zeit, in der beide lebten, lernen können. Brunner und His waren Teil der germanistischen Strömung und lebten in einem Zeitalter, in dem neue Kodifikationen wie Unkraut aus der Erde schossen. Zudem war das 19. Jahrhundert von vielen gesellschaftlichen Umbrüchen geprägt. All diese Umstände sind in die Quellenanalyse der Autoren eingeflossen und führten stellenweise zu Kategorisierungsversuchen, Verallgemeinerungen und einer Rekonstruktion eines Systems, welches es so nicht gegeben haben kann.
Die Privatautonomie ist ein zentrales Strukturmerkmal des deutschen Zivilrechts und eng mit der Vertragsfreiheit verwoben. Doch was macht die Privatautonomie konkret aus, in welchem Verhältnis steht sie zur Vertragsfreiheit und können beide losgelöst voneinander in einer Rechtsordnung verwirklicht sein? All diese Fragen, welche die grundlegenden Merkmale unseres geltenden Zivilrechts betreffen, stellen sich, wenn man sich der Frage widmet, ob es im Zivilrecht der DDR Privatautonomie gab. Der Blick zurück lohnt, auch um das geltende Zivilrecht und seine Strukturmerkmale noch besser zu verstehen.
Background: The Association of the Scientific Medical Societies in Germany (AWMF) clinical practice guideline on cochlear implant (CI) treatment, which was updated in 2020, defined the entire process of CI care for the first time. In the present study, the feasibility and results of very early rehabilitation were examined.
Materials and methods: The intervention group (IG) comprised 54 patients in whom rehabilitation was initiated within 14 (maximally 28) days after implantation. Patients with a significantly longer waiting time were included in the control group (CG, n = 21). In addition to the start and duration of rehabilitation, the speech intelligibility achieved with CI was recorded at different timepoints within a 12-month period. In addition, questionnaires were used to assess the effort of fitting the CI processor and the patients’ satisfaction with the outcome as well as the timing of the start of rehabilitation.
Results: Median waiting time between implantation and start of rehabilitation was 14 days in the IG and 106 days in the CG; 92.6% of IG patients were able to start rehabilitation within 14 days. The effect of rehabilitation in the IG was 35 and in the CG 25 percentage points (Freiburg monosyllabic test). After 6 and 12 months of CI use, both groups showed comparable results in the test condition in quiet (IG/CG 6 months: 70%/70%; 12 months: 70%/60%, Freiburg monosyllabic test) and in noise (IG/CG 6 months: −1.1 dB SNR/–0.85 dB SNR; 12 months: −0.65 dB SNR/+0.3 dB SNR, Oldenburg sentence test). Hearing quality assessment scores collected by SSQ (Speech, Spatial and Qualities of Hearing Scale) questionnaire showed better scores in the IG at 6 months, which converged to CG scores at 12 months. The IG was significantly more satisfied with the timing of the start of rehab than the CG. All other data obtained from questionnaires showed no differences between the two groups.
Conclusion: A very early start of inpatient rehabilitation after cochlear implantation was successfully implemented. The rehabilitation was completed within 7 weeks of CI surgery. Comparison of speech recognition test results before and after rehabilitation showed a significant improvement. A clear rehabilitation effect can therefore be demonstrated. Inclusion of CI rehabilitation in the German catalog of follow-up treatments is thus scientifically justified and therefore strongly recommended.
Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) serves as a cap-like structure on cellular RNAs (NAD-RNAs) in all domains of life including the bacterium Escherichia coli. NAD also acts as a key molecule in phage-host interactions, where bacterial immune systems deplete NAD to abort phage infection. Nevertheless, NAD-RNAs have not yet been identified during phage infections of bacteria and the mechanisms of their synthesis and degradation are unknown in this context. The T4 phage that specifically infects E. coli presents an important model to study phage infections, but a systematic analysis of the presence and dynamics of NAD-RNAs during T4 phage infection is lacking. Here, we investigate the presence of NAD-RNAs during T4 phage infection in a dual manner. By applying time-resolved NAD captureSeq, we identify NAD-capped host and phage transcripts and their dynamic regulation during phage infection. We provide evidence that NAD-RNAs are – as reported earlier – generated by the host RNA polymerase by initiating transcription with NAD at canonical transcription start sites. In addition, we characterize NudE.1 – a T4 phage-encoded Nudix hydrolase – as the first phage-encoded NAD-RNA decapping enzyme. T4 phages carrying inactive NudE.1 display a delayed lysis phenotype. This study investigates for the first time the dual epitranscriptome of a phage and its host, thereby introducing epitranscriptomics as an important field of phage research.
