Abrupt change in tropical Pacific climate mean state during the Little Ice Age

The mean state of the tropical Pacific ocean-atmosphere climate, in particular its east-west asymmetry, has profound consequences for regional climates and for the El Niño/Southern Oscillation variability. Here we present a new high-resolution paleohydrological record using the stable-hydrogen-isotopic composition of terrestrial-lipid biomarkers (δDwax) from a 1,400-year-old lake sedimentary sequence from northern Philippines. Results show a dramatic and abrupt increase in δDwax values around 1630 AD with sustained high values until around 1900 AD. We interpret this change as a shift to significantly drier conditions in the western tropical Pacific during the second half of the Little Ice Age as a result of a change in tropical Pacific mean state tied to zonal sea surface temperature (SST) gradients. Our findings highlight the prominent role of abrupt shifts in zonal SST gradients on multidecadal to multicentennial timescales in shaping the tropical Pacific hydrology of the last millennium, and demonstrate that a marked transition in the tropical Pacific mean state can occur within a period of a few decades.publishedVersio

Expression patterns of transcribed human endogenous retrovirus HERV-K(HML-2) loci in human tissues and the need for a HERV Transcriptome Project

Background: A significant proportion of the human genome is comprised of human endogenous retroviruses (HERVs). HERV transcripts are found in every human tissue. Expression of proviruses of the HERV-K(HML-2) family has been associated with development of human tumors, in particular germ cell tumors (GCT). Very little is known about transcriptional activity of individual HML-2 loci in human tissues, though. Results: By employing private nucleotide differences between loci, we assigned ~1500 HML-2 cDNAs to individual HML-2 loci, identifying, in total, 23 transcriptionally active HML-2 proviruses. Several loci are active in various human tissue types. Transcription levels of some HML-2 loci appear higher than those of other loci. Several HML-2 Rec-encoding loci are expressed in GCT and non-GCT tissues. A provirus on chromosome 22q11.21 appears strongly upregulated in pathologic GCT tissues and may explain high HML-2 Gag protein levels in GCTs. Presence of Gag and Env antibodies in GCT patients is not correlated with activation of individual loci. HML-2 proviruses previously reported capable of forming an infectious HML-2 variant are transcriptionally active in germ cell tissue. Our study furthermore shows that Expressed Sequence Tag (EST) data are insufficient to describe transcriptional activity of HML-2 and other HERV loci in tissues of interest. Conclusion: Our, to date, largest-scale study reveals in greater detail expression patterns of individual HML-2 loci in human tissues of clinical interest. Moreover, large-scale, specialized studies are indicated to better comprehend transcriptional activity and regulation of HERVs. We thus emphasize the need for a specialized HERV Transcriptome Project

