Machine learning-based calibration of the GOCE satellite platform magnetometers

Additional datasets from space-based observations of the Earth’s magnetic field are of high value to space physics and geomagnetism. The use of platform magnetometers from non-dedicated satellites has recently successfully provided additional spatial and temporal coverage of the magnetic field. The Gravity and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) mission was launched in March 2009 and ended in November 2013 with the purpose of measuring the Earth’s gravity field. It also carried three platform magnetometers onboard. Careful calibration of the platform magnetometers can remove artificial disturbances caused by other satellite payload systems, improving the quality of the measurements. In this work, a machine learning-based approach is presented that uses neural networks to achieve a calibration that can incorporate a variety of collected information about the satellite system. The evaluation has shown that the approach is able to significantly reduce the calibration residual with a mean absolute residual of about 6.47nT for low- and mid-latitudes. In addition, the calibrated platform magnetometer data can be used for reconstructing the lithospheric field, due to the low altitude of the mission, and also observing other magnetic phenomena such as geomagnetic storms. Furthermore, the inclusion of the calibrated platform magnetometer data also allows improvement of geomagnetic field models. The calibrated dataset is published alongside this work. Graphical Abstract: [Figure not available: see fulltext.]

Inanspruchnahme von Angebotsuntersuchungen in der arbeitsmedizinischen Vorsorge

In den vergangenen zehn Jahren wurde die arbeitsmedizinische Vorsorge zu einem individuellen Arbeitsschutzinstrument weiterentwickelt, das der Aufklärung und Beratung der Beschäftigten über die Wechselwirkungen zwischen Arbeit und Gesundheit dient und bei dem die Selbstbestimmungs- und Datenschutzrechte zu achten sind. In dem vorliegenden Forschungsprojekt hat das Institut für Arbeitsmedizin, Sozialmedizin und Versorgungsforschung der Universitätsklinik Tübingen exemplarisch untersucht, welche Faktoren für die erfolgreiche Durchführung von Angebotsuntersuchungen bedeutsam sind. Die Studie bedient sich hierfür eines multimodularen Ansatzes mit qualitativen und quantitativen Anteilen. Im Ergebnis wird sichtbar, dass die Verordnung zur arbeitsmedizinischen Vorsorge (ArbMedVV) in der Praxis angekommen ist. Zum Teil werden arbeitsmedizinische Vorsorge und Eignungsuntersuchungen jedoch nicht adäquat unterschieden. Mit der Änderung der ArbMedVV Ende Oktober 2013 konnten bereits wichtige Klarstellungen erreicht werden. Unsicherheiten bestehen auch im Zusammenhang mit den so genannten Berufsgenossenschaftlichen Grundsätzen, die teilweise irrtümlich als verbindlich verstanden werden. Hier besteht noch Änderungs- und Klarstellungsbedarf. Übergreifend zeigt die Studie, dass die Inanspruchnahme der arbeitsmedizinischen Vorsorge maßgeblich vom Kenntnisstand aller Beteiligten zur Rechtslage abhängt und das Vertrauensverhältnis zum Betriebsarzt für die Beschäftigten von besonderer Bedeutung ist. Aufklärungsarbeit spielt deshalb auch weiterhin eine wichtige Rolle

Anti-Staphylococcal Calopins from Fruiting Bodies of Caloboletus radicans

Three new and seven known calopins were isolated from Caloboletus radicans. The structures of the new cyclocalopins, 8-deacetylcyclocalopin B (1), cyclocalopin A-15-ol (2), and 12,15-dimethoxycyclocalopin A (3), were mainly elucidated by NMR and MS data analysis. The stereochemistry of 1–3 was assigned based on ROE correlations, coupling constants and by comparison of their CD spectra with those of similar known calopins. While 1–10 were inactive against two cancer cell lines, they displayed antistaphylococcal activity against methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus strains (MRSA) with MIC values of 16−256 μg/mL. Moreover, some calopins were active against the fish pathogen Enterococcus faecalis F1B1

Musculoskeletal symptoms of the upper extremities and the neck: A cross-sectional study on prevalence and symptom-predicting factors at visual display terminal (VDT) workstations

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence and the predictors of musculoskeletal symptoms in the upper extremities and neck at visual display terminal (VDT) workstations.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>In a cross-sectional study 1,065 employees working at VDT > 1 h/d completed a standardised questionnaire. Workstation conditions were documented in a standardised checklist, and a subgroup of 82 employees underwent a physical examination.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Using the Nordic Questionnaire, the 12-month prevalence of symptoms of the neck, shoulder region, hand/wrist, or elbow/lower arm was 55%, 38%, 21%, and 15% respectively. The duration of VDT work had a significant impact on the frequency of neck symptoms in employees performing such work > 6 h/d.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>With regard to musculoskeletal symptoms of the upper extremities, preventive measures at VDT workstations should be focused on neck and shoulder symptoms (e.g. ergonomic measures, breaks to avoid sitting over long periods).</p