Therapierefraktärer Schmerz ist ein weit verbreitetes, äußerst belastendes Leitsymptom rheumatischer Erkrankungen. Viele Betroffene weichen daher bei Versagen der Standardmedikation selbstständig auf Cannabis oder die strukturell verwandte Substanz Palmitoylethanolamid (PEA) als Add-On- oder Alternativtherapie aus, obwohl dies in Deutschland bisher nur eingeschränkt zulässig ist. Die deutsche Gesetzgebung ist diesbezüglich nicht eindeutig, weshalb Ärzt:innen in ihrer Entscheidung, Cannabis zu verschreiben, auf Leitlinien, Fallberichte und Expert:innenmeinungen zurückgreifen müssen. Dies führt zu schwierigen Einzelfallentscheidungen, da sich die derzeitige Datenlage zu Cannabis-based Medicine (CBM) bzw. PEA und Rheuma als mangelhaft darstellt und die Leitlinien dementsprechend keine klaren Empfehlungen enthalten. Ziel der vorliegenden Arbeit ist es, die vorhandene Evidenz zusammenzufassen, zu ordnen und anhand der Hill-Kriterien den möglichen kausalen Zusammenhang zwischen der Einnahme von CBM bzw. PEA und der analgetischen Wirkung bei Rheumaschmerzen zu prüfen.
Background: Novel treatments are needed to control refractory status epilepticus (SE). This study aimed to assess the potential effectiveness of fenfluramine (FFA) as an acute treatment option for SE. We present a summary of clinical cases where oral FFA was used in SE.
Methods: A case of an adult patient with Lennox–Gastaut syndrome (LGS) who was treated with FFA due to refractory SE is presented in detail. To identify studies that evaluated the use of FFA in SE, we performed a systematic literature search.
Results: Four case reports on the acute treatment with FFA of SE in children and adults with Dravet syndrome (DS) and LGS were available. We report in detail a 30-year-old woman with LGS of structural etiology, who presented with generalized tonic and dialeptic seizures manifesting at high frequencies without a return to clinical baseline constituting the diagnosis of SE. Treatment with anti-seizure medications up to lacosamide 600 mg/d, brivaracetam 300 mg/d, valproate 1,600 mg/d, and various benzodiazepines did not resolve the SE. Due to ongoing refractory SE and following an unremarkable echocardiography, treatment was initiated with FFA, with an initial dose of 10 mg/d (0.22 mg/kg body weight [bw]) and fast up-titration to 26 mg/d (0.58 mg/kg bw) within 10 days. Subsequently, the patient experienced a resolution of SE within 4 days, accompanied by a notable improvement in clinical presentation and regaining her mobility, walking with the assistance of physiotherapists. In the three cases reported in the literature, DS patients with SE were treated with FFA, and a cessation of SE was observed within a few days. No treatment-emergent adverse events were observed during FFA treatment in any of the four cases.
Conclusions: Based on the reported cases, FFA might be a promising option for the acute treatment of SE in patients with DS and LGS. Observational data show a decreased SE frequency while on FFA, suggesting a potentially preventive role of FFA in these populations.
Key points
* We summarize four cases of refractory status epilepticus (SE) successfully treated with fenfluramine.
* Refractory SE resolved after 4–7 days on fenfluramine.
* Swift fenfluramine up-titration was well-tolerated during SE treatment.
* Treatment-emergent adverse events on fenfluramine were not observed.
* Fenfluramine might be a valuable acute treatment option for SE in Dravet and Lennox–Gastaut syndromes.
