LODE: Linking Digital Humanities Content to the Web of Data

Numerous digital humanities projects maintain their data collections in the form of text, images, and metadata. While data may be stored in many formats, from plain text to XML to relational databases, the use of the resource description framework (RDF) as a standardized representation has gained considerable traction during the last five years. Almost every digital humanities meeting has at least one session concerned with the topic of digital humanities, RDF, and linked data. While most existing work in linked data has focused on improving algorithms for entity matching, the aim of the LinkedHumanities project is to build digital humanities tools that work "out of the box," enabling their use by humanities scholars, computer scientists, librarians, and information scientists alike. With this paper, we report on the Linked Open Data Enhancer (LODE) framework developed as part of the LinkedHumanities project. With LODE we support non-technical users to enrich a local RDF repository with high-quality data from the Linked Open Data cloud. LODE links and enhances the local RDF repository without compromising the quality of the data. In particular, LODE supports the user in the enhancement and linking process by providing intuitive user-interfaces and by suggesting high-quality linking candidates using tailored matching algorithms. We hope that the LODE framework will be useful to digital humanities scholars complementing other digital humanities tools

Straightforward synthesis of aliphatic polydithiocarbonates from commercially available starting materials

Herein, a novel 1,1′-carbonyldiimidazole (CDI) mediated polymerization methodology that complements ROP and unlocks a greater synthetic window to less-recognized polydithiocarbonates is presented

Nachhaltige Entwicklung bedeutet (mehr) Demokratie und Dialog: Erkenntnisse aus einem empirischen Forschungsprojekt zu urbanen Familiengartengemeinschaften in der Schweiz

Der Artikel thematisiert am Beispiel von Familiengartengemeinschaften die Notwendigkeit, in der soziologischen Nachhaltigkeitsforschung und ebenso in der lokalen Politik für eine Nachhaltige Entwicklung, den Fokus nicht nur auf progressive Vorreitergruppen, also die Pioniere der Nachhaltigkeit (wie zum Beispiel die vielzitierten Gemeinschaftsgärten-Gruppen) zu legen, die selber auch auf das Nachhaltigkeits-Vokabular Bezug nehmen, sondern ebenso traditionelle Gruppen (wie die traditionellen Familiengärten-Gruppen), die mit diesen Diskursen weniger vertraut sind, als Akteure und Akteurinnen einer nachhaltigen Praxis zu verstehen und diese stärker mit ihren Ressourcen in die Transformationsbewegung miteinzubeziehen. Dies setzt eine offene, verständigungsorientierte und explorative Herangehensweise voraus, kurz: die Bereitschaft zum Dialog. Denn, so die zentrale These dieses Artikels, Nachhaltige Entwicklung lässt sich nur demokratisch gestalten, d.h. in einem Dialog zwischen verschiedenen Akteurinnen und Akteuren, als eine große Experimentiergesellschaft,die Altes und Neues kreativ miteinander verbindet. This article draws upon the example of allotment garden communities to discuss the need for sociological research on sustainability as well as local sustainable policies to focus their efforts not only on progressive pioneer groups (such as the much-praised new community gardens) who connect themselves to the sustainability discourse, but also to traditional groups such as allotment garden communities. Traditional allotment garden groups are less familiar with sustainability discourses, yet nonetheless they can be understood as being actors of sustainable practices and resources, that need to be included into the sustainability movement. This requires an open, explorative and communicative approach, put shortly: the willingness to engage in a dialogue. For, the central argument of this article is that sustainable development can only be achieved within a democratic process, which requires a dialogue between different actors and a more experimental society that aims to combine the old and new in a creative way. (peer reviewed

Reality Meets Belief: A Mixed Methods Study on Character Strengths and Well-Being of Hospital Physicians

Positive psychology deals with factors that make life most worth living and focuses on enhancing individual potentials. Particularly, character strengths can positively contribute to well-being and work-related health, bearing a promising potential for professions, such as physicians, who are at risk for burnout or mental illnesses. This study aims to identify beneficial character strengths by examining the quantitative and qualitative data. In a cross-sectional multi-method study, 218 hospital physicians completed an online survey assessing their character strengths and their general and work-related well-being, comprising thriving, work engagement, and burnout dimensions (outcome variables). Quantitative data were analyzed for the total sample and by tertiary split. Additionally, interview-gathered opinions of four resident physicians and four medical specialist educators were collected to expand the perspective on which character strengths might be beneficial for the well-being of the resident physicians. The highest significant correlations between character strengths and outcome variables were found for hope and thriving (r = 0.67), zest, and work engagement (r = 0.67) as well as emotional exhaustion (r = −0.47), perseverance/leadership and depersonalization (r = −0.27), bravery, and reduced personal accomplishment (r = −0.39). Tertiary splits revealed that some correlations were not consistent across the entire scale continuum, for example, creativity was only significantly correlated with comparatively high levels of thriving (r = 0.28) or forgiveness with comparatively high levels of depersonalization (r = −0.34). Humility, social intelligence, and teamwork showed predominantly low correlations with all outcome variables (r = −0.17 − 0.34), although humility was stated by all interviewed medical specialist educators to be the most relevant for the well-being at work, and the latter two by three resident physicians, respectively. Different perspectives resulting from quantitative and qualitative data in terms of beneficial character strengths for work-related well-being may be driven by different work experiences, professional understandings, generational beliefs, or social expectations. Some significant correlations between character strengths and well-being outcomes varied depending on low, medium, or high outcomes. This raises questions about suitable work-related well-being interventions, as simple single intervention approaches (one intervention fits all) may not work for the respective outcome levels. These new findings warrant further research on how to foster the well-being of resident physicians at work

