Gravitational-wave research as an emerging field in the Max Planck Society. The long roots of GEO600 and of the Albert Einstein Institute

On the occasion of the 50th anniversary since the beginning of the search for gravitational waves at the Max Planck Society, and in coincidence with the 25th anniversary of the foundation of the Albert Einstein Institute, we explore the interplay between the renaissance of general relativity and the advent of relativistic astrophysics following the German early involvement in gravitational-wave research, to the point when gravitational-wave detection became established by the appearance of full-scale detectors and international collaborations. On the background of the spectacular astrophysical discoveries of the 1960s and the growing role of relativistic astrophysics, Ludwig Biermann and his collaborators at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Munich became deeply involved in research related to such new horizons. At the end of the 1960s, Joseph Weber's announcements claiming detection of gravitational waves sparked the decisive entry of this group into the field, in parallel with the appointment of the renowned relativist Juergen Ehlers. The Munich area group of Max Planck institutes provided the fertile ground for acquiring a leading position in the 1970s, facilitating the experimental transition from resonant bars towards laser interferometry and its innovation at increasingly large scales, eventually moving to a dedicated site in Hannover in the early 1990s. The Hannover group emphasized perfecting experimental systems at pilot scales, and never developed a full-sized detector, rather joining the LIGO Scientific Collaboration at the end of the century. In parallel, the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute) had been founded in Potsdam, and both sites, in Hannover and Potsdam, became a unified entity in the early 2000s and were central contributors to the first detection of gravitational waves in 2015.Comment: 94 pages. Enlarged version including new results from further archival research. A previous version appears as a chapter in the volume The Renaissance of General Relativity in Context, edited by A. Blum, R. Lalli and J. Renn (Boston: Birkhauser, 2020

Immune neuroendocrine phenotypes in Coturnix coturnix: Do avian species show LEWIS/FISCHER-like profiles?

Immunoneuroendocrinology studies have identified conserved communicational paths in birds and mammals, e.g. the Hypothalamus-Pituitary-Adrenal axis with anti-inflammatory activity mediated by glucocorticoids. Immune neuroendocrine phenotypes (INPs) have been proposed for mammals implying the categorization of a population in subgroups underlying divergent immune-neuroendocrine interactions. These phenotypes were studied in the context of the LEWIS/FISCHER paradigm (rats expressing high or low pro-inflammatory profiles, respectively). Although avian species have some common immunological mechanisms with mammals, they have also evolved some distinct strategies and, until now, it has not been studied whether birds may also share with mammals similar INPs. Based on corticosterone levels we determined the existence of two divergent groups in Coturnix coturnix that also differed in other immune-neuroendocrine responses. Quail with lowest corticosterone showed higher lymphoproliferative and antibody responses, interferon-γ and interleukin-1β mRNA expression levels and lower frequencies of leukocyte subpopulations distribution and interleukin-13 levels, than their higher corticosterone counterparts. Results suggest the existence of INPs in birds, comparable to mammalian LEWIS/FISCHER profiles, where basal corticosterone also underlies responses of comparable variables associated to the phenotypes. Concluding, INP may not be a mammalian distinct feature, leading to discuss whether these profiles represent a parallel phenomenon evolved in birds and mammals, or a common feature inherited from a reptilian ancestor millions of years ago

Robustness of the Tariff method for diagnosing verbal autopsies: impact of additional site data on the relationship between symptom and cause