In high light, the antenna system in oxygenic photosynthetic organisms switches to a photoprotective mode, dissipating excess energy in a process called non-photochemical quenching (NPQ). Diatoms exhibit very efficient NPQ, accompanied by a xanthophyll cycle in which diadinoxanthin is de-epoxidized into diatoxanthin. Diatoms accumulate pigments from this cycle in high light, and exhibit faster and more pronounced NPQ. The mechanisms underlying NPQ in diatoms remain unclear, but it can be mimicked by aggregation of their isolated light-harvesting complexes, FCP (fucoxanthin chlorophyll-a/c protein). We assess this model system by resonance Raman measurements of two peripheral FCPs, trimeric FCPa and nonameric FCPb, isolated from high- and low-light-adapted cells (LL, HL). Quenching is associated with a reorganisation of these proteins, affecting the conformation of their bound carotenoids, and in a manner which is highly dependent on the protein considered. FCPa from LL diatoms exhibits significant changes in diadinoxanthin structure, together with a smaller conformational change of at least one fucoxanthin. For these LL-FCPa, quenching is associated with consecutive events, displaying distinct spectral signatures, and its amplitude correlates with the planarity of the diadinoxanthin structure. HL-FCPa aggregation is associated with a change in planarity of a 515-nm-absorbing fucoxanthin, and, to a lesser extent, of diadinoxanthin. Finally, in FCPb, a blue-absorbing fucoxanthin is primarily affected. FCPs thus possess a plastic structure, undergoing several conformational changes upon aggregation, dependent upon their precise composition and structure. NPQ in diatoms may therefore arise from a combination of structural changes, dependent on the environment the cells are adapted to.
From hunting and foraging to clearing land for agriculture, humans modify forest biodiversity, landscapes, and climate. Forests constantly undergo disturbance–recovery dynamics and understanding them is a major objective of ecologists and conservationists. Chronosequences are a useful tool for understanding global restoration efforts. They represent a space-for-time substitution approach suited for the quantification of the resistance of ecosystem properties to withstand disturbance and the resilience of these properties until reaching pre-disturbance levels. Here we introduce a newly established chronosequence with 62 plots (50 ⍰ 50 m) in active cacao plantations and pastures, early and late regeneration, and mature old-growth forests, across a 200 km2 area in the extremely wet Chocó rainforest. Our chronosequence covers by far the largest total area of plots compared to others in the Neotropics. Plots ranged from 159–615 masl in a forested landscape with 74 ± 2.8 % forest cover within a 1-km radius including substantial old-growth forest cover. Land-use legacy and regeneration time were not confounded by elevation. We tested how six forest structure variables (maximum tree height and DBH, basal area, number of stems, vertical vegetation heterogeneity, and light availability), aboveground biomass (AGB), and rarefied tree species richness change along our chronosequence. Forest structure variables, AGB, and tree species richness increased with regeneration time and are predicted to reach similar levels to those in old-growth forests after ca. 30–116, 202, and 108 yrs, respectively. Compared to previous work in the Neotropics, old-growth forests in Canandé accumulate high AGB that takes one of the largest time spans reported until total recovery. Our chronosequence comprises one of the largest tree species pools, covers the largest total area of regenerating and old-growth forests, and has higher forest cover than other Neotropical chronosequences. Hence, our chronosequence can be used to determine the time for recovery and stability (resistance and resilience) of different taxa and ecosystem functions, including species interaction networks. This integrative effort will ultimately help to understand how one of the most diverse forests on the planet recovers from large-scale disturbances.
MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are critical post-transcriptional regulators in many biological processes. They act by guiding RNA-induced silencing complexes to miRNA response elements (MREs) in target mRNAs, inducing translational inhibition and/or mRNA degradation. Functional MREs are expected to predominantly occur in the 3’ untranslated region and involve perfect base-pairing of the miRNA seed. Here, we generate a high-resolution map of miR-181a/b-1 (miR-181) MREs to define the targeting rules of miR-181 in developing murine T-cells. By combining a multi-omics approach with computational high-resolution analyses, we uncover novel miR-181 targets and demonstrate that miR-181 acts predominantly through RNA destabilization. Importantly, we discover an alternative seed match and identify a distinct set of targets with repeat elements in the coding sequence which are targeted by miR-181 and mediate translational inhibition. In conclusion, deep profiling of MREs in primary cells is critical to expand physiologically relevant targetomes and establish context-dependent miRNA targeting rules.