Sammelrezension

Rezensionen zu: 1) Kirchhof, Steffen: Informelles Lernen und Kompetenzentwicklung für und in beruflichen Werdegängen - dargestellt am Beispiel einer qualitativ-explorativen Studie zu informellen Lernprozessen Pflegender und ihrer pädagogisch-didaktischen Implikationen für die Aus- und Weiterbildung. Münster: Waxmann 2007. ISBN 978-3-8309-1824-0. 2) Dieckmann, Heinrich; Dittrich, Karl-Heinz; Lehmann, Burkhard (Hrsg.): Kompetenztransfer durch selbstgesteuertes Lernen. Bad Heilbrunn: Klinkhardt 2006. ISBN 3-7815-1492-7. 3) Arbeitsgemeinschaft Betriebliche Weiterbildungsforschung e.V./Projekt Qualifikations-Entwicklung-Management (Hrsg.): Kompetenzentwicklung 2006: das Forschungs- und Entwicklungsprogramm "Lernkultur Kompetenzentwicklung". Ergebnisse - Erfahrungen – Einsichten. Münster: Waxmann 2006. ISBN 978-3-8309-1782-1. 4) Bergold, Ralph; Gisbertz, Helga; Kruip, Gerhard (Hrsg.): Treffpunkt Ethik: Internetbasierte Lernumgebungen für ethische Diskurse. Bielefeld: W. Bertelsmann Verl. 2007. ISBN 978-3-7639-3538-9. 5) Federighi, Paolo; Abréu, Carina; Nuissl von Rein, Ekkehard (Hrsg.): Learning among Regional Governments – Quality of Policy Learning and Policy Transfer in Regional Lifelong Learning Policies. Bielefeld: W. Bertelsmann Verl. 2007. ISBN 978-3-7639-3577-2. 6) Knabe, Ferdinand (Hrsg.)/ Bundesverband Alphabetisierung und Grundbildung e.V.: Wissenschaft und Praxis in der Alphabetisierung und Grundbildung. Alphabetisierung und Grundbildung, Bd. 1. Münster: Waxmann 2007. ISBN 978-3-8309-1864-6. 7) Nuissl, Ekkehard; Lattke, Susanne (Hrsg.): Qualifying adult learning professionals in Europe. Bielefeld: W. Bertelsmann Verl. 2008. ISBN 978-3-7639-3623-6. 8) Siebert, Horst: Konstruktivistisch lehren und lernen. Reihe: Grundlagen der Weiterbildung. Augsburg: ZIEL-Verl. 2008. ISBN 978-3-940562-04-3. 9) Wagner, Birgit; Schmid, Alfons; Meden, Barbara von der: Allgemeine Arbeitsweltbezogene Weiterbildung: Ergebnisse eines Innovationsprojekts. München und Mering: Hampp 2007. ISBN 978-3-86618-160-1. 10) Schreiber-Barsch, Silke: Learning Communities als Infrastruktur Lebenslangen Lernens: vergleichende Fallstudien europäischer Praxis. Bielefeld: W. Bertelsmann Verl. 2007. ISBN 978-3-7639-3332-7

A Reinforcement Learning Approach to View Planning for Automated Inspection Tasks

Manual inspection of workpieces in highly flexible production facilities with small lot sizes is costly and less reliable compared to automated inspection systems. Reinforcement Learning (RL) offers promising, intelligent solutions for robotic inspection and manufacturing tasks. This paper presents an RL-based approach to determine a high-quality set of sensor view poses for arbitrary workpieces based on their 3D computer-aided design (CAD). The framework extends available open-source libraries and provides an interface to the Robot Operating System (ROS) for deploying any supported robot and sensor. The integration into commonly used OpenAI Gym and Baselines leads to an expandable and comparable benchmark for RL algorithms. We give a comprehensive overview of related work in the field of view planning and RL. A comparison of different RL algorithms provides a proof of concept for the framework’s functionality in experimental scenarios. The obtained results exhibit a coverage ratio of up to 0.8 illustrating its potential impact and expandability. The project will be made publicly available along with this article

GIS-Based Tool for Pest Specific Area-Wide Planning of Crop Rotation Distance with Land Use Data

Crop rotation is an important strategy for pest reduction. For mono-, or oligophagous pests that overwinter at a previously infested site, crop rotation means that the pests must find new host crop sites in the following year, and it is more efficient if a pest-specific distance is applied. Here, we report the development of a GIS-based tool for efficient cultivation planning using the example of the pest complex pea moth (Cydia nigricana) and grain and green peas (Pisum sativum). Monitoring data for four consecutive years (2016–2019) from 513 sites were used. Infestation of pea seeds and the distance to the previous year’s pea sites were recorded. An adjustable Python script was developed by means of infestation–distance–correlation as a pest and crop-specific minimum migration distance (MD). The output of the tool is a risk map as decision support for cultivation planning. It shows different risk buffers with distances from 1261 m to 1825 m, depending on the cultivation type. The web tool is easily adjustable to other pests and crops anywhere in the world. The tool helps to prevent damages caused by agricultural, mono-, or oligophagous insect pests and consequently reduces pesticide applications for the benefit of the environment and biodiversity

