Delayed action does not always require the ventral stream : A study on a patient with visual form agnosia

Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank D.F. for participating in all our experiments with great patience. We also would like to thank Dr David Carey for his very helpful and insightful comments on an earlier draft of this manuscript. This work was partly funded by a post-doctoral research fellowship awarded to Constanze Hesse by the German Research Council (DFG/HE 6011/1-1).Peer reviewedPostprin

Archaeological dating of colluvial and lacustrine deposits in a GIS environment investigating the multi-period site Gortz 1 on Oberer Beetzsee, Brandenburg

From the mid-14th century CE onwards, extensive soil erosion, caused by intensive agricultural practices, has led to the destruction of landscape structures in Central Europe. In 2016, the University of Applied Sciences in Berlin investigated the colluvial deposits at the site of Gortz in western Brandenburg (Germany), which had accumulated on the lower slopes and were caused by the processes just mentioned. The mapping of each individual archaeological find made it possible to project all finds onto one profile running along the slope. Transformation of the finds' coordinates from profile view to plan view enabled the visualization in a Geographical Information System (GIS). The combination of adjacent strata into larger units using a pedological and sedimentological approach enabled an improved dating of colluvial deposits. In addition, the method facilitated the dating of historical water levels in the Beetzsee chain of lakes, which are part of the Havel river system. As a result, it could be demonstrated that substantial anthropogenic activity, such as clay quarrying and bank straightening, took place during the Late Slavic Period. An interlocking horizon of colluvial and lacustrine deposits indicates that the water level of the lake Oberer Beetzsee rose from a value under 29.4 m above sea level (a.s.l.) in the 11th/12th century CE to approximately 29.8 m a.s.l. in the 13th century CE. However, isolated flooding events during the 13th century CE can be recorded up to a height of 30.5 m a.s.l. A modern colluvial deposit of 1 m in thickness indicates an acute endangerment of the archaeological site by modern agriculture.Flächenhafte Bodenerosion, ausgelöst durch intensive landwirtschaftliche Nutzung, führte ab Mitte des 14. Jahrhunderts u.Z. zur Zerstörung von Landschaftsstrukturen und in Mitteleuropa. Kolluvien, welche durch diese Prozesse entstanden und am Unterhang akkumulierten, wurden auf dem Fundplatz Gortz (westliches Brandenburg, Deutschland) durch die Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft Berlin im Jahr 2016 untersucht. Konsequente Einzelfundeinmessung ermöglichte die Projizierung aller Funde auf eines der längs zum Hang verlaufenden Profile. Koordinatentransformation der Funde von der Profilansicht in die Draufsicht, ermöglichte die Visualisierung in einem GIS. Die Zusammenfassung benachbarter Schichten auf Basis der bodenkundlich-sedimentologischen Ansprache ermöglichte eine verbesserte Datierung der Kolluvien. Zusätzlich ermöglichte diese Methode die Datierung historischer Pegelstände der Beetzseekette, eines Teils des Flusssystems der Havel. Im Ergebnis ließen sich für die spätslawische Zeit starke anthropogene Aktivitäten wie Mergelabbau und eine Uferbegradigung nachweisen. Über einen Verzahnungshorizont limnischer und kolluvialer Sedimente. ließ sich ein Pegelanstieg des Oberen Beetzsees von einem Wert unterhalb von 29.4 m Normalhöhennull (NHN) im 11./12. Jahrhundert u.Z. auf etwa 29.8 m NHN im 13. Jahrhundert u.Z. feststellen. Es lassen sich für das 13. Jahrhundert u.Z. jedoch auch vereinzelte Überschwemmungsereignisse bis in eine Höhe von 30.5 m NHN fassen. Ein modernes Kolluvium von einem Meter Mächtigkeit zeigt die akute Gefährdung des Bodendenkmals durch die moderne Landwirtschaft

Biomechanical factors may explain why grasping violates Weber's law

Copyright © 2015. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Acknowledgments The experiment was part of N. Aschenneller’s MD thesis. The study was funded by the Staedtler Stiftung (Nuremberg, Germany).Peer reviewedPostprin

Compost and digestate: sustainability, benefits, impacts for the environment and for plant production

This proceedings volume contains the papers presented at the CODIS 2008 congress held on 27 - 29 February 2008 in Solothurn (Switzerland).The composting and digestion of biogenic waste materials and the subsequent application of compost and digestate to soil contributes to nutrient recycling and renewable energy production. Moreover, compost and digestate can improve soil fertility and suppress plant diseases. On the other hand, compost and digestate may also contain a variety of pollutants hazardous to soil, such as heavy metals and organic contaminants.Compost and digestate have been thoroughly investigated in the framework of two associated projects entitled Organic Pollutants in Compost and Digestate in Switzerland and Effects of Composts and Digestate on the Environment, Soil Fertility and Plant Health. These projects yielded new insights into the properties of compost and digestate, mainly with regard to biological parameters and the occurrence of both classic and emerging organic pollutants.The CODIS 2008 congress was the final event of these two projects

The involvement of posterior parietal cortex in feature and conjunction visuomotor search.

