What drives climate change?

Anthropogenic climate change is the most demanding challenge humanity has to face in the ongoing 21st century and beyond. This dissertation delves deeper into enhancing the knowledge on the major drivers of climate change and its mitigation. Thus, all four articles focus on the macro-level analysis of countries over time, applying causal inference. Specifically, the dissertation addresses the predictors of national carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions (article 1), the controversial debate on carbon leakage from developed to developing countries (article 2), the influence of social inequality on CO2 emissions (article 3), and the role of forests as climate solution as well as the drivers of forest loss and its gain (article 4). Altogether, the results suggest that population growth is a major driver of CO2 emissions and deforestation. Another key factor is increasing wealth. However, the effect of economic growth is double-edged: On the one hand, rising gross domestic product (GDP) almost proportionally boosts carbon emissions so far. On the other hand, growth in GDP contributes to enhance forest cover. Minor carbon-abating effects are observed for energy prices, technological progress, and international environmental agreements. Designating and managing protected areas drives forest gain. Furthermore, social inequality and international trade are not substantially related to CO2 emissions. Particularly, there is no evidence for carbon leakage from developed to developing countries. Given the challenge of emissions abatement, natural climate solutions are promising for near-term and large­scale sequestration of carbon. As the fourth article highlights, dangerous climate change could be prevented by doubling current forest cover

The Effects of Non-pharmaceutical Interventions on COVID-19 Mortality: A Generalized Synthetic Control Approach Across 169 Countries.

Importance Governments have introduced non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) in response to the pandemic outbreak of Coronavirus disease (COVID-19). While NPIs aim at preventing fatalities related to COVID-19, the previous literature on their efficacy has focused on infections and on data of the first half of 2020. Still, findings of early NPI studies may be subject to underreporting and missing timeliness of reporting of cases. Moreover, the low variation in treatment timing during the first wave makes identification of robust treatment effects difficult. Objective We enhance the literature on the effectiveness of NPIs with respect to the period, the number of countries, and the analytical approach. Design Setting and Participants To circumvent problems of reporting and treatment variation, we analyse data on daily confirmed COVID-19-related deaths per capita from Our World in Data, and on 10 different NPIs from the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker (OxCGRT) for 169 countries from 1st July 2020 to 1st September 2021. To identify the causal effects of introducing NPIs on COVID-19-related fatalities, we apply the generalized synthetic control (GSC) method to each NPI, while controlling for the remaining NPIs, weather conditions, vaccinations, and NPI-residualized COVID-19 cases. This mitigates the influence of selection into treatment and allows to model flexible post-treatment trajectories. Results We do not find substantial and consistent COVID-19-related fatality-reducing effects of any NPI under investigation. We see a tentative change in the trend of COVID-19-related deaths around 30 days after strict stay-at-home rules and to a slighter extent after workplace closings have been implemented. As a proof of concept, our model is able to identify a fatality-reducing effect of COVID-19 vaccinations. Furthermore, our results are robust with respect to various crucial sensitivity checks. Conclusion Our results demonstrate that many implemented NPIs may not have exerted a significant COVID-19-related fatality-reducing effect. However, NPIs might have contributed to mitigate COVID-19-related fatalities by preventing exponential growth in deaths. Moreover, vaccinations were effective in reducing COVID-19-related deaths

Contagious Yawning, Empathy, and Their Relation to Prosocial Behavior

Humans express facial mimicry across a variety of actions. This article explores a distinct example, contagious yawning, and the links to empathy and prosocial behavior. Prior studies have suggested that there is a positive link between empathy and the susceptibility to contagious yawning. However, the existing evidence has been sparse and contradictory. We present results from 2 laboratory studies conducted with 171 (Study 1) and 333 (Study 2) student volunteers. Subjects were video-recorded while watching muted videos of individuals yawning, scratching, or laughing. Empathy was measured using the Interpersonal Reactivity Index. Although subjects imitated all facial expressions to large extents, our studies show that only contagious yawning was related to empathy. Subjects who yawned in response to observing others yawn exhibited higher empathy values by half a standard deviation. However, we found no evidence that the susceptibility to contagious yawning is directly related to prosocial behavior