Abrupt change in tropical Pacific climate mean state during the Little Ice Age

Funder: Royal Geographical Society (RGS); doi: https://doi.org/10.13039/501100000623Funder: Quaternary Research Association (QRA); doi: https://doi.org/10.13039/100012089Funder: Merton College, University of Oxford (Merton College Oxford); doi: https://doi.org/10.13039/100010352Funder: University of Oxford (Oxford University); doi: https://doi.org/10.13039/501100000769AbstractThe mean state of the tropical Pacific ocean-atmosphere climate, in particular its east-west asymmetry, has profound consequences for regional climates and for the El Niño/Southern Oscillation variability. Here we present a new high-resolution paleohydrological record using the stable-hydrogen-isotopic composition of terrestrial-lipid biomarkers (δDwax) from a 1,400-year-old lake sedimentary sequence from northern Philippines. Results show a dramatic and abrupt increase in δDwax values around 1630 AD with sustained high values until around 1900 AD. We interpret this change as a shift to significantly drier conditions in the western tropical Pacific during the second half of the Little Ice Age as a result of a change in tropical Pacific mean state tied to zonal sea surface temperature (SST) gradients. Our findings highlight the prominent role of abrupt shifts in zonal SST gradients on multidecadal to multicentennial timescales in shaping the tropical Pacific hydrology of the last millennium, and demonstrate that a marked transition in the tropical Pacific mean state can occur within a period of a few decades.</jats:p

BMC Genomics Expression patterns of transcribed human endogenous retrovirus HERV-K(HML-2) loci in human tissues and the need for a HERV Transcriptome Project

Abstract Background: A significant proportion of the human genome is comprised of human endogenous retroviruses (HERVs). HERV transcripts are found in every human tissue. Expression of proviruses of the HERV-K(HML-2) family has been associated with development of human tumors, in particular germ cell tumors (GCT). Very little is known about transcriptional activity of individual HML-2 loci in human tissues, though

Combination of Autoantibody Signature with PSA Level Enables a Highly Accurate Blood-Based Differentiation of Prostate Cancer Patients from Patients with Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia

Although an increased level of the prostate-specific antigen can be an indication for prostate cancer, other reasons often lead to a high rate of false positive results. Therefore, an additional serological screening of autoantibodies in patients’ sera could improve the detection of prostate cancer. We performed protein macroarray screening with sera from 49 prostate cancer patients, 70 patients with benign prostatic hyperplasia and 28 healthy controls and compared the autoimmune response in those groups. We were able to distinguish prostate cancer patients from normal controls with an accuracy of 83.2%, patients with benign prostatic hyperplasia from normal controls with an accuracy of 86.0%and prostate cancer patients from patients with benign prostatic hyperplasia with an accuracy of 70.3%. Combining seroreactivity pattern with a PSA level of higher than 4.0 ng/ml this classification could be improved to an accuracy of 84.1%. For selected proteins we were able to confirm the differential expression by using luminex on 84 samples. We provide a minimally invasive serological method to reduce false positive results in detection of prostate cancer and according to PSA screening to distinguish men with prostate cancer from men with benign prostatic hyperplasia

Validation and calibration of soil δ2H and brGDGTs along (E-W) and strike (N-S) of the Himalayan climatic gradient

