Safe Haven in Deutschland? Handlungsoptionen für Bergungsorte bedrohter Kulturgüter

Angesichts zunehmender Gefährdungen von Kulturgütern weltweit durch bewaffnete Konflikte und Krisen unterschiedlichen Ursprungs und Ausmaßes stellt sich die drängende Frage, wie diese kulturelle Essenz mit Bedeutung für die gesamte Menschheit wirkungsvoll geschützt werden kann. Wenn alle Schutzvorkehrungen im Herkunftsland versagen, bleibt oft nur die Evakuierung im Katastrophenfall. Um geborgenes Kulturgut vorübergehend sicher zu verwahren, können nach internationalem Recht Bergungsorte, sogenannte Safe Haven, eingerichtet und angeboten werden. Die vorliegende Studie untersucht entsprechende Ausgestaltungsmöglichkeiten

Snapshots on simulation games in academic contexts

Simulation games originate from strategic, scenario-based planning; they are playful, interactive and participatory methods or formats designed to train multiple competences, ranging from simple, instantly performed role plays to complex simulations lasting several days or weeks. Simulation games either focus on prototypal imitations of real/existing situations or events (simulation), or address archetypal scenarios of fundamental problems or conflicts (planspiel). In academic contexts simulation games become increasingly popular and relevant. They appeal to our gaming nature as homo ludens; they call for an essential academic freedom to act; and they provide novel, innovative and adaptive learning arrangements

LINNAEUS: A species name identification system for biomedical literature

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The task of recognizing and identifying species names in biomedical literature has recently been regarded as critical for a number of applications in text and data mining, including gene name recognition, species-specific document retrieval, and semantic enrichment of biomedical articles.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In this paper we describe an open-source species name recognition and normalization software system, LINNAEUS, and evaluate its performance relative to several automatically generated biomedical corpora, as well as a novel corpus of full-text documents manually annotated for species mentions. LINNAEUS uses a dictionary-based approach (implemented as an efficient deterministic finite-state automaton) to identify species names and a set of heuristics to resolve ambiguous mentions. When compared against our manually annotated corpus, LINNAEUS performs with 94% recall and 97% precision at the mention level, and 98% recall and 90% precision at the document level. Our system successfully solves the problem of disambiguating uncertain species mentions, with 97% of all mentions in PubMed Central full-text documents resolved to unambiguous NCBI taxonomy identifiers.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>LINNAEUS is an open source, stand-alone software system capable of recognizing and normalizing species name mentions with speed and accuracy, and can therefore be integrated into a range of bioinformatics and text-mining applications. The software and manually annotated corpus can be downloaded freely at <url>http://linnaeus.sourceforge.net/</url>.</p

Interplay of air and sand: Faraday heaping unravelled

We report on numerical simulations of a vibrated granular bed including the effect of the ambient air, generating the famous Faraday heaps known from experiment. A detailed analysis of the forces shows that the heaps are formed and stabilized by the airflow through the bed while the gap between bed and vibrating bottom is growing, confirming the pressure gradient mechanism found experimentally by Thomas and Squires [Phys. Rev. Lett. 81, 574 (1998)], with the addition that the airflow is partly generated by isobars running parallel to the surface of the granular bed. Importantly, the simulations also explain the heaping instability of the initially flat surface and the experimentally observed coarsening of a number of small heaps into a larger one

praxiSDG & Next Practices for Sustain|Ability: Exploring Experiential Patterns for Transformative Learning through Service

What helps to understand transformative learning in sustain|ability contexts? Experiences may explain how transform|ability fuels sustain|ability in transfer contexts. The adopted research design explores patterns of documented transformational learning in competency-driven and sustainability-induced opportunities. Sustain|ability results from the ability to transform by creating next practices of learning and doing/acting/performing. praxiSDG promotes transform|ability as process designed for initiating and motivating change, and by sparking off transformational potential through involving empowering, action-driven competencies. praxiSDG as a living lab activates hands-on transformational competencies by and in sustainability-related campus-community partnerships. To this, Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide guidance for practical experiences and didactic reflection regarding learners’ transform|ability in third-mission contexts. How does transformational service learning succeed in sustain|ability? That is at the core of the corresponding research based on qualitative, theoretically grounded portfolio analysis and principles of teaching and learning. The following conceptions – next practices of learning and doing, transformational competencies, campus-community partnerships, patterns of sustainability, and third mission – are framing the research agenda for transform|ability through sustain|ability. This sheds light on two related questions, namely, first, what patterns from experience help understanding how transformative learning can succeed in a sustainability context and, secondly, what research design can be used to investigate this

Air-induced inverse Chladni patterns

When very light particles are sprinkled on a resonating horizontal plate, inverse Chladni patterns are formed. Instead of going to the nodal lines of the plate, where they would form a standard Chladni pattern, the particles are dragged to the antinodes by the air currents induced by the vibration of the plate. Here we present a detailed picture of the mechanism using numerical simulations involving both the particles and the air. Surprisingly, the time-averaged Eulerian velocity, commonly used in these type of problems, does not explain the motion of the particles: it even has the opposite direction, towards the nodal lines. The key to the inverse Chladni patterning is found in the averaged velocity of a tracer particle moving along with the air: this Lagrangian velocity, averaged over a vibration cycle, is directed toward the antinodes. The Chladni plate thus provides a unique example of a system in which the Eulerian and Lagrangian velocities point in opposite direction

