What is the climate system able to do ‘on its own’?

The climate of the Earth, like planetary climates in general, is broadly controlled by solar irradiation, planetary albedo and emissivity as well as its rotation rate and distribution of land (with its orography) and oceans. However, the majority of climate fluctuations that affect mankind are internal modes of the general circulation of the atmosphere and the oceans. Some of these modes, such as El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), are quasi-regular and have some longer-term predictive skill; others like the Arctic and Antarctic Oscillation are chaotic and generally unpredictable beyond a few weeks. Studies using general circulation models indicate that internal processes dominate the regional climate and that some like ENSO events have even distinct global signatures. This is one of the reasons why it is so difficult to separate internal climate processes from external ones caused, for example, by changes in greenhouse gases and solar irradiation. However, the accumulation of the warmest seasons during the latest two decades is lending strong support to the forcing of the greenhouse gases. As models are getting more comprehensive, they show a gradually broader range of internal processes including those on longer time scales, challenging the interpretation of the causes of past and present climate events further

Translating Pharmacogenomics: Challenges on the Road to the Clinic

Pharmacogenomics is one of the first clinical applications of the postgenomic era. It promises personalized medicine rather than the established “one size fits all” approach to drugs and dosages. The expected reduction in trial and error should ultimately lead to more efficient and safer drug therapy. In recent years, commercially available pharmacogenomic tests have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), but their application in patient care remains very limited. More generally, the implementation of pharmacogenomics in routine clinical practice presents significant challenges. This article presents specific clinical examples of such challenges and discusses how obstacles to implementation of pharmacogenomic testing can be addressed

Perceived and one’s own motion in response priming

In response priming, motor pre-activations from a prime to the response to a target can be measured, as a function of whether they require the same (compatible) or different (incompatible) responses. With moving primes and static arrow targets, the results depend on the stimulus onset asynchrony between prime and target: with short SOAs, there were faster responses to compatible than incompatible targets, with longer SOAs, the pattern reverses. However, this reversal was not found with more biological motions. The current study comprised 3 experiments in order to replicate several findings from previous research and add evidence regarding the interplay of one’s own and perceived motions. Subjects performed a response priming task with moving prime stimuli while in motion themselves. With this paradigm, we tested the general influence of motion on responding and compatibility effects in response priming with moving prime stimuli. Furthermore, we assessed specific interactions of features of the perceived stimuli (e.g., moving vs. static; direction of the prime or target) and the own motion (e.g., walking vs. standing; direction of being rotated). We used two different own motions (walking on a treadmill, Exp. 1 & 3; rotating in a human gyroscope, Exp. 2) and two different visual stimulus types (rows-of-dots, Exp. 1 & 2; point light displays, Exp. 3). Compatibility effects were, in general, neither increased nor decreased during motion. Their size depended on the stimulus type, the velocity of one’s own motion, and several interactions of perceived and own motion. We discuss our findings with respect to perception-action interactions and previous findings on response priming with moving prime stimuli

Ethik von Screening Rationalitaeten. T. 1: Methodische Probleme und ungeloeste Wertkonflikte. T. 2: Konzeptionelle Probleme und moegliche Ansatzpunkte einer transparenten Bewertung genetischer Screenings - am Beispiel praedikativ probabilistischer BRCA-Tests Schlussbericht

Published in 2 volumesAvailable from TIB Hannover: F04B385: F04B386 / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekSIGLEBundesministerium fuer Bildung und Forschung, Berlin (Germany)DEGerman

Entwicklung von Verfahren und Werkzeugsystemen zur Hydroumformung hoeherfester Stahlbleche

Available from TIB Hannover: RR 7808(274) / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekSIGLEStifterverband fuer die Deutsche Wissenschaft e.V., Essen (Germany). Stiftung StahlanwendungsforschungDEGerman