Robin Markwicas Monografie erforscht, welche Rolle Emotionen in der Geschichte von (außen-)politischen Prozessen und Beziehungen spielen können. Entsprechend setzen die Autorinnen der Rezension Markwicas Arbeit in Beziehung zur Emotionsgeschichte als Forschungsparadigma. Zudem referieren sie anhand ausgewählter Arbeiten, welchen Erkenntnisgewinn eine Berücksichtigung der Emotionen in der Geschichte der internationalen Beziehungen liefert. Im Anschluss daran evaluieren sie die theoretischen und methodischen Überlegungen des Autors, die Ergebnisse seiner Analyse und seine Vorschläge zur konstruktiven Anwendung dieser Resultate in der internationalen Diplomatie. Die Autorinnen kommen zu dem Schluss, dass Markwicas Ansatz aufgrund seines Fokus auf Emotion als eine weitere Variable in (außen-)politischen Prozessen, sowie wegen der relativen Offenheit, Pluralität und Flexibilität des Analysemodells die Diskussion um Entscheidungsfindungzprozesse nachhaltig inspirieren könne.

Reflections about the historical roots of our current scientific endeavors are useful from time to time as they help us to acknowledge the ideas, concepts, methodological approaches, and idiosyncrasies of the researchers that paved the ground we stand on right now. The 50-year anniversary of Apidologie offers the opportunity to refresh our knowledge about the history of bee research. I take the liberty of putting the founding year of Apidologie in the middle of the period I cover here. The nascent period of behavioral biology around the late 19th to the early twentieth century was intimately connected with a loss of concepts related to the mental functions of the brain, concepts that were rooted in Darwin’s theory of gradualism in the living world including cognition in animals. This loss was celebrated both in ethology and behaviorism as the gateway to scientific impartiality. Using this apparently strict scientific approach, impressive discoveries were made by observing and strictly quantifying the behavior of bees. The first forays into the brain, however, uncovered a richness of structure and function that reached far beyond stereotypical input/output connections and opened the way to compensating the conceptual restrictions imposed on us by traditional ethology. Honeybee research provides us with a particularly exciting story in this context. The cognitive turn in behavioral biology is intimately connected to the increasing knowledge of how the brain works, also in honeybee research. What has been achieved so far is just the beginning, but it gives us a glimpse of a promising future. Teamwork between neuroscientists and behavioral biologists is needed to elucidate brain functions such as the expectation of future outcomes and intentionality as an entry to animal intelligence reflecting the flexibility and adaptability in behavior also seen in honeybees.

Extended-spectrum β-lactamase (ESBL)-producing Escherichia coli and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) represent major healthcare concerns. The role of wildlife in the epidemiology of these bacteria is unclear. The purpose of this study was to determine their prevalence in wild boars in Germany and to characterize individual isolates. A total of 375 fecal samples and 439 nasal swabs were screened for the presence of ESBL-/AmpC-E. coli and MRSA, respectively. The associations of seven demographic and anthropogenic variables with the occurrence of ESBL-/AmpC-E. coli were statistically evaluated. Collected isolates were subjected to antimicrobial susceptibility testing, molecular typing methods, and gene detection by PCR and genome sequencing. ESBL-/AmpC-E. coli were detected in 22 fecal samples (5.9%) whereas no MRSA were detected. The occurrence of ESBL-/AmpC-E. coli in wild boars was significantly and positively associated with human population density. Of the 22 E. coli, 19 were confirmed as ESBL-producers and carried genes belonging to blaCTX-M group 1 or blaSHV-12. The remaining three isolates carried the AmpC-β-lactamase gene blaCMY-2. Several isolates showed additional antimicrobial resistances. All four major phylogenetic groups were represented with group B1 being the most common. This study demonstrates that wild boars can serve as a reservoir for ESBL-/AmpC-producing and multidrug-resistant E. coli.