Key Points:
* Deep profiling identifies novel targets of miR-181 associated with global gene regulation.
* miR-181 MREs in repeat elements in the coding sequence act through translational inhibition.
* High-resolution analysis reveals an alternative seed match in functional MREs.
The spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 is a highly flexible membrane receptor that triggers the translocation of the virus into cells by attaching to the human receptors. Like other type I membrane receptors, this protein has several extracellular domains connected by flexible hinges. The presence of these hinges results in high flexibility, which consequently results in challenges in defining the conformation of the protein. Here, We developed a new method to define the conformational space based on a few variables inspired by the robotic field’s methods to determine a robotic arm’s forward kinematics. Using newly performed atomistic molecular dynamics (MD) simulations and publicly available data, we found that the Denavit-Hartenberg (DH) parameters can reliably show the changes in the local conformation. Furthermore, the rotational and translational components of the homogenous transformation matrix constructed based on the DH parameters can identify the changes in the global conformation of the spike and also differentiate between the conformation with a similar position of the spike head, which other types of parameters, such as spherical coordinates, fail to distinguish between such conformations. Finally, the new method will be beneficial for looking at the conformational heterogeneity in all other type I membrane receptors.
Highlights
• Family structure transitions decrease academic school track attendance among children of less educated parents.
• Children of highly educated fathers in single-mother families also have lower outcomes.
• Reduced income and increased exposure to poverty are relevant mediators.
• There is no cumulative disadvantage linked to a further transition to a stepfamily.
• Previous parental separation does not affect educational outcomes for children residing with a highly educated stepfather.
Abstract
Recent research has documented that the effect of parental separation on children’s educational outcomes depends on socioeconomic background. Yet, parental separation could lead to a stable single-parent family or to a further transition to a stepfamily. Little is known about how the effect of family structure transitions on educational outcomes depends on the education of parents and stepparents, and there has been limited empirical research into the mechanisms that explain heterogeneity in the effects of family transitions. Using longitudinal data from the German Socio-Economic Panel and models with entropy balancing and sibling fixed effects, I explore the heterogeneous effects of family transitions during early and middle childhood on academic secondary school track attendance, grades and aspirations. I find that family transitions only reduce the academic school track attendance among children of less educated parents living in stepfamilies or with a single mother after parental separation, and among children of highly educated fathers living in single-mother families. The mechanisms that partly explain these effects relate to reduced income and exposure to poverty after parental separation. The findings underscore the importance of considering the stepparent's educational level, indicating that the adverse consequences of parental separation on educational outcomes are mitigated when a highly educated stepfather becomes part of the family. Overall, these findings align more closely with the resource perspective than the family stability perspective.
We present a new experimental dataset on the impact of the heavy halogens chlorine, bromine and iodine on the Raman water bands concerning pressure and their concentration at room temperature. These experiments were conducted at ambient temperature, with variations in halogen concentration and pressure ranging from 0 to 1.4 GPa.
The strength of the Raman water band shift change increases with the ionic size from chlorine, over bromine, to iodine. Our experiments further demonstrate that increased pressure diminishes the impact of the halogen shift change to a varying extent for each of the three halogens. This finding can have significant implications for the salinity calculation of fluid inclusions in minerals such as quartz or olivine. Particularly in the low salinity range, the concentration can be markedly underestimated if the pressure effect is neglected. For experiments in diamond anvil cells involving halogens dissolved in water, the change in Raman water band shifts can serve either as a new tool to monitor pressure, or to monitor the salinity.