Scaling behavior of coarsening Faraday heaps

When a layer of sand is vertically shaken, the surface spontaneously breaks up in a landscape of small conical “Faraday heaps,” which merge into larger ones on an ever increasing time scale. We propose a model for the heap dynamics and show analytically that the mean lifetime of the transient state with N heaps scales as N −2 . When there is an abundance of sand, such that the vibrating plate always remains completely covered, this means that the average diameter of the heaps grows as t 1/2 . Otherwise, when the sand is less plentiful and parts of the plate get depleted during the coarsening process, the average diameter of the heaps grows more slowly, namely as t 1/3 . This result compares well with experimental observations

Inversion of Chladni patterns by tuning the vibrational acceleration\ud

Inverse Chladni patterns, i.e., grains collecting at the antinodes of a resonating plate, are traditionally believed to occur only when the particles are small enough to be carried along by the ambient air. We now show—theoretically and numerically—that air currents are not the only mechanism leading to inverse patterns: When the acceleration of the resonating plate does not exceed g, particles will always roll to the antinodes, irrespective of their size, even in the absence of air. We also explain why this effect has hitherto escaped detection in standard Chladni experiment

TREM2 regulates microglial lipid droplet formation and represses post-ischemic brain injury

Triggering receptor expressed on myeloid cells 2 (TREM2) is a transmembrane receptor protein predominantly expressed in microglia within the central nervous system (CNS). TREM2 regulates multiple microglial functions, including lipid metabolism, immune reaction, inflammation, and microglial phagocytosis. Recent studies have found that TREM2 is highly expressed in activated microglia after ischemic stroke. However, the role of TREM2 in the pathologic response after stroke remains unclear. Herein, TREM2-deficient microglia exhibit an impaired phagocytosis rate and cholesteryl ester (CE) accumulation, leading to lipid droplet formation and upregulation of Perilipin-2 (PLIN2) expression after hypoxia. Knockdown of TREM2 results in increased lipid synthesis (PLIN2, SOAT1) and decreased cholesterol clearance and lipid hydrolysis (LIPA, ApoE, ABCA1, NECH1, and NPC2), further impacting microglial phenotypes. In these lipid droplet-rich microglia, the TGF-β1/Smad2/3 signaling pathway is downregulated, driving microglia towards a pro-inflammatory phenotype. Meanwhile, in a neuron-microglia co-culture system under hypoxic conditions, we found that microglia lost their protective effect against neuronal injury and apoptosis when TREM2 was knocked down. Under in vivo conditions, TREM2 knockdown mice express lower TGF-β1 expression levels and a lower number of anti-inflammatory M2 phenotype microglia, resulting in increased cerebral infarct size, exacerbated neuronal apoptosis, and aggravated neuronal impairment. Our work suggests that TREM2 attenuates stroke-induced neuroinflammation by modulating the TGF-β1/Smad2/3 signaling pathway. TREM2 may play a direct role in the regulation of inflammation and also exert an influence on the post-ischemic inflammation and the stroke pathology progression via regulation of lipid metabolism processes. Thus, underscoring the therapeutic potential of TREM2 agonists in ischemic stroke and making TREM2 an attractive new clinical target for the treatment of ischemic stroke and other inflammation-related diseases.National Natural Science Foundation of China ; Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality ; China Scholarship Counci

Weiterentwicklung der hydrothermalen Karbonisierung zur CO2-sparenden und kosteneffizienten Trocknung von Klärschlamm im industriellen Massstab sowie der Rückgewinnung von Phosphor

In Switzerland, sewage sludge has to be burned since 2006. So far the necessary drying was done by thermal methods with high inputs of energy. In this project we investigate hydrothermal carbonisation (HTC) as CO2 saving and cost efficient alternative to dry sewage sludge on industrial scale. The focus in this applied research project is on the process water treatment, the mechanical dewatering, the potential use of HTC coal, the recycling of phosphorus and heavy metals and an assessment of environmental effects of HTC compared to current treatments. The potential for biological decomposition was investigated in HTC process water and permeat, which was gained by membrane filtration of HTC process water. A medium to high decomposition rate was shown for organic matter in HTC process water and permeat by aerobic and anaerobic processes in batch experiments. In a continuous aerobic laboratory reactor the HTC process water and permeat showed decomposition rates of 70-75% for chemical oxygen demand (COD) at a specific load of 5-10 kg COD/(m3 reactor volume*d). In the competition for a HTC-stage at the Oftringen waste water treatment plant (WWTP) an increase of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) due to the addition of HTC-permeate is limited to 3 mg/l in the effluent of the WWTP. This value can be reached by an optimised membrane filtration with no further treatment for most cases. Advantages of HTC for the mechanical dewatering were shown with a filter press on industrual scale. HTC coal was successfully burned in mono- and mixed combustion plants on industrial scale, for example at Jura Cement in Wildegg or the sludge combustion plant (SVA) in Winterthur. At SVA additional fossil fuels could be temporarily fully substituted by HTC coal. Additional experiments on industrial scale are planned. No evidence of decreased recycling capability of phosphorus or heavy metals after carbonisation was found. Compared to the currently applied sewage sludge drying process the waste heat could be reduced by up to 62% and the electricity demand by up to 69% with HTC. A detailled life cycle assessment showed little differences of HTC compared to the thermal drying process with waste heat but significant advantages compared to the thermal process of drying with fossil fuels. HTC is most promising concerning minimal environmental effects if optimizing measures are applied such as the reduction of phosphorus and nitrogen in the HTC process water, the recycling of phosphorus and the use of lost heat, renewable energy sources such as sewage gas, wood chips, green electricity on adequate sites and if the produced HTC coal is used as substitute of fossil fuels, for example in cement industry or brown coal power plants. Currently a detailled technical study is prepared by AVA-CO2 and another competitor for the first industrial HTC plant in Switzerland to dry sewage sludge at the WWTP Oftringen