Education in antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) in veterinary medicine is essential to foster responsible antimicrobial use and control of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in animals. AMS is listed by the EU and international organizations among the basic ‘Day One Competences’ required of veterinary students upon graduation. Our aim was to evaluate the quality of education of European veterinary students in AMS. We distributed a 27-item survey addressing the perceptions of preparedness and acquired skills on key topics related to AMS to final-year veterinary students in Europe. We collected 3423 complete answers from 89 veterinary schools in 30 countries. Selection of treatment strategies and awareness of emerging AMR problems were markedly different between countries. Overall, only one in four students was familiar with guidelines for antimicrobial use. The students perceived a medium-high impact of veterinary antimicrobial use on AMR in humans. Notably, 75% of the students felt the need for improved teaching on AMS, half of which also demanded more teaching on general antimicrobial therapy. Our results highlight several possible strategies to improve the quality of education, ranging from a better link between clinical rotations and the theory taught in pre-clinical modules, to a more effective introduction into best practices for antimicrobial use.

We establish the local and global well-posedness of strong solutions to the two- and three-dimensional anelastic equations of stratified viscous flows. In this model, the interaction of the density profile with the velocity field is taken into account, and the density background profile is permitted to have physical vacuum singularity. The existing time of the solutions is infinite in two dimensions, with general initial data, and in three dimensions with small initial data.

Different slums exhibit different levels of resilience against the threat of eviction. However, little is known about the role of the social capital of the slum community in this context. This study investigates the factors contributing to slum resilience in the Lagos Metropolis, Nigeria, through a social capital lens. This study first investigates land allocation in slums, then the available social capital, and subsequently how this capital influences resilience to the threat of eviction in slums. Data were collected in two slum communities, in Lagos, through in-depth interviews and focus groups discussion. This study shows that land allocation is done by the traditional heads, contrarily to the mandate of the Nigeria Land Use Act of 1978. Furthermore, there is a form of structural social capital through the presence of government registered community development associations in the slums; however, their activities, decision-making process and the perception of the residents’ towards their respective associations, differs. This led to differences in trust, social cohesion and bonding ties among residents of the slum, thereby influencing resilience to the threat of eviction in slums. Since community group associations, through the appointed executives, drive the efficient utilization of social capital in slums, this study therefore recommends their restructuring in order to support a sustainable solution to the threat of eviction in slums in Lagos.

We aimed to establish a model for prediction of iCa from tCa, using multivariable regressions with diverse blood constituents. Blood was taken from 14 cows at days −2, 0, 2, 4, 7, and 14 relative to parturition. Cows were clinically healthy, and no hypocalcaemia prophylaxis and treatment were applied. Total calcium and further parameters were determined from frozen serum. Ionized calcium, blood gases, and electrolytes were determined from heparin-stabilized blood samples. Linear regression between iCa and tCa was estimated. Precision improved only slightly using a multivariable model. Best precision was achieved when estimating the iCa:tCa ratio from other blood constituents. To identify the reason behind the poorly predictive value of tCa for iCa, the relative changes of iCa and tCa around calving were calibrated to the respective values of day −2 (=100%) for each cow. An increase in the iCa:tCa ratio was observed from 0.43 at day −2 to 0.48 at day 0, followed by a gradual decrease towards 0.43 at day 7. We conclude that routine measurement of iCa should be implemented in the diagnosis of hypocalcaemia. An optimized estimate of iCa from tCa with non-esterified fatty acids (NEFA), beta-hydroxybutyric acid, cholesterol, and phosphorous as co-predictors is still poorly satisfying.