Understanding the underlying mechanisms that link psychopathology and physical comorbidities in schizophrenia is crucial since decreased physical fitness and overweight pose major risk factors for cardio-vascular diseases and decrease the patients’ life expectancies. We hypothesize that altered reward anticipation plays an important role in this. We implemented the Monetary Incentive Delay task in a MR scanner and a fitness test battery to compare schizophrenia patients (SZ, n = 43) with sex- and age-matched healthy controls (HC, n = 36) as to reward processing and their physical fitness. We found differences in reward anticipation between SZs and HCs, whereby increased activity in HCs positively correlated with overall physical condition and negatively correlated with psychopathology. On the other handy, SZs revealed stronger activity in the posterior cingulate cortex and in cerebellar regions during reward anticipation, which could be linked to decreased overall physical fitness. These findings demonstrate that a dysregulated reward system is not only responsible for the symptomatology of schizophrenia, but might also be involved in physical comorbidities which could pave the way for future lifestyle therapy interventions.
Diversität und Diskurs – Wie (un-)politisch ist die Universität? : Ringvorlesung im Sommersemester
(2024)
We carry out an in-depth analysis of the prompt-collapse behaviour of binary neutron star (BNS) mergers. To this end, we perform more than 80 general relativistic BNS merger simulations using a family of realistic Equations of State (EOS) with different stiffness, which feature a first order deconfinement phase transition between hadronic and quark matter. From these simulations we infer the critical binary mass Mcrit that separates the prompt from the non-prompt collapse regime. We show that the critical mass increases with the stiffness of the EOS and obeys a tight quasi-universal relation, Mcrit/MTOV ≈ 1.41 ± 0.06, which links it to the maximum mass MTOV of static neutron stars, and therefore provides a straightforward estimate for the total binary mass beyond which prompt collapse becomes inevitable. In addition, we introduce a novel gauge independent definition for a one-parameter family of threshold masses in terms of curvature invariants of the Riemann tensor which characterizes the development toward a more rapid collapse with increasing binary mass. Using these diagnostics, we find that the amount of matter remaining outside the black hole sharply drops in supercritical mass mergers compared to subcritical ones and is further reduced in mergers where the black hole collapse is induced by the formation of a quark matter core. This implies that Mcrit, particularly for merger remnants featuring quark matter cores, imposes a strict upper limit on the emission of any detectable electromagnetic counterpart in BNS mergers.
Vielfalt im Hochschulsport
(2024)
Zum Sommersemester hat das Team vom Zentrum für Hochschulsport (ZfH) der Goethe-Universität wieder ein vielfältiges und buntes Programm auf die Beine gestellt. Dazu gehören natürlich Klassiker wie Fußball oder Volleyball, aber auch Trendsportarten und exotische Disziplinen. Einiges davon ist auch im laufenden Semester noch buchbar! Im Folgenden werden einige Angebote kurz beschrieben.
Spezialwissen für SCALE
(2024)
Volker Zickermann und Eric Helfrich sind bei der Exzellenzcluster-Initiative SCALE (Subcellular Architecture of Life) dabei und werden dort ihre Expertise einbringen. Das Spezialgebiet des einen ist ein Proteinkomplex in den Mitochondrien, den Kraftwerken der Zelle. Der andere sucht schwerpunktmäßig bisher unbekannte Naturstoffe, die die Basis für neue Antibiotika sein könnten.
Herzforschung meets KI
(2024)
Moderne Methoden der Künstlichen Intelligenz (KI) spielen in der Wissenschaft eine immer größere Rolle. Wie Forscher des Exzellenzclusters Cardio-Pulmonary Institute (CPI) KI in der Herzbildgebung nutzen, zeigte Professor Eike Nagel im Rahmen der Bürgeruniversität der Goethe-Universität. Er leitet das Institut für experimentelle und translationale kardiovaskuläre Bildgebung am Fachbereich Medizin und forscht an der Entwicklung verbesserter Behandlungsmöglichkeiten für Herz-Kreislauf-Erkrankungen. Mit dem Ziel, seine Forschung für alle Menschen zugänglich und verständlicher zu machen, lud Prof. Nagel interessierte Bürger*innen am 10. Mai in sein Institut ein.
Das deutsche Open Science Festival geht in die dritte Runde und wird am 17. und 18. September 2024 an der Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz stattfinden. In den Räumen der Musikhochschule bietet das Festival den Teilnehmenden die Gelegenheit, die Vielfalt und Bedeutung von Open Science zu entdecken und zu erleben.