BACKGROUND: Verbal autopsy (VA) is increasingly being considered as a cost-effective method to improve cause of death information in countries with low quality vital registration. VA algorithms that use empirical data have an advantage over expert derived algorithms in that they use responses to the VA instrument as a reference instead of physician opinion. It is unclear how stable these data driven algorithms, such as the Tariff 2.0 method, are to cultural and epidemiological variations in populations where they might be employed. METHODS: VAs were conducted in three sites as part of the Improving Methods to Measure Comparable Mortality by Cause (IMMCMC) study: Bohol, Philippines; Chandpur and Comila Districts, Bangladesh; and Central and Eastern Highlands Provinces, Papua New Guinea. Similar diagnostic criteria and cause lists as the Population Health Metrics Research Consortium (PHMRC) study were used to identify gold standard (GS) deaths. We assessed changes in Tariffs by examining the proportion of Tariffs that changed significantly after the addition of the IMMCMC dataset to the PHMRC dataset. RESULTS: The IMMCMC study added 3512 deaths to the GS VA database (2491 adults, 320 children, and 701 neonates). Chance-corrected cause specific mortality fractions for Tariff improved with the addition of the IMMCMC dataset for adults (+ 5.0%), children (+ 5.8%), and neonates (+ 1.5%). 97.2% of Tariffs did not change significantly after the addition of the IMMCMC dataset. CONCLUSIONS: Tariffs generally remained consistent after adding the IMMCMC dataset. Population level performance of the Tariff method for diagnosing VAs improved marginally for all age groups in the combined dataset. These findings suggest that cause-symptom relationships of Tariff 2.0 might well be robust across different population settings in developing countries. Increasing the total number of GS deaths improves the validity of Tariff and provides a foundation for the validation of other empirical algorithms

The quality of medical death certification of cause of death in hospitals in rural Bangladesh: impact of introducing the International Form of Medical Certificate of Cause of Death

BACKGROUND: Accurate and timely data on cause of death are critically important for guiding health programs and policies. Deaths certified by doctors are implicitly considered to be reliable and accurate, yet the quality of information provided in the international Medical Certificate of Cause of Death (MCCD) usually varies according to the personnel involved in certification, the diagnostic capacity of the hospital, and the category of hospitals. There are no published studies that have analysed how certifying doctors in Bangladesh adhere to international rules when completing the MCCD or have assessed the quality of clinical record keeping. METHODS: The study took place between January 2011 and April 2014 in the Chandpur and Comilla districts of Bangladesh. We introduced the international MCCD to all study hospitals. Trained project physicians assigned an underlying cause of death, assessed the quality of the death certificate, and reported the degree of certainty of the medical records provided for a given cause. We examined the frequency of common errors in completing the MCCD, the leading causes of in-hospital deaths, and the degree of certainty in the cause of death data. RESULTS: The study included 4914 death certificates. 72.9% of medical records were of too poor quality to assign a cause of death, with little difference by age, hospital, and cause of death. 95.6% of death certificates did not indicate the time interval between onset and death, 31.6% required a change in sequence, 13.9% required to include a new diagnosis, 50.7% used abbreviations, 41.5% used multiple causes per line, and 33.2% used an ill-defined condition as the underlying cause of death. 99.1% of death certificates had at least one error. The leading cause of death among adults was stroke (15.8%), among children was pneumonia (31.7%), and among neonates was birth asphyxia (52.8%). CONCLUSION: Physicians in Bangladeshi hospitals had difficulties in completing the MCCD correctly. Physicians routinely made errors in death certification practices and medical record quality was poor. There is an urgent need to improve death certification practices and the quality of hospital data in Bangladesh if these data are to be useful for policy

Speed breeding in growth chambers and glasshouses for crop breeding and model plant research

'Speed breeding' (SB) shortens the breeding cycle and accelerates crop research through rapid generation advancement. SB can be carried out in numerous ways, one of which involves extending the duration of plants' daily exposure to light, combined with early seed harvest, to cycle quickly from seed to seed, thereby reducing the generation times for some long-day (LD) or day-neutral crops. In this protocol, we present glasshouse and growth chamber-based SB approaches with supporting data from experimentation with several crops. We describe the conditions that promote the rapid growth of bread wheat, durum wheat, barley, oat, various Brassica species, chickpea, pea, grass pea, quinoa and Brachypodium distachyon. Points of flexibility within the protocols are highlighted, including how plant density can be increased to efficiently scale up plant numbers for single-seed descent (SSD). In addition, instructions are provided on how to perform SB on a small scale in a benchtop growth cabinet, enabling optimization of parameters at a low cost