The CHEOPS mission

The CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite (CHEOPS) was selected in 2012, as the first small mission in the ESA Science Programme and successfully launched in December 2019. CHEOPS is a partnership between ESA and Switzerland with important contributions by ten additional ESA Member States. CHEOPS is the first mission dedicated to search for transits of exoplanets using ultrahigh precision photometry on bright stars already known to host planets. As a follow-up mission, CHEOPS is mainly dedicated to improving, whenever possible, existing radii measurements or provide first accurate measurements for a subset of those planets for which the mass has already been estimated from ground-based spectroscopic surveys and to following phase curves. CHEOPS will provide prime targets for future spectroscopic atmospheric characterisation. Requirements on the photometric precision and stability have been derived for stars with magnitudes ranging from 6 to 12 in the V band. In particular, CHEOPS shall be able to detect Earth-size planets transiting G5 dwarf stars in the magnitude range between 6 and 9 by achieving a photometric precision of 20 ppm in 6 hours of integration. For K stars in the magnitude range between 9 and 12, CHEOPS shall be able to detect transiting Neptune-size planets achieving a photometric precision of 85 ppm in 3 hours of integration. This is achieved by using a single, frame-transfer, back-illuminated CCD detector at the focal plane assembly of a 33.5 cm diameter telescope. The 280 kg spacecraft has a pointing accuracy of about 1 arcsec rms and orbits on a sun-synchronous dusk-dawn orbit at 700 km altitude. The nominal mission lifetime is 3.5 years. During this period, 20% of the observing time is available to the community through a yearly call and a discretionary time programme managed by ESA.Comment: Submitted to Experimental Astronom

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

Bindungsaffinitäten und -phänomene an der Grenzfläche zwischen Peptiden und Zinkoxid

Peptide sequences can selectively bind to inorganic substrates in a process similar to the concept of molecular recognition. Here we focused on zinc oxide as an important representative of functional oxides and identified binding peptides with an affinity for different ZnO facets. Five peptides were selected and their conformational ensemble (macrostate) and sensitivity to adsorption were characterised via circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopy. The microstates within their conformational ensembles are accessed by enhanced sampling simulations. To quantify the free energies of adsorption, an optically sectioned indicator displacement assay (O-IDA) was adapted to the peptide/ZnO interface and compared to the results of single molecule force spectroscopy (SMFS), leading to a good agreement between the two approaches

Binding affinities and adhesion phenomena of binding peptides at the interface to zinc oxide

Peptide sequences can selectively bind to inorganic substrates in a process similar to the concept of molecular recognition. Here we focused on zinc oxide as an important representative of functional oxides and identified binding peptides with an affinity for different ZnO facets. Five peptides were selected and their conformational ensemble (macrostate) and sensitivity to adsorption were characterised via circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopy. The microstates within their conformational ensembles are accessed by enhanced sampling simulations. To quantify the free energies of adsorption, an optically sectioned indicator displacement assay (O-IDA) was adapted to the peptide/ZnO interface and compared to the results of single molecule force spectroscopy (SMFS), leading to a good agreement between the two approaches

SIMULTANEOUS VACCINATION AGAINST HEPATITIS A AND B: RESULTS OF AN OPEN, RANDOMIZED STUDY FROM THE OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH POINT OF VIEW

Abstract. Objectives: The primary objective of the study was to evaluate the immunogenicity of a combined hepatitis A and hepatitis B vaccine compared to the effect of the administration of two monovalent hepatitis A and B vaccines by quantitative measurements of the anti-HBs antibody levels at month 2 of the vaccination course. Secondary objectives were to assess immunogenicity of the vaccines investigated at other time points in the vaccination course (months 1, 6 and 7), including the comparison of quantitative measurements results as well as to evaluate seroconversion and seroprotection rates. Materials and Methods: The study was designed as open, controlled, randomized, monocentric study with two parallel groups. A total of 304 subjects, aged 18-45 years, were enrolled in the study. Group 1 received a combined hepatitis A and hepatitis B vaccine, group 2 was vaccinated concomitantly with a monovalent hepatitis A and hepatitis B vaccine. Seroprotection against hepatitis B was defined as anti-HBs antibody concentration ³10 IU/l, and longterm seroprotection as ³100 IU/l. Results: In all, 288 subjects completed the study. One month after the second vaccine dose, the percentage of subjects with anti-HBs antibody concentrations ³100 IU/l as well as the seroconversion rate were significantly higher in group 1 than in group 2. Similarly, anti-HBs GMC was higher after combined vaccination one month after the third vaccine dose (1.684 IU/l vs. 528 IU/l; p &lt; 0,0001). After the vaccination course, all individuals were anti-HAV positive. The overall incidence of symptoms (solicited/unsolicited, local/general) tended to be similar in each of the two groups. Conclusions: If health care personnel are exposed to hepatitis A and B virus, the combined vaccination should be preferred to the concomitant one, as this vaccination scheme induced earlier seroprotection against hepatitis B virus infection (³10 IU/l and ³100 IU/l)