Personalised, GIS-based counselling to promote habitual walking in mobility-limited and chronically ill older adults: protocol of the MOBITEC-Routes randomised controlled trial

Background: Physical activity is a cornerstone of health for older adults. Recent evidence underscores that even regular light activity, such as routine walking, offers substantial health benefits. Traditional approaches to promoting walking often overlook the importance of the local neighbourhood environment and the wide range of abilities and preferences of older adults. A personalised walking intervention – emphasizing personal preferences and local facilitators by employing Geographic information System (GIS)-based methods for communication and goal setting – might help to overcome problems of low long-term adherence to walking interventions. The MOBITEC-Routes trial aims to assess the effects of personalised, GIS-based walking promotion – versus general information on determinants of health – for mobility-limited and chronically ill older adults on walking (primary outcome) immediately after the 15-week intervention period (primary endpoint) and after another 8 months of follow-up (secondary endpoint). Methods: This prospective, two-arm, single centre randomised controlled trial targets sedentary, mobility-limited, chronically ill, and community-living older adults aged 65 + (target N = 130). Outcomes are assessed after 15 weeks of intervention and after an additional 8 months of follow-up. The experimental intervention offers personalised promotion of habitual walking, delivered by an exercise professional in face-to-face and telephone sessions. Opportunities to increase leisure as well as utilitarian walking are identified by using interactive digital maps, personalised walking routes are co-created by the exercise professional and the participant, and a personalised activity plan is developed. Behaviour change strategies are employed. The control group receives general information on determinants of health. Outcomes include walking (average steps per day; primary outcome), time spent lying, sitting, standing and stepping, physical function, life-space mobility, health-related quality of life, fall-related self-efficacy, active aging, as well as constructs of the Health Action Process Approach (HAPA) model (secondary outcomes). Effects will be analysed by analysis of covariance (ANCOVA; primary analysis intention-to-treat, complemented by per-protocol). Discussion: By incorporating personal preferences and the neighbourhood environment, this intervention aims to promote walking as a sustainable and meaningful part of everyday life for mobility-limited and chronically ill older adults. If the personalised GIS-based approach is successful, it could be seamlessly integrated into preventive healthcare strategies. Trial registration: ISRCTN17473086 (Registration date 22/11/2024).ISSN:1471-231

Evidence of inbreeding depression on stature in Brown Swiss cattle

Background Small effective population size and the disproportionately large use of few genetically superior bulls in artificial insemination lead to extensive runs of homozygosity and an increased risk of homozygosity for deleterious alleles in domestic cattle, which may cause inbreeding depression. The adverse effects of inbreeding on phenotypic performance are well established, but the genetic variants contributing to inbreeding depression remain largely unknown. This study aimed to analyse the impacts of inbreeding on stature (measured as height at the sacral bone) in a cohort of 15,306 Brown Swiss (BS) cows that have imputed genotypes at 20 million sequence variants and stature measurements as height at the sacral bone. Results The average genomic inbreeding coefficient of the 15,306 BS cows estimated from runs of homozygosity (ROH) was 0.369 (± 0.022). We found a loss in stature, decreasing from a height of 0.076 cm at the sacral bone per 1% increase in inbreeding (p = 1.94e-09). Contributions to inbreeding depression were significant for long (> 2 Mb), medium (0.1 – 2 Mb), and short (50 kb – 0.1 Mb) ROH (p = 1.29e-12, p = 3.20e-04 and p = 1.77e-06, respectively), suggesting that both ancient and recent inbreeding have negative effects on stature. Non-additive association testing identified a novel recessive quantitative trait locus (QTL) for stature on chromosome 25 with the most significantly (p = 2.35e-21) associated SNP residing at 14,535,327 bp. Cows homozygous for the alternate allele of the top associated SNP were 2 cm shorter than heterozygous and reference allele homozygotes. Fine mapping of the QTL identified a splice donor variant (rs447836030 at 25:14,515,474) of the gene ABCC6 encoding ATP binding cassette subfamily C member 6 which causes exon skipping as both a positional and functional candidate causal variant. Conclusions Our study reveals evidence for inbreeding depression on stature in a large cohort of BS cattle. We also uncover a recessive QTL that decreases stature through non-additive association testing. This QTL harbors a high-impact variant affecting a splice donor site of ABCC6 which leads to exon skipping, thereby possibly contributing to inbreeding depression. Accumulating non-lethal deleterious alleles in ROH may reduce the overall fitness of the BS cattle population

A new conceptual model for seed germination and seedling tillering of winter wheat in the field

Seed germination is a crucial stage in plant development, intricately regulated by various environmental stimuli. Understanding these interactions is essential for optimizing planting and seedling management but remains challenging due to the trade-off effects of environmental factors on the germination process. We proposed a new conceptual model by viewing seed germination as a dynamic process in a physiological dimension, with the influence of environmental factors and seed heterogeneity characterized by a germination speed and a dispersion coefficient. To validate the model, we conducted field experiments by drilling wheat seeds at different dates to establish a temperature gradient and in different plots to create a soil water content gradient. Comparisons with our experimental data and literature results show the model accurately reproduces all germination patterns and the subsequent seedling tillering, with R2 > 0.95. Our results reveal that within suboptimal temperature range, the seed germination increases asymptotically with temperature, and that as soil water content increases, the germination speed increases initially before decreasing, illustrating the trade-off effect of soil water on bioavailability of water and oxygen. Introducing a physiological dimension enables seed germination and the subsequent tillering process to be modelled as a continuous physiological process, providing deeper insight into plant growth dynamics.ISSN:2054-570

