theoretische und methodologische Grundlagen

Summary: The Transdisciplinary Integrative Vulnerability and Resilience Assessment (TIV) developed by the Disaster Research Unit is a fundamental methodology and method which has derived from various sociological approaches and constantly been refined ever since. It serves as a counter model to established vulnerability and resilience assessments, which either descriptively / quantitatively determine vulnerabi lity and resilience top- down or carry out a participative bottom -up assessment together with those potentially affected. TIV combines both approaches and focusses on an iterative process in which the results obtained are continuously discussed and evaluated with experts, the general public, organizations, etc., in order to ensure a common and milieu-sensitive assessment. This working paper first defines "transdisciplinarity" and outlines the current state of research followed by a presentation of selected vulnerability and resilience assessments that form the basis for TIV, or where TIV goes beyond them. Then TIV itself and its methodological, methodical and contentbased approaches are presented

Katastrophen und Katastrophenvorsorge in Jena aus Sicht der Bevölkerung

Das Working-Paper „Katastrophen und Katastrophenvorsorge in Jena aus Sicht der Bevölkerung“ stellt Ergebnisse einer Studie zur Wahrnehmung von Katastrophen und Katastrophenvorsorge in Jena vor, die im Rahmen des vom Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF) finanzier-ten Projekts „INVOLVE – Verringerung sozialer Vulnerabilität durch freiwilliges Engagement“ durch-geführt wurde. Es werden qualitative Ergebnisse aus Expert*inneninterviews, Workshops und Gruppendiskussionen, v.a. aber die Ergebnisse einer quantitativen Bevölkerungsbefragung darge-stellt. Im Mittelpunkt der Forschung stand sowohl in der qualitativen wie quantitativen Befragung die Wahrnehmung und Einschätzung von Katastrophen, Katastrophenschutz sowie Vorsorgemaß-nahmen gegenüber den Szenarien Starkregen/Hochwasser, Hitzewellen sowie sozioökonomische Krise. Es zeigt sich, dass „Katastrophe“ von Katastrophenschutzexpert*innen anders definiert wird als von den Befragten, die potenziell von einer Katastrophe betroffen sein könnten. Zugleich wird deutlich, dass „klassische Naturkatastrophen“ als Gefahr im Bewusstsein und dem daraus resultie-renden Vorsorgeverhalten deutlich weniger präsent sind als sozioökonomische Aspekte, wie bspw. Angst vor gesellschaftlicher Spaltung oder Existenzsicherungsängsten. Derweil ist das Gefühl sozia-ler Kohäsion in der direkten Nachbarschaft sehr hoch, ebenso wie das Vertrauen in Organisationen des Katastrophenschutzes wie das Technische Hilfswerk (THW), Feuerwehren oder Hilfsorganisati-onen.The working paper "Disasters and Disaster Risk Reduction in Jena" provides an overview of a case study conducted within the framework of the INVOLVE project "INitiate VOLunteerism to counter VulnErability" funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). Primarily the results of a quantitative survey of the population, but also qualitative results from expert inter-views, workshops and group discussions are presented. Central to the research in the qualitative and quantitative survey were the perception and assessment of disasters, disaster management as much as preventive measures for heavy rain/flood, heatwaves as well as socio-economic crisis. As it turns out, the definition of a disaster varies greatly between civil protection experts and those potentially affected. At the same time, it can be shown that “natural disasters” are much less per-ceived as a risk in the public awareness – and therefore less considered within precautionary be-havior – than socio-economic aspects such as the fear of social division or for a secure livelihood. Simultaneously, though, the feeling of social cohesion in the direct neighborhood is very strong, as is the trust in civil protection organizations like the Federal Agency for Technical Relief (THW), fire brigades or aid organizations

Research report of the quantitative survey

Im Sommer 2013 wurde die Verbandsgemeinde Elbe-Havel-Land in Sachsen-Anhalt während des Elbehochwassers nach einem Deichbruch weiträumig überflutet: Häuser, Straßen und Grundstücke wurden zerstört. Der Bericht beleuchtet die Folgen des Hochwassers 2013 und ihre Bewältigung aus Sicht der Bewohner*innen, basierend auf Ergebnissen einer quantitativen Bevölkerungsbefragung drei Jahre nach dem Ereignis. Ausgehend von erlebten materiellen und immateriellen Auswirkun-gen und dem Stand der Verarbeitung des Ereignisses, wird der Bedarf an Unterstützung aufgezeigt, fehlende Hilfeleistungen identifiziert und die Bedeutung verschiedener Akteure im Verlauf der Katastrophe dargestellt. Dabei zeigen sich insbesondere zeitliche Variationen der Hilfebedarfe und ein anhaltender Bedarf an Unterstützung sowie Nachwirkungen des Ereignisses bis zum Zeitpunkt der Befragung.During the 2013 European floods, the municipalities of the Elbe-Havel-Land in Saxony-Anhalt were flooded after the water masses of the Elbe River caused a levee to break; houses, streets and plots of land were destroyed. This report, based on the results of a quantitative survey carried out three years after the event, shines light on the effects of the 2013 Flood, and how well, according to the perception of residents, the disaster has been dealt with. Based on personally experienced materi-al and immaterial impacts and on the state of psychological recuperation, we highlight the need for further support needed, identify what kinds of aid have been missing, and illustrate the relative importance of different actors throughout the disaster. The results indicate that the need for assis-tance varies especially with regard to time, that after-effects continued to linger at the time of questioning, and that accordingly there is a continued need for support

