Rheinfelden AG, Weiherfeld (Rhe.013.1)

In einer landwirtschaftlich genutzten Fläche in der Nähe spätantiker Fundstellen wurde mit Ehrenamtlichen eine Sondiergrabung angelegt, um geomagnetische Anomalien zu überprüfen. Es ergaben sich deutliche Hinweise auf eine Ziegelei (Fehlbrände, Ofenbestandteile). Auf eine weitere Ausgrabung wurde verzichtet, da die Fundstelle nicht akut bedroht ist

European phylogeography and genetic structure of wood and yellow-necked mice Apodemus sylvaticus and Apodemus flavicollis based on whole-genome, high-density genotyping by restriction-site-associated DNA sequencing (RAD-seq)

Rodents of the genus Apodemus are one the most common mammals in the Palaearctic region. They play an important role in ecosystems by participating in seed dispersal and being a part of the diet of many carnivores. They contribute to the spread of human diseases such as Lyme disease and tick–borne encephalitis, are a reservoir of hantaviruses that cause hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome (HFRS) and exhibit interesting karyotype feature – B chromosomes. They are, however, very underdeveloped in terms of genetic and genomic resources available for their study. Apodemus flavicollis and Apodemus sylvaticus live in sympatry in the European Plain. They are phylogenetically related and exhibit similar behaviour and morphology. They have long been studied for elucidation of post-glaciation migration patterns where previous studies using microsatellite and mtDNA markers revealed glacial refugia in southern Europe and suggested the possibility of the existence of a northern refugium. Here, we employ double digestion restriction site-associated DNA sequencing (ddRAD-seq) to study Apodemus phylogeography in Europe. I first established the feasibility of this approach in a pilot study with 82 samples from both species (72 Apodemus flavicollis and 10 Apodemus sylvaticus) from four locations spanning 500 km in north-eastern Poland. My results shown that despite presumed relatively low mobility of the species, A. flavicollis in the north-eastern Poland effectively constitutes a single population with neligible structure and moderate heterozygosity. Based on 21377 common loci, I was able to estimate the average genetic divergence between the two species at 1.51% and an evolutionary rate of 0.0019 substitutions per site per million of years. I also generated a catalogue of 632063 loci to enable clear genetic differentiation of the two species, and successfully verified its performance on 20 unrelated samples from Europe and Tunisia. Based on the pilot project experience, I developed a new library preparation protocol that incorporated longer barcodes and degenerate base regions to allow detection of both PCR duplicates and chimeric sequences. After testing the efficiency of the new protocol on a set of samples with variable DNA quality, I applied it to a large scale pan-European study of Apodemus in one of the first application of the RAD-seq in mammals. My results show, for the first time, the existance of post-glacial northern groups, not only on A. sylvaticus but also on A. flavicollis, as well as long distance movements on A. sylvaticus but not A. flavicollis. This thesis constitutes the first application of a whole-genome approach to study these organisms. It has allowed us to generate sequences from thousands of loci for both species, identify tens of thousands of SNPs markers and perform continental-scale analysis of the relationships between multiple populations, contributing to the development of Apodemus as a model organism

How reliable are online speech intelligibility studies with known listener cohorts?

Although the use of nontraditional settings for speech perception experiments is growing, there have been few controlled comparisons of online and laboratory modalities in the context of speech intelligibility. The current study compares outcomes from three web-based replications of recent laboratory studies involving distorted, masked, fil- tered, and enhanced speech, amounting to 40 separate conditions. Rather than relying on unrestricted crowdsourcing, this study made use of participants from the population that would normally volunteer to take part physically in labo- ratory experiments. In sentence transcription tasks, the web cohort produced intelligibility scores 3–6 percentage points lower than their laboratory counterparts, and test modality interacted with experimental condition. These disparities and interactions largely disappeared after the exclusion of those web listeners who self-reported the use of low quality headphones, and the remaining listener cohort was also able to replicate key outcomes of each of the three laboratory studies. The laboratory and web modalities produced similar measures of experimental efficiency based on listener variability, response errors, and outlier counts. These findings suggest that the combination of known listener cohorts and moderate headphone quality provides a feasible alternative to traditional laboratory intel- ligibility studies.Basque Government Consolidados programme under Grant No. IT311-1

Intermolecular interaction and solid state characterization of abietic acid/chitosan solid dispersions possessing antimicrobial and antioxidant properties

The aim of this work was to prepare and characterize solid dispersions of abietic acid (AB) and chitosan (CS) to investigate how formulation of the mixture may help in the battle against microbial colonization in different areas, such as the biomedical field or the food industry. Solid dispersions were characterized by differential scanning calorimetry, infrared spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, polarized optical microscopy, zeta potential and size analysis. The data showed that the dispersion/solvent evaporation method formed solid dispersions in which abietic acid was molecularly dispersed in the carrier. A synergistic effect between the two components in terms of antioxidant and antimicrobial properties was found, especially in the formulations obtained with 1/1 AB/CS molar ratio. Interestingly, the aggregation state (amorphous/crystalline) of AB seemed to affect the antimicrobial activity of the formulation, suggesting increased bioactivity when the drug was in the amorphous state. These findings, together with the demonstrated biocompatibility of the formulations, seem to open promising perspectives for a successful application of the developed AB/CS formulations in the biomedical field or in the food industry

Effects of exposure to noise during perceptual training of non-native language sounds

Listeners manage to acquire the sounds of their native language in spite of experiencing a range of acoustic conditions during acquisition, including the presence of noise. Is the same true for nonnative sound acquisition? This study investigates whether the presence of masking noise during consonant training is a barrier to improvement, or, conversely, whether noise can be beneficial. Spanish learners identified English consonants with and without noise, before and after undergoing one of four extensive training regimes in which they were exposed to either consonants or vowels in the presence or absence of speech-shaped noise. The consonant-trained cohorts showed substantially larger gains than the vowel-trained groups, regardless of whether they were trained in noise or quiet. A small matched-condition benefit was evident, with noise-training resulting in larger improvements when testing in noise, and vice versa for training in quiet. No evidence for habituation to noise was observed: the cohort trained on vowels in noise showed no transference to consonants in noise. These findings demonstrate that noise exposure does not impede the acquisition of second language sounds.This study was carried out with funding from the Basque Government Consolidados grant to the Language and Speech Laboratory at the University of the Basque Country

Non-native consonant acquisition in noise: Effects of exposure/ test similarity

When faced with speech in noise, do listeners rely on robust cues or can they make use of joint speech-plus-noise patterns based on prior experience? Recent studies have suggested that listeners are better able to identify words in noise if they experienced the same word-in-noise tokens in an earlier exposure phase. The current study examines the role of token similarity in exposure and test conditions. In three experiments, Spanish learners of English were exposed to intervocalic consonants during an extensive training phase, bracketed by pre- and post-tests. Distinct cohorts experienced tokens that were either matched or mismatched across test and training phases in one or both of two factors: signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and talker. Cohorts with fully matching test-training exposure were no better at identifying consonants at the post-test phase than those trained in partially or fully mismatched conditions. Indeed, at more adverse test SNRs, training at more favourable SNRs was beneficial. These findings argue against the use of joint speech-plus-noise representations at the segmental level and instead suggest that listeners are able to extract useful acoustic-phonetic information across a range of exposure conditions.This study was carried with funding from the Basque Government Consolidados grant to the Language and Speech Laboratory at the University of the Basque Country