Basic needs support and achievement emotions in daily research of life scientists considering academic positions

Emotions are a crucial factor in daily research of academic staff and, accordingly, affect scientific progress. Already before but especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, the strong connection between working conditions and work-related emotional states as antecedents for mental health of academic staff gained more and more attention. However, in depths investigations of researchers’ emotions in academia are still rare. In the highly competitive field of academia, experiencing the working environments as supportive may be an important influential factor for researchers’ emotions. On a structural level, academic positions may also be tied to different emotional experiences. Taking a Self-Determination Theory approach, we therefore investigate, whether a basic need-supportive environment (regarding perceived competence and autonomy support, and social relatedness to the scientific community) and the academic position (research assistants without leading responsibility and principle investigators with leading responsibility) predict activity-related achievement emotions (enjoyment, anger, frustration, and boredom) during daily research activities. However, measurements on basic needs support and achievement emotions tailored to the specific academic research context are lacking. Therefore, this study is aimed at developing fitted scales on these constructs. In a cross-sectional survey, we questioned N = 250 life scientists in 13 German universities. Results of multiple linear regression analyses suggest that supportive environments in academia were positively associated to the level of experienced enjoyment and negatively to the level of experienced frustration. Surprisingly, social relatedness to the scientific community does not affect frustration. Principle investigators report a more favorable emotional pattern with higher levels of enjoyment than research assistants. However, the level of experienced frustration was not affected by the academic position. The scales on anger and boredom seemed not to differentiate emotional experiences on these two negative achievement emotions in the research context accurately. Therefore, we needed to exclude anger and boredom from analyzes. Further research on these achievement emotions is needed. We discuss our findings on enjoyment and frustration and derive both theoretical and practical implications, taking an international and interdisciplinary perspective

Erfolg trotz Distanz: Sozialisierung von Studierenden während des Lockdowns. Eine Fallstudie

During the COVID-19 pandemic, emergency online learning impeded the pursuit of in-person activities that usually foster successful socialization in higher education. To investigate the effects of online learning on socialization, we asked two exploratory research questions: (1) How and to what extent does the level of socialization change during the first online semester? and (2) To what extent does level of change predict course dropout and academic performance? In our case study, using a sample of new students at a large German university, we ran an autoregressive three-factorial model of socialization (role, relationships, organization) with three measurements taken during the new students’ first semester, which was the second semester in which emergency online learning took place. Our results show that the relationships component of socialization did not increase over the semester, while the role and organization components increased. Furthermore, our results support a negative effect of the organization component of socialization on course dropout and a positive effect of the relationship component of socialization on academic performance

Band-like arrangement of taste-like sensory cells at the gastric groove: evidence for paracrine communication

The discovery of taste-related elements within the gastrointestinal tract has led to a growing interest in the mechanisms and physiological significance of chemosensory monitoring of chymus composition. Previous work suggests that brush cells located in the "gastric groove," which parallels the "limiting ridge," a structure in rodents that divides the fundus from the corpus, are candidate sensory cells. A novel sectioning technique revealed that these cells are arranged in a palisade-like manner forming a band which borders the whole length of the corpus epithelium. Using transgenic PLC beta 2 promoter-GFP mice and specific antibodies, we have demonstrated that most of these cells express gustducin, PLC beta 2, and TRPM5; typical signaling proteins of gustatory sensory "type II" cells. These molecular features strongly suggest that the cells may be capable of sensing nutrient or non-nutrient constituents of the ingested food. Since there is no evidence that brush cells are endocrine cells, attempts were made to explore how such putative chemosensory cells might transmit the information to "effector" cells. It was found that most of the cells express the neuronal nitric oxide synthase (NOS) suggesting some paracrine interaction with adjacent cells. Moreover, they also express choline acetyltransferase (ChAT) as well as the vesicular protein SNAP25, indicating the potential for cholinergic transmission, possibly with subjacent enteric nerve fibers