Successful interaction with the environment often involves the identification and localization of a particular item. Right posterior parietal cortex (rPPC) is necessary for the successful completion of conjunction but not feature visual search, regardless of the attentional requirements. One account for this dissociation is that rPPC is primarily involved in processing spatial information. For target identification, conjunction tasks require that spatial information is used to determine if features occur at the same location, whilst feature search does not require such a process. This account suggests that if the requirement to localize the target is made explicit then rPPC may also be necessary for feature search. This was examined using transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and by manipulating the response mode: participants were either required to press a button indicating the presence/absence of the target, or else had to point to the target. TMS over rPPC did not disrupt performance of the feature task when a button-press was required, but significantly increased response time and movement time for the same task in the pointing condition. Conjunction search in both response conditions was significantly impaired by TMS. Performance on a task which required pointing to a target in the absence of distractors, and thus did not involve visual search, was unaffected by rPPC stimulation. We conclude that rPPC is involved in coding and representing spatial information, and is therefore crucial when the task requires determining whether or not two features spatially co-occur, or when search is combined with explicit target localization via a visuomotor transformation

Probing of optical near-fields by electron rescattering on the 1 nm scale

We present a new method of measuring optical near-fields within ~1 nm of a metal surface, based on rescattering of photoemitted electrons. With this method, we precisely measure the field enhancement factor for tungsten and gold nanotips as a function of tip radius. The agreement with Maxwell simulations is very good. Further simulations yield a field enhancement map for all materials, which shows that optical near-fields at nanotips are governed by a geometric effect under most conditions, while plasmon resonances play only a minor role. Last, we consider the implications of our results on quantum mechanical effects near the surface of nanostructures and discuss features of quantum plasmonics.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure

Avoiding unseen obstacles : Subcortical vision is not sufficient to maintain normal obstacle avoidance behaviour during reaching

Acknowledgement This work was funded by the RS MacDonald Charitable Trust (awarded to C. Hesse in June 2013). T. Schenk was supported by a grant from the German Research Council (DFG – SCHE 735/3-1). The authors would like to thank Dr Stefanie Biehl for her valuable advice on lesion localisation based on the CT and MRI scans of the patients. We would also like to thank all the patients for taking part in our experiments and for giving up so much of their free time.Peer reviewedPostprin

The functional subdivision of the visual brain : Is there a real illusion effect on action? A multi-lab replication study

Acknowledgements We thank Brian Roberts and Mike Harris for responding to our questions regarding their paper; Zoltan Dienes for advice on Bayes factors; Denise Fischer, Melanie Römer, Ioana Stanciu, Aleksandra Romanczuk, Stefano Uccelli, Nuria Martos Sánchez, and Rosa María Beño Ruiz de la Sierra for help collecting data; Eva Viviani for managing data collection in Parma. We thank Maurizio Gentilucci for letting us use his lab, and the Centro Intradipartimentale Mente e Cervello (CIMeC), University of Trento, and especially Francesco Pavani for lending us his motion tracking equipment. We thank Rachel Foster for proofreading. KKK was supported by a Ph.D. scholarship as part of a grant to VHF within the International Graduate Research Training Group on Cross-Modal Interaction in Natural and Artificial Cognitive Systems (CINACS; DFG IKG-1247) and TS by a grant (DFG – SCHE 735/3-1); both from the German Research Council.Peer reviewedPostprin

Validity of pressure pain thresholds in female workers with and without recurrent low back pain

Recurrent low back pain (LBP) is a common pain condition in elderly workers in a variety of occupations, but little is known about its origin and the mechanisms leading to an often disabling sensation of pain that may be persistent or intermittent. In the present study we evaluated the pressure pain thresholds (PPTs) in subjects suffering from recurrent LBP, as well as in healthy controls, to investigate if recurrent LBP is associated with an increased sensitivity of the muscular and ligamentous structures located on the lower back. One hundred and six female workers, aged between 45 and 62years and working either in administrative or nursing professions were examined. The subjects were classified into LBP cases and controls based on the Nordic questionnaire. Subjects indicating 8-30 or more days with LBP during the past 12months were graded as cases. PPTs were measured on 12 points (six on each side of the body) expected to be relevant for LBP (paravertebral muscles, musculus quadratus lumborum, os ilium, iliolumbar ligament, musculus piriformis and greater trochanter), as well as on a reference point (middle of the forehead) using a digital dolorimeter. The PPTs on all points on the lower back highly correlated with each other and a high internal consistency was found with a Cronbach alpha coefficient >0.95. There was a moderate and significant correlation of the PPT on the forehead with the PPT on the lower back with correlation coefficients ranging from 0.36 to 0.49. In LBP cases from administrative professions, the PPT on the forehead was significantly decreased (P<0.05). The PPT on the lower back did not significantly differ between the four groups studied, namely nurses and administrative workers with and without recurrent LBP. These results give evidence that recurrent LBP is not associated with an altered sensitivity of the muscular and myofascial tissues in the lumbar region. Furthermore, they raise questions about the value of reference point measurements in recurrent LB