Mechanisms of perfect absorption in nano-composite systems

Recently, it was noted that losses in plasmonics can also enable several useful optical functionalities. One class of structures that can maximize absorption are metal insulator metal systems. Here, we study 3-layer systems with a nano-composite metal layer as top layer. These systems can absorb almost 100% of light at visible frequencies, even though they contain only dielectrics and highly reflecting metals. We elucidate the underlying physical phenomenon that leads to this extraordinary high and broadband absorption. A comprehensive study of the particle material and shape, mirror material and dielectric spacer thickness is provided to identify their influence on the overall absorption. Thus, we can provide detailed design guidelines for realizing optical functionalities that require near-perfect absorption over specific wavelength bands. Our results reveal the strong role of lossy Fabry-Perot interference within these systems despite their thickness being well below half a wavelength. (C) 2018 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreemen

Unravelling textural heterogeneity in obsidian:shear-induced outgassing in the Rocche Rosse flow

Obsidian flow emplacement is a complex and understudied aspect of silicic volcanism. Of particular importance is the question of how highly viscous magma can lose sufficient gas in order to erupt effusively as a lava flow. Using an array of methods we study the extreme textural heterogeneity of the Rocche Rosse obsidian flow in Lipari, a 2 km long, 100 m thick, ~ 800 year old lava flow, with respect to outgassing and emplacement mechanisms. 2D and 3D vesicle analyses and density measurements are used to classify the lava into four textural types: ‘glassy’ obsidian ( 40% vesicles), high aspect ratio, ‘shear banded’ lava (20-40% vesicles) and low aspect ratio, ‘frothy’ obsidian with 30-60% vesicles. Textural heterogeneity is observed on all scales (m to μm) and occurs as the result of strongly localised strain. Magnetic fabric, described by oblate and prolate susceptibility ellipsoids, records high and variable degrees of shearing throughout the flow. Total water contents are derived using both thermogravimetry and infrared spectroscopy to quantify primary (magmatic) and secondary (meteoric) water. Glass water contents are between 0.08 - 0.25 wt.%. Water analysis also reveals an increase in water content from glassy obsidian bands towards ‘frothy’ bands of 0.06 - 0.08 wt.%, reflecting preferential vesiculation of higher water bands and an extreme sensitivity of obsidian degassing to water content. We present an outgassing model that reconciles textural, volatile and magnetic data to indicate that obsidian is generated from multiple shear-induced outgassing cycles, whereby vesicular magma outgasses and densifies through bubble collapse and fracture healing to form obsidian, which then re-vesiculates to produce ‘dry’ vesicular magma. Repetition of this cycle throughout magma ascent results in the low water contents of the Rocche Rosse lavas and the final stage in the degassing cycle determines final lava porosity. Heterogeneities in lava rheology (vesicularity, water content, microlite content, viscosity) play a vital role in the structural evolution of an obsidian flow and overprint flow-scale morphology. Post-emplacement hydration also depends heavily on local strain, whereby connectivity of vesicles as a result of shear deformation governs sample rehydration by meteoric water, a process previously correlated to lava vesicularity alone

Replicative manufacturing of metal moulds for low surface roughness polymer replication

Tool based manufacturing processes like injection moulding allow fast and high-quality mass-market production, but for optical polymer components the production of the necessary tools is time-consuming and expensive. In this paper a process to fabricate metal-inserts for tool based manufacturing with smooth surfaces via a casting and replication process from fused silica templates is presented. Bronze, brass and cobalt-chromium could be successfully replicated from shaped fused silica replications achieving a surface roughnesses of Rq 8 nm and microstructures in the range of 5 µm. Injection moulding was successfully performed, using a commercially available injection moulding system, with thousands of replicas generated from the same tool. In addition, three-dimensional bodies in metal could be realised with 3D-Printing of fused silica casting moulds. This work thus represents an approach to high-quality moulding tools via a scalable facile and cost-effective route surpassing the currently employed cost-, labour- and equipment-intensive machining techniques