Abstract Meaning Representation for Human-Robot Dialogue

In this research, we begin to tackle the challenge of natural language understanding (NLU) in the context of the development of a robot dialogue system. We explore the adequacy of Abstract Meaning Representation (AMR) as a conduit for NLU. First, we consider the feasibility of using existing AMR parsers for automatically creating meaning representations for robot-directed transcribed speech data. We evaluate the quality of output of two parsers on this data against a manually annotated gold-standard data set. Second, we evaluate the semantic coverage and distinctions made in AMR overall: how well does it capture the meaning and distinctions needed in our collaborative human-robot dialogue domain? We find that AMR has gaps that align with linguistic information critical for effective human-robot collaboration in search and navigation tasks, and we present task-specific modifications to AMR to address the deficiencies

Forschungsbericht zur quantitativen Datenerhebung

Im Sommer 2013 wurde die Verbandsgemeinde Elbe-Havel-Land in Sachsen-Anhalt während des Elbehochwassers nach einem Deichbruch weiträumig überflutet: Häuser, Straßen und Grundstücke wurden zerstört. Der Bericht beleuchtet die Folgen des Hochwassers 2013 und ihre Bewältigung aus Sicht der Bewohner*innen, basierend auf Ergebnissen einer quantitativen Bevölkerungsbefragung drei Jahre nach dem Ereignis. Ausgehend von erlebten materiellen und immateriellen Auswirkungen und dem Stand der Verarbeitung des Ereignisses, wird der Bedarf an Unterstützung aufgezeigt, fehlende Hilfeleistungen identifiziert und die Bedeutung verschiedener Akteure im Verlauf der Katastrophe dargestellt. Dabei zeigen sich insbesondere zeitliche Variationen der Hilfebedarfe und ein anhaltender Bedarf an Unterstützung sowie Nachwirkungen des Ereignisses bis zum Zeitpunkt der Befragung

Ergebnisse einer quantitativen Bevölkerungsbefragung

Das Working-Paper „Katastrophen und Katastrophenvorsorge in Berlin-Neukölln aus Sicht der Bevölkerung“ stellt Ergebnisse einer Studie zur Wahrnehmung von Katastrophen und Katastrophen-vorsorge in Neukölln vor, die im Rahmen des vom Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF) finanzierten Projekts „INVOLVE – Verringerung sozialer Vulnerabilität durch freiwilliges Engagement“ (2015-2018) durchgeführt wurde. Es werden die deskriptiven Ergebnisse einer quan-titativen Bevölkerungsbefragung dargestellt. Im Mittelpunkt der Erhebung stand die Wahrneh-mung und Einschätzung von Katastrophen, Katastrophenschutz sowie Vorsorgemaßnahmen ge-genüber den Szenarien Starkregen/Überschwemmungen, Hitzewellen sowie sozioökonomische Krise. Es zeigt sich, dass „klassische Naturkatastrophen“ als Gefahr im Bewusstsein und dem daraus resultierenden Vorsorgeverhalten deutlich weniger präsent sind als sozioökonomische Aspekte und individuelle Sorgen, wie bspw. Existenzsicherungsängste. Das Gefühl sozialer Einbettung in persönlichen Netzwerken und sozialer Kohäsion in der direkten Nachbarschaft und die damit ver-bundenen Ressourcen bei der Katastrophenbewältigung, ebenso wie das Vertrauen in Organisati-onen des Katastrophenschutzes wie das Technische Hilfswerk (THW) und Feuerwehren sind bei den Befragten sehr stark ausgeprägt. Das Vertrauen in die Kompetenzen von Behörden ist dagegen geringer

The Mechanism Underlying Transient Weakness in Myotonia Congenita

In addition to the hallmark muscle stiffness, patients with recessive myotonia congenita (Becker disease) experience debilitating bouts of transient weakness that remain poorly understood despite years of study. We performed intracellular recordings from muscle of both genetic and pharmacologic mouse models of Becker disease to identify the mechanism underlying transient weakness. Our recordings reveal transient depolarizations (plateau potentials) of the membrane potential to -25 to -35 mV in the genetic and pharmacologic models of Becker disease. Both Na + and Ca 2+ currents contribute to plateau potentials. Na + persistent inward current (NaPIC) through Na V 1.4 channels is the key trigger of plateau potentials and current through Ca V 1.1 Ca 2+ channels contributes to the duration of the plateau. Inhibiting NaPIC with ranolazine prevents the development of plateau potentials and eliminates transient weakness in vivo. These data suggest that targeting NaPIC may be an effective treatment to prevent transient weakness in myotonia congenita