Strigula sensu lato has been previously defined based on phenotype characters as a rather broad genus including tropical to temperate species growing on a wide array of substrata. In this study, based on a multilocus phylogenetic approach, we show that foliicolous species form six well-delimited clades that correlate with diagnostic phenotype features, including thallus morphology, carbonization of the involucrellum and excipulum, ascospore dimensions, and type of macroconidia. Given the topology, with five of the six clades emerging on long stem branches, and the strong phenotypical differentiation between the clades, we recognize these at the genus level, making mostly use of previously established genus names. Four genera, namely Phylloporis, Puiggariella, Raciborskiella, and Racoplaca, are resurrected for the S. phyllogena, S. nemathora, S. janeirensis, and S. subtilissima groups, respectively, whereas one new genus, Serusiauxiella gen. nov., is introduced for a novel lineage with peculiar macroconidia. The only sequenced non-foliicolous species, S. jamesii, is not closely related to these six foliicolous lineages but clusters with Flavobathelium and Phyllobathelium, revealing it as an additional undescribed genus-level lineage being treated elsewhere. Within the new genus Serusiauxiella, three new species are described: Serusiauxiella filifera sp. nov., S. flagellata sp. nov., and S. sinensis sp. nov. In addition, ten new combinations are proposed: Phylloporis austropunctata comb. nov., P. radiata comb. nov., P. vulgaris comb. nov., Puiggariella confluens comb. et stat. nov., P. nemathora comb. nov., P. nigrocincta comb. nov., Racoplaca maculata comb. nov., R. melanobapha comb. nov., R. transversoundulata, and R. tremens comb. nov. We also report on a peculiar, previously unrecognized growth behaviour of the macroconidial appendages in Strigula s.lat.

Engineered nanomaterials are potentially very useful for a variety of applications, but studies are needed to ascertain whether these materials pose a risk to human health. Here, we studied three benchmark nanomaterials (Ag nanoparticles, TiO2 nanoparticles, and multi-walled carbon nanotubes, MWCNTs) procured from the nanomaterial repository at the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission. Having established a sub-lethal concentration of these materials using two human cell lines representative of the immune system and the lungs, respectively, we performed RNA sequencing of the macrophage-like cell line after exposure for 6, 12, and 24 h. Downstream analysis of the transcriptomics data revealed significant effects on chemokine signaling pathways. CCR2 was identified as the most significantly upregulated gene in MWCNT-exposed cells. Using multiplex assays to evaluate cytokine and chemokine secretion, we could show significant effects of MWCNTs on several chemokines, including CCL2, a ligand of CCR2. The results demonstrate the importance of evaluating sub-lethal concentrations of nanomaterials in relevant target cells.

Internationalisierung ist zwar ein verbreitetes Schlagwort im heutigen akademischen Betrieb, und keiner bestreitet dessen Wichtigkeit, doch wie internationalisiert ist die deutsche Kommunikationswissenschaft wirklich? Manche deutschen Hochschulen verstehen unter Internationalisierung lediglich ein (kommunikationswissenschaftliches) englischsprachiges Lehrangebot, andere das Publizieren in englischsprachigen Fachzeitschriften. Dass dies zu kurz greift, versteht sich von selbst. Aber welche internationale Reichweite hat die deutsche Scientific community bisher tatsächlich erzielt? Welchen Stellenwert hat die international vergleichende Forschung, haben inter- und transkulturelle Perspektiven im Fach? Wie steht es um die internationale Anschlussfähigkeit der deutschen Kommunikationswissenschaft? International komparative und kollaborative Forschung und die Einnahme inter-/transkultureller Perspektiven sind Querschnittsaufträge für alle Forschungsfelder des Fachs und können nicht nur beschränkt sein auf so explizit getaufte Netzwerke und Fachgruppen der internationalen und transkulturellen Kommunikation unter dem Dach wissenschaftlicher Fachgesellschaften. Dieses Positionspapier plädiert daher für eine „tiefe Internationalisierung“ der deutschen Kommunikationswissenschaft.

There are varieties of methods available for the exploration of solids using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. Some of these methods are quite sophisticated, others require specialized equipment. This review is addressed to those for whom NMR is not the main research method. It discusses simple methods that can be applied to solids with little or no adaptation to a specific system. Despite their technical simplicity and ease of use, these methods are powerful analytical tools that provide unique insights into the structure, dynamics, and noncovalent interactions in homo- and heterogeneous systems. Particular attention is paid to the characterization of porous materials and solids containing phosphorus. 31P NMR of organometallic compounds has been used as an example of how theoretical calculations can help in deeper analysis of experimental data.