Im Wintersemester 2022/23 wurde die dritte universitätsweite Studierendenbefragung durchgeführt, die für Studierende ein wichtiges Instrument der Partizipation an der Qualitätsentwicklung in Studium und Lehre ist. Aus diesem Grund gebührt den 7765 Studierenden, die den umfassenden Fragebogen mit 314 Basisfragen sowie zusätzlichen fachbereichsspezifischen Fragen beantwortet haben, besonderer Dank. Die Ergebnisse der Befragung können in den Berichten auf www.studierendenbefragung.uni-frankfurt.de nachgelesen werden.
Der unter der Ägide der Freunde und Förderer der Goethe-Universität von der Paul Ehrlich-Stiftung ausgelobte Paul Ehrlich-und-Ludwig Darmstaedter-Preis ist die renommierteste Auszeichnung, die in Deutschland für medizinische Forschung verliehen wird. Den mit 120.000 Euro dotierten Preis nahm in der Frankfurter Paulskirche in diesem Jahr der Arzt und Immunologe Prof. Dennis L. Kasper (81) von der Harvard Medical School entgegen. Er hat die ersten Wörter der biochemischen Sprache entdeckt, mit der Darmbakterien unserem Immunsystem zu einer gesunden Entwicklung verhelfen. Den mit 60.000 Euro dotierten Nachwuchspreis erhielt der Chemiker Dr. Johannes Karges (31) von der Ruhr-Universität Bochum für die Entwicklung eines Verfahrens zur ferngesteuerten Tumortherapie.
Das erziehungswissenschaftliche Projekt »InterCare« will erforschen, wie junge Menschen die Doppelbelastung von Ausbildung/Studium und Pflege bewältigen. Offizieller Start des Projekts, das über vier Jahre hinweg mit 1,2 Millionen Euro von der VolkswagenStiftung gefördert wird, ist im Oktober 2024. Die Soziologin und Altersforscherin Dr. Anna Wanka koordiniert InterCare und erläutert das Design des Projekts.
Über einen Schriftsteller und seinen Körper : Aris Fioretos wird neuer Frankfurter Poetikdozent
(2024)
Um den eigenen Beitrag zur sozial-ökologischen Transformation zu konkretisieren, entwickelt die Goethe-Universität in den kommenden Monaten eine Nachhaltigkeitsstrategie. Die Strategie soll klare Ziele, Maßnahmen und Verantwortlichkeiten definieren und das Bewusstsein für Nachhaltigkeit an der Universität, aber auch darüber hinaus, stärken.
Wie kommen Wissenschaft und Praxis zueinander? Unter dem Motto »Bridging the gap« stellte das Forschungsinstitut Gesellschaftlicher Zusammenhalt (FGZ) am 25. April auf einem Festival neue Formate der Wissenschaftskommunikation vor. Der UniReport sprach mit den FGZ-Referenten für Wissenstransfer Katja Maasch und Manuel Steinert.
Lifestyle factors—such as diet, physical activity (PA), smoking, and alcohol consumption—have a significant impact on mortality as well as healthcare costs. Moreover, they play a crucial role in the development of type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM2). There also seems to be a link between lifestyle behaviours and insulin resistance, which is often a precursor of DM2. This study uses an enhanced Healthy Living Index (HLI) integrating accelerometric data and an Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) to explore differences in lifestyle between insulin-sensitive (IS) and insulin-resistant (IR) individuals. Moreover, it explores the association between lifestyle behaviours and inflammation. Analysing data from 99 participants of the mPRIME study (57 women and 42 men; mean age 49.8 years), we calculated HLI scores—ranging from 0 to 4— based on adherence to specific low-risk lifestyle behaviours, including non-smoking, adhering to a healthy diet, maximally moderate alcohol consumption, and meeting World Health Organization (WHO) PA guidelines. Insulin sensitivity was assessed using a Homeostatic Model Assessment of Insulin Resistance (HOMA-IR) and C-reactive protein (CRP) levels were used as a proxy for inflammation. Lifestyle behaviours, represented by HLI scores, were significantly different between IS and IR individuals (U = 1529.0; p = 0.023). The difference in the HLI score between IR and IS individuals was mainly driven by lower adherence to PA recommendations in the IR group. Moreover, reduced PA was linked to increased CRP levels in the IR group (r = −0.368, p = 0.014). Our findings suggest that enhancing PA, especially among individuals with impaired insulin resistance, holds significant promise as a preventive strategy.