Towards practical reinforcement learning for tokamak magnetic control

Reinforcement learning (RL) has shown promising results for real-time control systems, including the domain of plasma magnetic control. However, there are still significant drawbacks compared to traditional feedback control approaches for magnetic confinement. In this work, we address key drawbacks of the RL method; achieving higher control accuracy for desired plasma properties, reducing the steady-state error, and decreasing the required time to learn new tasks. We build on top of \cite{degrave2022magnetic}, and present algorithmic improvements to the agent architecture and training procedure. We present simulation results that show up to 65\% improvement in shape accuracy, achieve substantial reduction in the long-term bias of the plasma current, and additionally reduce the training time required to learn new tasks by a factor of 3 or more. We present new experiments using the upgraded RL-based controllers on the TCV tokamak, which validate the simulation results achieved, and point the way towards routinely achieving accurate discharges using the RL approach

Diagnostic performance of four SARS-CoV-2 antibody assays in patients with COVID-19 or with bacterial and non-SARS-CoV-2 viral respiratory infections

SARS-CoV-2 antibody assays are used for epidemiological studies and for the assessment of vaccine responses in highly vulnerable patients. So far, data on cross-reactivity of SARS-CoV-2 antibody assays is limited. Here, we compared four enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISAs; Vircell SARS-CoV-2 IgM/IgA and IgG, Euroimmun SARS-CoV-2 IgA and IgG) for detection of anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in 207 patients with COVID-19, 178 patients with serological evidence of different bacterial infections, 107 patients with confirmed viral respiratory disease, and 80 controls from the pre-COVID-19 era. In COVID-19 patients, the assays showed highest sensitivity in week 3 (Vircell-IgM/A and Euroimmun-IgA: 78.9% each) and after week 7 (Vircell-IgG: 97.9%; Euroimmun-IgG: 92.1%). The antibody indices were higher in patients with fatal disease. In general, IgM/IgA assays had only limited or no benefit over IgG assays. In patients with non-SARS-CoV-2 respiratory infections, IgG assays were more specific than IgM/IgA assays, and bacterial infections were associated with more false-positive results than viral infections. The specificities in bacterial and viral infections were 68.0 and 81.3% (Vircell-IgM/IgA), 84.8 and 96.3% (Euroimmun-IgA), 97.8 and 86.0% (Vircell-IgG), and 97.8 and 99.1% (Euroimmun-IgG), respectively. Sera from patients positive for antibodies against Mycoplasma pneumoniae, Chlamydia psittaci, and Legionella pneumophila yielded particularly high rates of unspecific false-positive results in the IgM/IgA assays, which was revealed by applying a highly specific flow-cytometric assay using HEK 293 T cells expressing the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein. Positive results obtained with anti-SARS-CoV-2 IgM/IgA ELISAs require careful interpretation, especially if there is evidence for prior bacterial respiratory infections

Standing genetic variation fuels rapid evolution of herbicide resistance in blackgrass

DATA, MATERIALS, AND SOFTWARE AVAILABILITY : Raw data including PacBio CLR and Iso-seq reads, Illumina PCR-free, Hi-C, and RNA-seq reads can be accessed in the European Nucleotide Archive (ENA; https://www.ebi.ac.uk/ena/browser/ home) under project accession number PRJEB49257 (78), assembly accession CASDCE010000000 (79). Raw ddRAD-seq data for the population study, and PacBio CCS q20 reads can be downloaded from the ENA project accession number PRJEB49288 (80). Annotation files for the genome assembly, the SNP matrix for the ddRAD-seq experiment, and the fasta files with the haplotypes of ACCase and ALS can be found at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7634530 (81). Scripts and experimental protocols to reproduce the analyses in this study are deposited in the GitHub repository of this study (https://github.com/SonjaKersten/ Herbicide_resistance_evolution_in_blackgrass_2022) (82).Repeated herbicide applications in agricultural fields exert strong selection on weeds such as blackgrass (Alopecurus myosuroides), which is a major threat for temperate climate cereal crops. This inadvertent selection pressure provides an opportunity for investigating the underlying genetic mechanisms and evolutionary processes of rapid adaptation, which can occur both through mutations in the direct targets of herbicides and through changes in other, often metabolic, pathways, known as non-target-site resistance. How much target-site resistance (TSR) relies on de novo mutations vs. standing variation is important for developing strategies to manage herbicide resistance. We first generated a chromosome-level reference genome for A. myosuroides for population genomic studies of herbicide resistance and genome-wide diversity across Europe in this species. Next, through empirical data in the form of highly accurate long-read amplicons of alleles encoding acetyl-CoA carboxylase (ACCase) and acetolactate synthase (ALS) variants, we showed that most populations with resistance due to TSR mutations—23 out of 27 and six out of nine populations for ACCase and ALS, respectively—contained at least two TSR haplotypes, indicating that soft sweeps are the norm. Finally, through forward-in-time simulations, we inferred that TSR is likely to mainly result from standing genetic variation, with only a minor role for de novo mutations.The Landesgraduiertenförderung (State Graduate Scholarship, LGFG) of the State of Baden-Württemberg; a Human Frontiers Science Program Long-Term Fellowship, BASF and the Max Planck Society.https://www.pnas.org/am2024Biochemistry, Genetics and Microbiology (BGM)SDG-15:Life on lan