Bridging Voting and Deliberation with Algorithms: Field Insights from vTaiwan and Kultur Komitee

Democratic processes increasingly integrate large-scale voting with face-to-face deliberation to reconcile individual preferences with collective decision-making. This work introduces algorithmic methods to bridge online voting with face-to-face deliberation, tested in two real-world scenarios: Kultur Komitee 2024 (KK24) and vTaiwan. We present three key contributions: (1) Preference-based Clustering for Deliberation (PCD), enabling both focused and broad discussions by computing balanced homogeneous and heterogeneous groups; (2) Human-in-the-loop MES, enhancing the Method of Equal Shares algorithm with real-time feedback, giving participants control over algorithmic decision-making; and (3) the ReadTheRoom method, using opinion mapping to identify agreement and divergence while tracking opinion shifts during deliberation. These actionable frameworks extend in-person deliberation with scalable digital methods that address the complexities of modern participatory decision-making

Concurrent modes of climate variability linked to spatially compounding wind and precipitation extremes in the Northern Hemisphere

Compound wind and precipitation (CWP) extremes often cause severe impacts on human society and ecosystems, such as damage to crops and infrastructure. Spatially compounding events with multiple regions affected by CWP extremes in the same winter can impact the global economy and reinsurance industry; however, our understanding of these events is limited. While climate variability modes such as El Ni & ntilde;o Southern Oscillation (ENSO) can influence the frequency of precipitation and wind extremes, their individual and combined effects on spatial co-occurrences of CWP extremes across the Northern Hemisphere have not been systematically examined. Here, by combining reanalysis data and climate model simulations, we investigate how two oceanic and two atmospheric variability modes - ENSO, the Atlantic Multidecadal Variability (AMV), the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), and the Pacific North American (PNA) - amplify the wintertime (December-February) frequency of daily CWP extremes and associated spatial co-occurrences across the Northern Hemisphere. We find many hotspot regions where concurrent variability mode anomalies significantly amplify wintertime CWP extreme event frequencies compared to single variability modes. By examining the relationships between frequencies of wintertime CWP extremes across regions, we identify dependencies enabling extreme spatially compounding events, that is winters with many regions experiencing CWP extremes. While ENSO is the most influential variability mode for such extreme spatially compounding events, the occurrence of these events increases further when multiple modes of variability are in anomalous phases. In particular, combinations of modes increase both the number of regions and the population exposed to daily CWP extremes in the same winter. For example, combined ENSO- and NAO+ nearly doubles the number of affected regions compared to neutral conditions on average. Our analysis highlights the importance of considering the interplay between variability modes to improve risk management and adapt to the impacts of spatially compounding CWP extremes.ISSN:2190-4987ISSN:2190-497

Ultra-Sensitive, High-Bandwidth Photonic-Mems Seismic Sensor

ISSN:1084-699

Deterministic switching of antiferromagnetic spin textures by nonlinear magnons

Antiferromagnetic spin textures, compared to their ferromagnetic counterparts, innately possess high stability with respect to external disturbance and high-frequency dynamics compatible with ultrafast information processing. However, deterministic creation and reconfigurable switching of different antiferromagnetic spin textures have not been realized. Here, we demonstrate room-temperature deterministic switching between three antiferromagnetic textures identified by characteristically different high frequency dynamics in single-crystal hematite (α-Fe2O3). All three states are found to be remarkably stable and fully controllable, as confirmed by 1000 switching cycles and spatially resolved spectroscopy and they may be created by local magnetization switching in the nonlinear excitation regime. The switching to the following stable state requires only one microwave pulse (100 ns) with ultralow energy consumption (1 nJ). Our Brillouin light scattering (BLS) microscopy data reinforces that the detected magnon modes are associated to excitations of domain walls and circular spin textures. The progressive switching between the three distinct states imitates the weighted sum operation in neuromorphic computing, suggesting the possibility of using spin textures in antiferromagnets for information processing.ISSN:2041-172

Carbon footprint of oil produced through enhanced oil recovery using carbon dioxide directly captured from air

Some argue that using CO2 from direct air capture (DAC) in enhanced oil recovery (CO2-EOR) can produce carbon-neutral oil by permanently storing more CO2 than is emitted when using the extracted fossil fuels. However, existing analyses often provide case-specific insights based on short-term operations without considering the full life cycle of reservoir exploitation, including primary, secondary, and tertiary (EOR) recovery phases. Here, we present a general, top-down approach based on mass and volume conservation to assess the potential carbon footprint of oil production, applicable to different temporal perspectives of reservoir exploitation. Supported by field data from 16 EOR projects, our analysis shows that 30% of projects appear carbon-neutral when EOR is considered in isolation, but they all become significantly carbon-positive when the full reservoir lifetime is considered. The volume of emitted CO2 exceeds the pore space freed for storage by at least a factor of three, making carbon-neutral oil physically unattainable in conventional reservoirs. The favorable conditions for low-carbon oil production during CO2-EOR exist solely because of extensive prior oil extraction and water injection, and only residual oil zones may truly offer potential for carbon-neutral oil due to their low oil saturation and lack of legacy emissions. While omitting legacy emissions from previously depleted fields may be justifiable and may enable claims of carbon neutrality during the EOR phase, newly developed fields, i.e., developed now or in the future, should be held accountable for the full life-cycle emissions they generate. This necessitates clear and transparent accounting policy frameworks. Although CO2-EOR may reduce oil's carbon footprint, promoting it as a pathway to carbon-neutrality risks legitimizing continued fossil fuel production, ultimately undermining global climate targets.ISSN:1754-5692ISSN:1754-570