How melanism affects the sensitivity of lizards to climate change

1. The impact of climate change on global biodiversity is firmly established, but the differential effect of climate change on populations within the same species is rarely considered. In ectotherms, melanism (i.e. darker integument due to heavier deposition of melanin) can significantly influence thermoregulation, as dark individuals generally heat more and faster than bright ones. Therefore, darker ectotherms might be more susceptible to climate change. 2. Using the colour-polyphenic lizard Karusasaurus polyzonus (Squamata: Cordylidae), we hypothesized that, under future climatic projections, darker populations will decrease their activity time more than brighter ones due to their greater potential for overheating. 3. To test this, we mechanistically modelled the body temperatures of 56 individuals from five differently coloured populations under present and future climate conditions. We first measured morphological traits and integumentary reflectance from live animals, and then collected physiological data from the literature. We used a biophysical model to compute activity time of individual lizards as proxy for their viability, and thereby predict how different populations will cope with future climate conditions. 4. Contrary to our expectations, we found that all populations will increase activity time and, specifically, that darker populations will become relatively more active than bright ones. This suggests that darker populations of K. polyzonus may benefit from global warming. 5. Our study emphasizes the importance of accounting for variation between populations when studying responses to climate change, as we must consider these variations to develop efficient and specific conservation strategies

Injection Molding of Magnesium Aluminate Spinel Nanocomposites for High‐Throughput Manufacturing of Transparent Ceramics

Transparent ceramics like magnesium aluminate spinel (MAS) are considered the next step in material evolution showing unmatched mechanical, chemical and physical resistance combined with high optical transparency. Unfortunately, transparent ceramics are notoriously difficult to shape, especially on the microscale. Therefore, a thermoplastic MAS nanocomposite is developed that can be shaped by polymer injection molding at high speed and precision. The nanocomposite is converted to dense MAS by debinding, pre-sintering, and hot isostatic pressing yielding transparent ceramics with high optical transmission up to 84 % and high mechanical strength. A transparent macroscopic MAS components with wall thicknesses up to 4 mm as well as microstructured components with single micrometer resolution are shown. This work makes transparent MAS ceramics accessible to modern high-throughput polymer processing techniques for fast and cost-efficient manufacturing of macroscopic and microstructured components enabling a plethora of potential applications from optics and photonics, medicine to scratch and break-resistant transparent windows for consumer electronics

Association between Adverse Reactions and Humoral Immune Response No Longer Detectable after BNT162b2 Booster Vaccination

Sports-related concussions (SRC) have developed into a highly discussed topic in sports medicine over the last few years and demonstrate a severe issue in the personalized treatment of patients. This retrospective cohort study investigated 86 patients with sports-related concussions in a level 1 trauma center, relating to the mechanism, symptoms, medical history, acute therapy including first assessment and the return to sport. The research is based on medical records as well as questionnaires six months after hospitalization. Loss of consciousness for under 30 min (41.2%), headache (36.5%) and amnesia (29.4%) were the most frequent symptoms when presenting in the emergency room. During the hospitalization, mainly headache and vertigo were documented. Most concussions occurred after incidents in equitation and cycling sports; the most common mechanism was falling to the ground with a subsequent impact (59.3%). At the time of discharge from hospital, in 13.4% of all cases, concussion symptoms were still documented in medical records, in contrast to 39.5% of the concerned athletes who reported symptoms for longer than 24 h, and 41.0% who reported ongoing post-concussion symptoms after six months. Concussions are difficult-to-treat disorders with a challenging diagnostic process and many symptoms in various values and levels of persistence. Therefore, a patient-involving treatment with a complaint-dependent return to sport process should be applied to concerned athletes