Exon-skipping antisense oligonucleotides for cystic fibrosis therapy

Mutations in the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) gene cause cystic fibrosis (CF), and the CFTR-W1282X nonsense mutation causes a severe form of CF. Although Trikafta and other CFTR-modulation therapies benefit most CF patients, targeted therapy for patients with the W1282X mutation is lacking. The CFTR-W1282X protein has residual activity but is expressed at a very low level due to nonsense-mediated messenger RNA (mRNA) decay (NMD). NMD-suppression therapy and read-through therapy are actively being researched for CFTR nonsense mutants. NMD suppression could increase the mutant CFTR mRNA, and read-through therapies may increase the levels of full-length CFTR protein. However, these approaches have limitations and potential side effects: because the NMD machinery also regulates the expression of many normal mRNAs, broad inhibition of the pathway is not desirable, and read-through drugs are inefficient partly because the mutant mRNA template is subject to NMD. To bypass these issues, we pursued an exon-skipping antisense oligonucleotide (ASO) strategy to achieve gene-specific NMD evasion. A cocktail of two splice-site-targeting ASOs induced the expression of CFTR mRNA without the premature-termination-codon-containing exon 23 (CFTR-Δex23), which is an in-frame exon. Treatment of human bronchial epithelial cells with this cocktail of ASOs that target the splice sites flanking exon 23 results in efficient skipping of exon 23 and an increase in CFTR-Δex23 protein. The splice-switching ASO cocktail increases the CFTR-mediated chloride current in human bronchial epithelial cells. Our results set the stage for developing an allele-specific therapy for CF caused by the W1282X mutation

Identification of Mutant Genes and Introgressed Tiger Salamander DNA in the Laboratory Axolotl, \u3cem\u3eAmbystoma mexicanum\u3c/em\u3e

The molecular genetic toolkit of the Mexican axolotl, a classic model organism, has matured to the point where it is now possible to identify genes for mutant phenotypes. We used a positional cloning–candidate gene approach to identify molecular bases for two historic axolotl pigment phenotypes: white and albino. White (d/d) mutants have defects in pigment cell morphogenesis and differentiation, whereas albino (a/a) mutants lack melanin. We identified in white mutants a transcriptional defect in endothelin 3 (edn3), encoding a peptide factor that promotes pigment cell migration and differentiation in other vertebrates. Transgenic restoration of Edn3 expression rescued the homozygous white mutant phenotype. We mapped the albino locus to tyrosinase (tyr) and identified polymorphisms shared between the albino allele (tyra) and tyr alleles in a Minnesota population of tiger salamanders from which the albino trait was introgressed. tyra has a 142 bp deletion and similar engineered alleles recapitulated the albinophenotype. Finally, we show that historical introgression of tyrasignificantly altered genomic composition of the laboratory axolotl, yielding a distinct, hybrid strain of ambystomatid salamander. Our results demonstrate the feasibility of identifying genes for traits in the laboratory Mexican axolotl

A Novel Approach to Space Systems Engineering Education through the Construction of High Altitude Balloons

UC CubeCats is a student organization from the University of Cincinnati dedicated to the education of its members through the development of CubeSats. For every university CubeSat program, there are certain challenges that exist. One of the largest challenges for university CubeSat programs is new member recruitment and retention. New members are often intimidated by the knowledge and experience of more senior members because they have no experience in space systems engineering. In order to mitigate these issues, UC CubeCats has developed a high altitude balloon (HAB) educational program known as the CubeCats Applied Training in Space Exploration (CATiSE) program. By building a HAB, members of the CATiSE program can complete a project using a well-documented space mission engineering process that is similar to the process used for CubeSats. However, unlike CubeSat missions, HAB missions tend to have a shorter lifecycle and lower cost, allowing new members to experiment and learn in a low-risk environment. This CATiSE program includes multiple design reviews, an integration and verification plan, design drawings, and designs of the mission and system architecture. The program was designed to last a full school year, starting with concept exploration in the fall and launch in early April. This is UC CubeCats second HAB launch and the first time the CATiSE program has been implemented. The project to be launched this April, code named project TOYGER, will travel 30km into the stratosphere while the payload measures both radiation energy and light wavelengths. The payload will also take 360-degree images throughout the flight of the balloon. This data will be stored on an external storage device and recovered along with the payload. In order to track the payload, GPS data will be transmitted to the automatic packet reporting system (APRS) as well as a ground station constructed by the members of the CATiSE program. At the end of this 8-month program, new members of UC CubeCats will have a well-founded understanding of the space mission and systems engineering process and will have increased their engineering ability to develop and launch a system that must operate in the harsh environment of space