A seamless mosaic has been constructed including a 3D terrain model at 50 m grid-spacing and a corresponding terrain-corrected orthoimage at 12.5 m using a novel approach applied to ESA Mars Express High Resolution Stereo Camera orbital (HRSC) images of Mars. This method consists of blending and harmonising 3D models and normalising reflectance to a global albedo map. Eleven HRSC image sets were processed to Digital Terrain Models (DTM) based on an opensource stereo photogrammetric package called CASP-GO and merged with 71 published DTMs from the HRSC team. In order to achieve high quality and complete DTM coverage, a new method was developed to combine data derived from different stereo matching approaches to achieve a uniform outcome. This new approach was developed for high-accuracy data fusion of different DTMs at dissimilar grid-spacing and provenance which employs joint 3D and image co-registration, and B-spline fitting against the global Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) standard reference. Each HRSC strip is normalised against a global albedo map to ensure that the very different lighting conditions could be corrected and resulting in a tiled set of seamless mosaics. The final 3D terrain model is compared against the MOLA height reference and the results shown of this intercomparison both in altitude and planum. Visualisation and access mechanisms to the final open access products are described.

In this introduction, we propose the notion of ‘embodied belonging’ as a fruitful analytical heuristic for scholars in medical and psychological anthropology. We envision this notion to help us gain a more nuanced understanding of the entanglements of the political, social, and affective dimensions of belonging and their effects on health, illness, and healing. A focus on embodied belonging, we argue, reveals how displacement, exclusion, and marginalization cause existential and health-related ruptures in people’s lives and bodies, and how affected people, in the struggle for re/emplacement and re/integration, may regain health and sustain their well-being. Covering a variety of regional contexts (Germany/Vietnam, Norway, the UK, Japan), the contributions to this special issue examine how embodied non/belonging is experienced, re/imagined, negotiated, practiced, disrupted, contested, and achieved (or not) by their protagonists, who are excluded and marginalized in diverse ways. Each article highlights the intricate trajectories of how dynamics of non/belonging inscribe themselves in human bodies. They also reveal how belonging can be utilized and drawn on as a forceful means and resource of social resilience, if not (self-)therapy and healing.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic poses a challenge to global mental health. Loneliness and isolation may put people at higher risk for increased psychological distress. However, there is a lack of research investigating the development of COVID-19-related distress over time. Materials and Methods: We undertook an online survey among general population (N = 1903) in Germany throughout 6 months from the peak transmission period in April to the off-peak period by September 2020. Results: We found that the average prevalence of psychological distress caused by the COVID-19 pandemic significantly rose from 24% to 66% between the peak and off-peak transmission period, respectively. Unemployment rate and loneliness increased negative mental health outcomes, although the number of active COVID-19 cases decreased from April to September. Psychological distress scores increased mostly in female, young, and lonely people. Conclusions: Our results underline the importance of considering innovative alternatives to facilitate employment opportunities, distant contacts, and self-help over the course of the pandemic. Our study highlights the urgent need to pay attention to mental health services specifically targeting female, young, unemployed, and lonely people.

More and more diseases have been found to be strongly correlated with disturbances in the microbiome constitution, e.g., obesity, diabetes, or some cancer types. Thanks to modern high-throughput omics technologies, it becomes possible to directly analyze human microbiome and its influence on the health status. Microbial communities are monitored over long periods of time and the associations between their members are explored. These relationships can be described by a time-evolving graph. In order to understand responses of the microbial community members to a distinct range of perturbations such as antibiotics exposure or diseases and general dynamical properties, the time-evolving graph of the human microbial communities has to be analyzed. This becomes especially challenging due to dozens of complex interactions among microbes and metastable dynamics. The key to solving this problem is the representation of the time-evolving graphs as fixed-length feature vectors preserving the original dynamics. We propose a method for learning the embedding of the time-evolving graph that is based on the spectral analysis of transfer operators and graph kernels. We demonstrate that our method can capture temporary changes in the time-evolving graph on both synthetic data and real-world data. Our experiments demonstrate the efficacy of the method. Furthermore, we show that our method can be applied to human microbiome data to study dynamic processes.

Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a complex disease which currently affects more than 460 million people and is one of the leading cause of death worldwide. Its development implies numerous metabolic dysfunctions and the onset of hyperglycaemia-induced chronic complications. Multiple ligands can be rationally designed for the treatment of multifactorial diseases, such as DM, with the precise aim of simultaneously controlling multiple pathogenic mechanisms related to the disease and providing a more effective and safer therapeutic treatment compared to combinations of selective drugs. Starting from our previous findings that highlighted the possibility to target both aldose reductase (AR) and protein tyrosine phosphatase 1B (PTP1B), two enzymes strictly implicated in the development of DM and its complications, we synthesised 3-(5-arylidene-4-oxothiazolidin-3-yl)propanoic acids and analogous 2-butenoic acid derivatives, with the aim of balancing the effectiveness of dual AR/PTP1B inhibitors which we had identified as designed multiple ligands (DMLs). Out of the tested compounds, 4f exhibited well-balanced AR/PTP1B inhibitory effects at low micromolar concentrations, along with interesting insulin-sensitizing activity in murine C2C12 cell cultures. The SARs here highlighted along with their rationalization by in silico docking experiments into both target enzymes provide further insights into this class of inhibitors for their development as potential DML antidiabetic candidates.

Background

3′-Untranslated regions (3′UTRs) play crucial roles in mRNA metabolism, such as by controlling mRNA stability, translation efficiency, and localization. Intriguingly, in some genes the 3′UTR is longer than their coding regions, pointing to additional, unknown functions. Here, we describe a protein-coding function of 3′UTRs upon frameshift-inducing alternative splicing in more than 10% of human and mouse protein-coding genes. Results

3′UTR-encoded amino acid sequences show an enrichment of PxxP motifs and lead to interactome rewiring. Furthermore, an elevated proline content increases protein disorder and reduces protein stability, thus allowing splicing-controlled regulation of protein half-life. This could also act as a surveillance mechanism for erroneous skipping of penultimate exons resulting in transcripts that escape nonsense mediated decay. The impact of frameshift-inducing alternative splicing on disease development is emphasized by a retinitis pigmentosa-causing mutation leading to translation of a 3′UTR-encoded, proline-rich, destabilized frameshift-protein with altered protein-protein interactions. Conclusions

We describe a widespread, evolutionarily conserved mechanism that enriches the mammalian proteome, controls protein expression and protein-protein interactions, and has important implications for the discovery of novel, potentially disease-relevant protein variants.

Streptococcus canis is a common colonizing bacterium of the urogenital tract of cats and dogs that can also cause invasive disease in these animal populations and in humans. Although the virulence mechanisms of S. canis are not well-characterized, an M-like protein, SCM, has recently identified been as a potential virulence factor. SCM is a surface-associated protein that binds to host plasminogen and IgGs suggesting its possible importance in host-pathogen interactions. In this study, we developed in vitro and ex vivo blood component models and murine models of S. canis vaginal colonization, systemic infection, and dermal infection to compare the virulence potential of the zoonotic S. canis vaginal isolate G361 and its isogenic SCM-deficient mutant (G361∆scm). We found that while S. canis establishes vaginal colonization and causes invasive disease in vivo, the contribution of the SCM protein to virulence phenotypes in these models is modest. We conclude that SCM is dispensable for invasive disease in murine models and for resistance to human blood components ex vivo, but may contribute to mucosal persistence, highlighting a potential contribution to the recently appreciated genetic diversity of SCM across strains and hosts.