Macht Geld glücklich? Verbraucherpolitische Überlegungen zum fiskalischen Ziel der staatlichen Glücksspielregulierung

Seit Dezember 2006 liegt der Glücksspielstaatsvertrag der Länder unterschriftsreif vor. Er bleibt aber umstritten. Eine neue Regulierung des Glücksspielwesens in Deutschland war erforderlich geworden, nachdem das Bundesverfassungsgericht Teile des bayerischen Staatslotteriegesetzes für verfassungswidrig erklärt hatte. Ist die verbraucherpolitische Begründung für die Regulierung tragfähig? Welche Interessen haben die Nutznießer der Glücksspieleinnahmen? --

Exceptional Agulhas leakage prolonged interglacial warmth during MIS 11c in Europe

The transport of warm and saline surface water from the Indo-Pacific Ocean into the South Atlantic ("Agulhas leakage") influences the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), which in turn exerts control on European climate. Paleoceanographic data document a remarkably strong Agulhas leakage at the end of marine isotope stage (MIS) 11c interglacial (~400 ka B.P.), which is one of the best orbital analogues for the Holocene. Here we assess the potential influence of this exceptional Agulhas leakage on North Atlantic climate based on a compilation of marine and terrestrial proxy records from the Iberian margin and continental Europe. We show that a ~5 ka long warm period persisted across Europe beyond the MIS 11c climatic optimum. This warm period is testified by increases in foraminifer-derived sea surface temperatures on the Iberian margin, a spread of temperate trees on Iberia, and the expansion both of evergreen trees and thermophilous diatom taxa in Central European lowlands. Paradoxically, this warming coincides with an insolation minimum, implying that orbital forcing can be excluded as the underlying cause. We conclude that persistent warmth during weak insolation at the end of MIS 11c in Europe may have been triggered by strengthened Agulhas leakage, which stimulated a vigorous AMOC and increased the northward transport of warm surface waters to higher latitudes via the North Atlantic Current. The close analogy of the present and MIS 11c orbital forcing underlines the possibility that the present-day increase of the Agulhas leakage, although driven by different forcing than MIS 11c, may considerably affect future climates across Europe

Functional and structural properties of dentate granule cells with hilar basal dendrites in mouse entorhino-hippocampal slice cultures

During postnatal development hippocampal dentate granule cells (GCs) often extend dendrites from the basal pole of their cell bodies into the hilar region. These so-called hilar basal dendrites (hBD) usually regress with maturation. However, hBDs may persist in a subset of mature GCs under certain conditions (both physiological and pathological). The functional role of these hBD-GCs remains not well understood. Here, we have studied hBD-GCs in mature (≥18 days in vitro) mouse entorhino-hippocampal slice cultures under control conditions and have compared their basic functional properties (basic intrinsic and synaptic properties) and structural properties (dendritic arborisation and spine densities) to those of neighboring GCs without hBDs in the same set of cultures. Except for the presence of hBDs, we did not detect major differences between the two GC populations. Furthermore, paired recordings of neighboring GCs with and without hBDs did not reveal evidence for a heavy aberrant GC-to-GC connectivity. Taken together, our data suggest that in control cultures the presence of hBDs on GCs is neither sufficient to predict alterations in the basic functional and structural properties of these GCs nor indicative of a heavy GC-to-GC connectivity between neighboring GCs

Biodegradable magnetic microspheres for drug targeting, temperature controlled drug release, and hyperthermia

Magnetic microspheres (MMS) used for magnetic drug targeting consist of magnetic nanoparticles (MNP) and a pharmaceutical agent embedded in a polymeric matrix material. The application of MNP for drug targeting enables guiding the MMS to a target area, imaging the position of the MMS with magnetic particle imaging, and finally inducing drug release. As latter takes place by degradation of the MMS or diffusion through the matrix, an increase in temperature, e.g. through magnetic hyperthermia, leads to an accelerated drug release. Here, MMS consisting of poly(lactic-coglycolic) acid (PLGA) with different monomer ratios were prepared by an oil-in-water emulsion evaporation method. The model drug Camptothecin (CPT) and magnetic multicore nanoparticles (MCNP) with a high specific heating rate were embedded into the microspheres. We obtained MMS in the preferred size range of 1 to 2 μm with a concentration of MCNP of 16wt%, a drug load of about 0.5wt% and an excellent heating performance of 161 W/gMMS. Investigations of the drug release behaviour showed an accelerated drug release when increasing the temperature from 20 °C to 37 °C or 43 °C by using a water bath. In addition, an increase in drug release of about 50% through magnetic heating of the MMS up to 44 °C compared to 37 °C was observed. By this, a magnetic hyperthermia induced CPT release from PLGA MMS is demonstrated for the very first time

Wohnungswirtschaft im Wandel: Möglichkeiten und Grenzen öffentlicher Finanzierung in der Wohnraumversorgung

Die Wohnungswirtschaft steht vor großen Herausforderungen, die insbesondere durch den stattfindenden sozio-demografischen Wandel sowie durch Anforderungen im Rahmen des Klimaschutzes verursacht werden. Um die Zukunftsfähigkeit der Wohnungswirtschaft und ihrer Wohnungsbestände sicherzustellen sind Maßnahmen und Investitionen in größerem Umfang erforderlich. Aufgrund stark angespannter öffentlicher Haushalte stellt sich die Frage, woher das notwendige Kapital zur Sicherstellung eines quantitativ und qualitativ angemessenen Wohnungsbestands zukünftig kommen soll. Mit dem vorliegenden Arbeitspapier soll ein Beitrag zur Versachlichung der politischen Debatte um die Einbindung privater Ressourcen in die Wohnraumversorgung geleistet werden. Es wird ein systematischer Überblick über die investiven und finanziellen Herausforderungen für die deutsche Wohnungswirtschaft allgemein und der staatlichen Wohnraumversorgung im Besonderen gegeben. Basierend auf bisherigen Entwicklungen werden Ziele und Rahmenbedingungen für die zukünftige Einbindung privaten Kapitals in die Wohnraumversorgung dargestellt. Grundkonzeptionen, wie private Ressourcen in die Aufgaben der Wohnraumversorgung eingebunden werden können, werden vorgestellt und können als Diskussionsgrundlage für die Weiterentwicklung zukunftsfähiger Privatisierungsmodelle dienen. Abschließend werden Erfolgsfaktoren für ökonomisch nachhaltige Privatisierungskonstruktionen abgeleitet. Das Arbeitspapier wurde in Kooperation mit der Deutsche Wohnen AG erstellt.