Highlights
• CD62p + exosomes were significantly increased in septic polytrauma-patients, while CD40+, as well as CD49e + exosomes were diminished.
• Exosomal IL-6 concentration in septic patients reflects the systemic IL-6.
• Exosomal IL-10 concentration seemed to be constant in patients and healthy controls.
• Decrease of miR-21 in exosomes was associated with the development of sepsis, while exosomal miR-93, miR-155 and miR-92a were not specifically altered.
Abstract
Sepsis as a severe systemic inflammation leads oftentimes to organ dysfunction and subsequently to death. In polytrauma patients, septic complications represent with 45% the predominant cause of late death and are responsible for extremely high costs in the healthcare system. Therefore, clinicians have to detect as early as possible the begin of sepsis to improve the patient's outcome. One new promising diagnostic tool to diagnose septic complications in polytraumatized patients are exosomes.
Plasma samples from polytraumatized patients (Injury Severity Score (ISS) ≥16) which developed sepsis (n = 10) and without sepsis (n = 10), were collected at emergency room (ER), 24h and 5 days after trauma. The EVs subpopulations were investigated by a bead-based multiplex flow cytometry measurement of surface epitopes and were compared with plasma EVs from healthy controls (n = 10). Moreover, exosomal cytokine concentrations were measured via high-sensitive ELISA and were correlated with systemic concentrations. For miRNA cargo analysis, we analysed the miRNAs miR-1298-5p, miR-1262, miR-125b-5p, miR-92a-3p, miR-93-5p, miR-155-5p and miR-21-5p and compared their exosomal concentrations by means of RT-qPCR.
CD62p + exosomes were significantly increased in septic polytrauma-patients (p ≤ 0.05), while CD40+exosomes, as well as CD49e + exosomes were diminished (p ≤ 0.05). Furthermore, we observed that the exosomal IL-6 concentration reflects the systemic IL-6 concentration (r2 = 0.63) and did not significantly alter between patients with and without sepsis. The exosomal IL-10 concentration seemed to be constant in all patients and healthy controls. We observed that a decrease of miR-21-5p in exosomes was associated with the development of sepsis (p ≤ 0.05), while exosomal miR-93-5p, miR-155-5p and miR-92a-3p were not specifically altered in septic patients.
Taken together, the present study in polytraumatized patients demonstrated that the development of sepsis is associated with an increase of CD62p + exosomes. Furthermore, the exosomal cargo was changed in septic patients: miR-21-5p was diminished.
We prove that the projectivized strata of differentials are not contained in pointed Brill-Noether divisors, with only a few exceptions. For a generic element in a stratum of differentials, we show that many of the associated pointed Brill-Noether loci are of expected dimension. We use our results to study the Auel-Haburcak Conjecture: We obtain new non-containments between maximal Brill-Noether loci in Mg. Our results regarding quadratic differentials imply that the quadratic strata in genus 6 are uniruled.
Highlights
• Artificial intelligence systems for mechanically ventilated patients are increasing.
• The clinical and financial impact of these models are often unexamined.
• We developed a generic health-economic model for artificial intelligence systems.
• This model assesses the cost-effectiveness for many different scenarios.
• The developed framework is easily adjustable to other (clinical) situations.
Abstract
Purpose: The health and economic consequences of artificial intelligence (AI) systems for mechanically ventilated intensive care unit patients often remain unstudied. Early health technology assessments (HTA) can examine the potential impact of AI systems by using available data and simulations. Therefore, we developed a generic health-economic model suitable for early HTA of AI systems for mechanically ventilated patients.