Reconstructing the timing of mountain range uplift and the evolution of high-altitude plateaus is important when attempting to understand potential feedbacks between tectonics and climate at geological timescales. This requires proxies that are able to accurately reconstruct elevation during different time periods in the past. Often, the sensitivity of climatic parameters to elevation gradients, recorded in geological archives such as soils, is used to estimate paleoelevations. However, most proxies reflect an indirect response to elevation change, adding uncertainties to reconstructions. In this study, we aim to identify those sources of uncertainty with respect to elevation reconstructions and test if the combined application of two such proxies, i.e., stable isotopes (δ2H) of plant waxes in modern soils and surface waters and bacterial membrane lipids (brGDGTs) in soils, which can potentially reduce uncertainties in the estimation of (paleo-) elevation. We performed this study in four Himalayan catchments (from west to east: Sutlej, Alaknanda, Khudi, and Arun), of which each individual catchment is subject to a unique precipitation regime, relative influences of moisture sources, and vegetation cover. In total, we analyzed 275 surface water samples, 9 precipitation samples, 131 xylem water samples, and 60 soil samples, which were collected between 2009 and 2014. The following key observations were made: Soil nC31-alkane δ2H values (δ2Hwax) in the Sutlej, Alaknanda, Khudi, and Arun generally record surface water δ2H values, confirming that the first-order control on the plant wax isotopic signature is precipitation δ2H and, therefore, the elevation in orogenic settings. We identified aridity as the factor that introduces scatter to this relationship. BrGDGT-derived Mean Annual Temperature (MAT) correlates in a statistically significant manner with sample site elevation and a 14-year annual average of remotely sensed land-surface temperature, showing that the main process influencing the brGDGT distribution is the adiabatic cooling of air. In an effort to combine these proxies to improve uncertainties in elevation reconstruction, elevations were inferred from both the δ2Hwax and brGDGT distributions. Arid, high elevation sites appear to underestimate actual sample site elevations using δ2H values while sites subject to high (>23–25 °C) annual temperatures overestimate the actual sample site elevation using brGDGT distributions. Elevations inferred from both proxies under such paleoclimatic conditions should be interpreted with caution. Elevations derived from the brGDGT distribution appear to most accurately reconstruct elevation. However, we show that the difference in elevation between the two proxies, described by the proposed ΔElevation parameter, can provide information on the hydrological conditions of the soil's depositional environment. In conclusion, we emphasize that knowledge of the sample site's climatic conditions are essential to reconstruct elevation from paleoarchives. In particular, knowledge of moisture availability and annual air temperatures are important, as these have been found to cause the largest scatter in the observed data

Validation and calibration of soil delta H-2 and brGDGTs along (E-W) and strike (N-S) of the Himalayan climatic gradient

Reconstructing the timing of mountain range uplift and the evolution of high-altitude plateaus is important when attempting to understand potential feedbacks between tectonics and climate at geological timescales. This requires proxies that are able to accurately reconstruct elevation during different time periods in the past. Often, the sensitivity of climatic parameters to elevation gradients, recorded in geological archives such as soils, is used to estimate paleoelevations. However, most proxies reflect an indirect response to elevation change, adding uncertainties to reconstructions. In this study, we aim to identify those sources of uncertainty with respect to elevation reconstructions and test if the combined application of two such proxies, i.e., stable isotopes (delta H-2) of plant waxes in modern soils and surface waters and bacterial membrane lipids (brGDGTs) in soils, which can potentially reduce uncertainties in the estimation of (paleo-) elevation. We performed this study in four Himalayan catchments (from west to east: Sutlej, Alaknanda, Khudi, and Arun), of which each individual catchment is subject to a unique precipitation regime, relative influences of moisture sources, and vegetation cover. In total, we analyzed 275 surface water samples, 9 precipitation samples, 131 xylem water samples, and 60 soil samples, which were collected between 2009 and 2014.The following key observations were made: Soil nC(31)-alkane H values (delta H-2(wax)) in the Sutlej, Alaknanda, Khudi, and Arun generally record surface water delta H-2 values, confirming that the first-order control on the plant wax isotopic signature is precipitation delta H-2 and, therefore, the elevation in orogenic settings. We identified aridity as the factor that introduces scatter to this relationship. BrGDGT-derived Mean Annual Temperature (MAT) correlates in a statistically significant manner with sample site elevation and a 14-year annual average of remotely sensed land-surface temperature, showing that the main process influencing the brGDGT distribution is the adiabatic cooling of air.In an effort to combine these proxies to improve uncertainties in elevation reconstruction, elevations were inferred from both the delta H-2(wax) and brGDGT distributions. Arid, high elevation sites appear to underestimate actual sample site elevations using delta H-2 values while sites subject to high (>23-25 degrees C) annual temperatures overestimate the actual sample site elevation using brGDGT distributions. Elevations inferred from both proxies under such paleoclimatic conditions should be interpreted with caution. Elevations derived from the brGDGT distribution appear to most accurately reconstruct elevation. However, we show that the difference in elevation between the two proxies, described by the proposed Delta(Elevation) parameter, can provide information on the hydrological conditions of the soil's depositional environment. In conclusion, we emphasize that knowledge of the sample site's climatic conditions are essential to reconstruct elevation from paleoarchives. In particular, knowledge of moisture availability and annual air temperatures are important, as these have been found to cause the largest scatter in the observed data