Evaluation of modelled climatologies of O₃, CO, water vapour and NOy_{y} in the upper troposphere–lower stratosphere using regular in situ observations by passenger aircraft

Evaluating global chemistry models in the upper troposphere–lower stratosphere (UTLS) is an important step toward an improved understanding of the chemical composition in this region. This composition is regularly sampled through in situ measurements based on passenger aircraft, in the framework of the In-service Aircraft for a Global Observing System (IAGOS) research infrastructure. This study focuses on the comparison of the IAGOS measurements in ozone, carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen reactive species (NOy) and water vapour, with a 25-year simulation output from the LMDZ-OR-INCA chemistry–climate model. For this purpose, we present and apply an extension of the Interpol-IAGOS software that projects the IAGOS data onto any model grid, in order to derive a gridded IAGOS product and a masked (sub-sampled) model product that are directly comparable to one another. Climatologies are calculated in the upper troposphere (UT) and in the lower stratosphere (LS) separately but also in the UTLS as a whole, as a demonstration for the models that do not sort out the physical variables necessary to distinguish between the UT and the LS. In the northern extratropics, the comparison in the UTLS layer suggests that the geographical distribution in the tropopause height is well reproduced by the model. In the separated layers, the model simulates well the water vapour climatologies in the UT and the ozone climatologies in the LS. There are opposite biases in CO in both UT and LS, which suggests that the cross-tropopause transport is overestimated. The NOy observations highlight the difficulty of the model in parameterizing the lightning emissions. In the tropics, the upper-tropospheric climatologies are remarkably well simulated for water vapour. They also show realistic CO peaks due to biomass burning in the most convective systems, and the ozone latitudinal variations are well correlated between the observations and the model. Ozone is more sensitive to lightning emissions than to biomass burning emissions, whereas the CO sensitivity to biomass burning emissions strongly depends on location and season. The present study demonstrates that the Interpol-IAGOS software is a tool facilitating the assessment of global model simulations in the UTLS, which is potentially useful for any modelling experiment involving chemistry climate or chemistry transport models

A quantitative analysis of stratospheric HCl, HNO3, and O3 in the tropopause region near the subtropical jet

The effects of chemical two-way mixing on the Extratropical Transition Layer (ExTL) near the subtropical jet are investigated by stratospheric tracer-tracer correlations. To this end, in situ measurements were performed west of Africa (25–32◦N) during the Transport and Composition of the Upper Troposphere Lower Stratosphere (UTLS)/Earth System Model Validation (TACTS/ESMVal) mission in August/September 2012. The Atmospheric chemical Ionization Mass Spectrometer sampling HCl and HNO3 was for the first time deployed on the new German High Altitude and Long range research aircraft (HALO). Measurements of O3, CO, European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) analysis, and the tight correlation of the unambiguous tracer HCl to O3 and HNO3 in the lower stratosphere were used to quantify the stratospheric content of these species in the ExTL. With increasing distance from the tropopause, the stratospheric content increased from 10% to 100% with differing profiles for HNO3 and O3. Tropospheric fractions of 20% HNO3 and 40% O3 were detected up to a distance of 30 K above the tropopause

Intercomparison of in-situ aircraft and satellite aerosol measurements in the stratosphere

Aerosol composition and optical scattering from particles in the lowermost stratosphere (LMS) have been studied by comparing in-situ aerosol samples from the IAGOS-CARIBIC passenger aircraft with vertical profiles of aerosol backscattering obtained from the CALIOP lidar aboard the CALIPSO satellite. Concentrations of the dominating fractions of the stratospheric aerosol, being sulphur and carbon, have been obtained from post-flight analysis of IAGOS-CARIBIC aerosol samples. This information together with literature data on black carbon concentrations were used to calculate the aerosol backscattering which subsequently is compared with measurements by CALIOP. Vertical optical profiles were taken in an altitude range of several kilometres from and above the northern hemispheric extratropical tropopause for the years 2006-2014. We find that the two vastly different measurement platforms yield different aerosol backscattering, especially close to the tropopause where the influence from tropospheric aerosol is strong. The best agreement is found when the LMS is affected by volcanism, i.e., at elevated aerosol loadings. At background conditions, best agreement is obtained some distance (>2 km) above the tropopause in winter and spring, i.e., at likewise elevated aerosol loadings from subsiding aerosol-rich stratospheric air. This is to our knowledge the first time the CALIPSO lidar measurements have been compared to in-situ long-term aerosol measurements. © 2019, The Author(s)

A new cavity ring-down instrument for airborne monitoring of N2O5, NO3, NO2 and O3 in the upper troposphere lower stratosphere

A new airborne instrument based on pulsed cavity ring-down spectroscopy for simultaneous detection of N2O5, NO3, NO2 and O3 in the upper troposphere lower stratosphere is being developed for global atmospheric monitoring. OCIS codes: 010.0010, 120.0120, 140.0140, 280.0280, 300.0300, 300.6260, 300.6360