Materials and methods: Our generic health-economic model simulates mechanically ventilated patients from their hospitalisation until their death. The model simulates two scenarios, care as usual and care with the AI system, and compares these scenarios to estimate their cost-effectiveness.
Results: The generic health-economic model we developed is suitable for estimating the cost-effectiveness of various AI systems. By varying input parameters and assumptions, the model can examine the cost-effectiveness of AI systems across a wide range of different clinical settings.
Conclusions: Using the proposed generic health-economic model, investors and innovators can easily assess whether implementing a certain AI system is likely to be cost-effective before an exact clinical impact is determined. The results of the early HTA can aid investors and innovators in deployment of AI systems by supporting development decisions, informing value-based pricing, clinical trial design, and selection of target patient groups.
Highlights
• Gender cues are defined differently across languages.
• We propose a new refined and standardized definition of gender transparency.
• Gender transparency is quantifiable with values that match theoretical expectations.
• We present the first quantitative method to measure the gender transparency of languages.
Abstract
Languages can express grammatical gender through different ortho-phonological regularities present in nouns (e.g., the cues “-o” and “-a” for the masculine and the feminine respectively in Italian, Portuguese, or Spanish). The term “gender transparency” was coined to describe these regularities (Bates et al., 1995). In gendered languages, we can hence distinguish between transparent nouns, i.e., those displaying form regularities; opaque nouns, i.e., those with ambiguous endings; and irregular nouns, i.e., those that display the typical form regularities but are associated with the opposite gender. Following a descriptive analysis of such regularities, languages have been recently classified according to their degree of gender transparency, which seems relevant in regard to gender acquisition and processing. Yet, there are certain inconsistencies in determining which languages are overall transparent and which are opaque. In particular, it is not clear whether some other complex regularities such as derivational suffixes are also “transparent” cues for gender, what really constitutes an “opaque” noun, or which role orthography and morphology have in transparency. Given the existing inconsistencies in classifying languages as transparent or opaque, this work introduces a proposal to assess gender transparency systematically. Our methodology adapts the standardized factors proposed by Audring (2019) to analyse the relative complexity of gender systems. Such factors are adapted to gender transparency on the basis of the literature on gender acquisition and processing. To support the feasibility of such a proposal, the concepts have been instantiated in a quantitative model to obtain for the first time an objective measure of gender transparency using European Portuguese and Dutch as instances of target languages. Our results coincide with the theoretically expected outcome: European Portuguese obtains a high value of gender transparency while Dutch obtains a moderately low one. Future adaptations of this model to the gender systems of other languages could allow the continuum of gender transparency to sustain robust predictions in studies on gender processing and acquisition.
Highlights
• Deletion of SPPL3 promotes resistance of malignant B cells to NK cell cytotoxicity
• Loss of SPPL3 blocks ligand binding to NK receptors via increased N-glycosylation
• B3GNT2 deletion reduces LacNAc addition and restores SPPL3-KO cell sensitivity to NK cells
• SPPL3-deficient cells are enriched in tetra-antennary N-glycans with LacNAc elongations
Summary
Natural killer (NK) cells are primary defenders against cancer precursors, but cancer cells can persist by evading immune surveillance. To investigate the genetic mechanisms underlying this evasion, we perform a genome-wide CRISPR screen using B lymphoblastoid cells. SPPL3, a peptidase that cleaves glycosyltransferases in the Golgi, emerges as a top hit facilitating evasion from NK cytotoxicity. SPPL3-deleted cells accumulate glycosyltransferases and complex N-glycans, disrupting not only binding of ligands to NK receptors but also binding of rituximab, a CD20 antibody approved for treating B cell cancers. Notably, inhibiting N-glycan maturation restores receptor binding and sensitivity to NK cells. A secondary CRISPR screen in SPPL3-deficient cells identifies B3GNT2, a transferase-mediating poly-LacNAc extension, as crucial for resistance. Mass spectrometry confirms enrichment of N-glycans bearing poly-LacNAc upon SPPL3 loss. Collectively, our study shows the essential role of SPPL3 and poly-LacNAc in cancer immune evasion, suggesting a promising target for cancer treatment.