Regulations and practices of structured doctoral education in the life sciences in Germany

Structured doctoral education is increasingly preferred compared to the individual model. Several science policy organisations give recommendations on how to structure doctoral education. However, there is little research on to what extent these recommendations find their way into practice. In our study, we first compared European and German recommendations on doctoral education with, second, the institutional regulations of structured doctoral programmes (N= 98) in the life sciences at twelve different German universities. Additionally, we third asked doctoral graduates (N= 1796) of these structured doctoral programmes and graduates of individual doctoral studies about their experience in doctoral education. Fourth, we contrasted the regulations of structured doctoral programmes with the reported experiences of their graduates. We found significant deviations of the reported practices of graduates from the regulations of their organisations, regarding the student admission, supervision and curricular activities of doctoral candidates. The efficacy of structured versus traditional doctoral education should be examined based on reported practice rather than on the respective written regulations

Putative interaction of brush cells with bicarbonate secreting cells in the proximal corpus mucosa

The gastric epithelium is protected from the highly acidic luminal content by alkaline mucus which is secreted from specialized epithelial cells. In the stomach of mice strong secretion of alkaline fluid was observed at the "gastric groove," the border between corpus and fundus mucosa. Since this region is characterized by numerous brush cells it was proposed that these cells might secrete alkaline solution as suggested for brush cells in the bile duct. In fact, it was found that in this region multiple cells express elements which are relevant for the secretion of bicarbonate, including carbonic anhydrase (CAII), the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) and the Na+/H+ exchanger (NHE1). However, this cell population was distinct from brush cells which express the TRP-channel TRPM5 and are considered as putative sensory cells. The location of both cell populations in close proximity implies the possibility for a paracnne interaction. This view was substantiated by the finding that brush cells express prostaglandin synthase-1 (COX-1) and the neighboring cells a specific receptor type for prostaglandins. The notion that brush cells may be able to sense a local acidification was supported by the observation that they express the channel PKD1L3 which contributes to the acid responsiveness of gustatory sensory cells. The results support the concept that brush cells may sense the luminal content and influence via prostaglandins the secretion of alkaline solution

First spatio-spectral Bayesian imaging of SN1006 in X-ray

Supernovae are an important source of energy in the interstellar medium. Young remnants of supernovae have a peak emission in the X-ray region, making them interesting objects for X-ray observations. In particular, the supernova remnant SN1006 is of great interest due to its historical record, proximity and brightness. It has therefore been studied by several X-ray telescopes. Improving the X-ray imaging of this and other remnants is important but challenging as it requires to address a spatially varying instrument response in order to achieve a high signal-to-noise ratio. Here, we use Chandra observations to demonstrate the capabilities of Bayesian image reconstruction using information field theory. Our objective is to reconstruct denoised, deconvolved and spatio-spectral resolved images from X-ray observations and to decompose the emission into different morphologies, namely diffuse and point-like. Further, we aim to fuse data from different detectors and pointings into a mosaic and quantify the uncertainty of our result. Utilizing prior knowledge on the spatial and spectral correlation structure of the two components, diffuse emission and point sources, the presented method allows the effective decomposition of the signal into these. In order to accelerate the imaging process, we introduce a multi-step approach, in which the spatial reconstruction obtained for a single energy range is used to derive an informed starting point for the full spatio-spectral reconstruction. The method is applied to 11 Chandra observations of SN1006 from 2008 and 2012, providing a detailed, denoised and decomposed view of the remnant. In particular, the separated view of the diffuse emission should provide new insights into its complex small-scale structures in the center of the remnant and at the shock front profiles

Eficacia y costo-utilidad de primer reemplazo total de cadera y rodilla en pacientes con osteoartritis

Objetivo: determinar la eficacia, costos y razón incremental de costo-utilidad (RICU) de la cirugía de primer reemplazo total de rodilla y cadera en pacientes con osteoartritis