Acceptability of speed limits and other policy measures in German cities

An increasing number of German cities currently demand the Federal Government to empower cities to implement 30 kph speed limits at their own discretion. Setting area-wide 30 kph as the maximum speed, as already installed in many other European cities, could therefore soon become a viable policy option in Germany. This thesis conducts a stated choice (SC) experiment to determine the acceptability of such area-wide standard 30 kph speed limits compared to the acceptability of the expansion of shared space zones, costs for inner-city on-street car parking and public transport ticket fares. Combining the policies as attributes in an unlabeled experiment allows to juxtapose the policies in terms of their relative importance for the respondents’ choice decision. 129 adults from German cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants participated in an online survey during September 2022. The results show that respondents evaluate the introduction of standard 30 kph speed limit in the city center as utility increasing compared to the prevalent status quo with standard 50 kph. Setting a standard 30 kph speed limit in the whole city also has a positive parameter in the base model, but does not significantly influence the respondents’ utility. The expansion of shared space seems to have no relevant effect on the choice decision of respondents. Higher ticket fares for public transport show to be utility decreasing for respondents of this study, whereas an increase in car parking costs is assessed positively. Clear differences in the policy assessment of different subgroups of respondents can be observed. In line with literature, city-wide implementation of a standard 30 kph speed limit shows low acceptability among the group of frequent car users. In turn, voters of mayoral candidates for the Green Party (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen) or Left Party (Die Linke) expect a positive effect on their personal utility when a standard 30 kph speed limit is established in the whole city or in the city center only. Respondents’ gender does not seem to affect the assessment of 30 kph speed limit policy

The Role of a Decision Support System in Back Pain Diagnoses: A Pilot Study

It is the main goal of this study to investigate the concordance of a decision support system and the recommendation of spinal surgeons regarding back pain. 111 patients had to complete the decision support system. Furthermore, their illness was diagnosed by a spinal surgeon. The results showed significant medium relation between the DSS and the diagnosis of the medical doctor. Besides, in almost 50% of the cases the recommendation for the treatment was concordant and overestimation occurred more often than underestimation. The results are discussed in relation to the "symptom checker" literature and the claim of further evaluations

An enzymatic cascade of Rab5 effectors regulates phosphoinositide turnover in the endocytic pathway

Generation and turnover of phosphoinositides (PIs) must be coordinated in a spatial- and temporal-restricted manner. The small GTPase Rab5 interacts with two PI 3-kinases, Vps34 and PI3Kβ, suggesting that it regulates the production of 3-PIs at various stages of the early endocytic pathway. Here, we discovered that Rab5 also interacts directly with PI 5- and PI 4-phosphatases and stimulates their activity. Rab5 regulates the production of phosphatidylinositol 3-phosphate (PtdIns[3]P) through a dual mechanism, by directly phosphorylating phosphatidylinositol via Vps34 and by a hierarchical enzymatic cascade of phosphoinositide-3-kinaseβ (PI3Kβ), PI 5-, and PI 4-phosphatases. The functional importance of such an enzymatic pathway is demonstrated by the inhibition of transferrin uptake upon silencing of PI 4-phosphatase and studies in weeble mutant mice, where deficiency of PI 4-phosphatase causes an increase of PtdIns(3,4)P2 and a reduction in PtdIns(3)P. Activation of PI 3-kinase at the plasma membrane is accompanied by the recruitment of Rab5, PI 4-, and PI 5-phosphatases to the cell cortex. Our data provide the first evidence for a dual role of a Rab GTPase in regulating both generation and turnover of PIs via PI kinases and phosphatases to coordinate signaling functions with organelle homeostasis

Host Defense against Viral Infection Involves Interferon Mediated Down-Regulation of Sterol Biosynthesis

Upon infection, our immune cells produce a small protein called interferon, which in turn signals a protective response through a series of biochemical reactions that involves lowering the cells' ability to make cholesterol by targeting a gene essential for controlling the pathway for cholesterol metabolism

Towards Mobility Data Science (Vision Paper)

Mobility data captures the locations of moving objects such as humans, animals, and cars. With the availability of GPS-equipped mobile devices and other inexpensive location-tracking technologies, mobility data is collected ubiquitously. In recent years, the use of mobility data has demonstrated significant impact in various domains including traffic management, urban planning, and health sciences. In this paper, we present the emerging domain of mobility data science. Towards a unified approach to mobility data science, we envision a pipeline having the following components: mobility data collection, cleaning, analysis, management, and privacy. For each of these components, we explain how mobility data science differs from general data science, we survey the current state of the art and describe open challenges for the research community in the coming years.Comment: Updated arXiv metadata to include two authors that were missing from the metadata. PDF has not been change

Mobility Data Science (Dagstuhl Seminar 22021)

This report documents the program and the outcomes of Dagstuhl Seminar 22021 "Mobility Data Science". This seminar was held January 9-14, 2022, including 47 participants from industry and academia. The goal of this Dagstuhl Seminar was to create a new research community of mobility data science in which the whole is greater than the sum of its parts by bringing together established leaders as well as promising young researchers from all fields related to mobility data science. Specifically, this report summarizes the main results of the seminar by (1) defining Mobility Data Science as a research domain, (2) by sketching its agenda in the coming years, and by (3) building a mobility data science community. (1) Mobility data science is defined as spatiotemporal data that additionally captures the behavior of moving entities (human, vehicle, animal, etc.). To understand, explain, and predict behavior, we note that a strong collaboration with research in behavioral and social sciences is needed. (2) Future research directions for mobility data science described in this report include a) mobility data acquisition and privacy, b) mobility data management and analysis, and c) applications of mobility data science. (3) We identify opportunities towards building a mobility data science community, towards collaborations between academic and industry, and towards a mobility data science curriculum

In situ guided tissue regeneration in musculoskeletal diseases and aging: Implementing pathology into tailored tissue engineering strategies

In situ guided tissue regeneration, also addressed as in situ tissue engineering or endogenous regeneration, has a great potential for population-wide “minimal invasive” applications. During the last two decades, tissue engineering has been developed with remarkable in vitro and preclinical success but still the number of applications in clinical routine is extremely small. Moreover, the vision of population-wide applications of ex vivo tissue engineered constructs based on cells, growth and differentiation factors and scaffolds, must probably be deemed unrealistic for economic and regulation-related issues. Hence, the progress made in this respect will be mostly applicable to a fraction of post-traumatic or post-surgery situations such as big tissue defects due to tumor manifestation. Minimally invasive procedures would probably qualify for a broader application and ideally would only require off the shelf standardized products without cells. Such products should mimic the microenvironment of regenerating tissues and make use of the endogenous tissue regeneration capacities. Functionally, the chemotaxis of regenerative cells, their amplification as a transient amplifying pool and their concerted differentiation and remodeling should be addressed. This is especially important because the main target populations for such applications are the elderly and diseased. The quality of regenerative cells is impaired in such organisms and high levels of inhibitors also interfere with regeneration and healing. In metabolic bone diseases like osteoporosis, it is already known that antagonists for inhibitors such as activin and sclerostin enhance bone formation. Implementing such strategies into applications for in situ guided tissue regeneration should greatly enhance the efficacy of tailored procedures in the future

TRY plant trait database – enhanced coverage and open access

Plant traits - the morphological, anatomical, physiological, biochemical and phenological characteristics of plants - determine how plants respond to environmental factors, affect other trophic levels, and influence ecosystem properties and their benefits and detriments to people. Plant trait data thus represent the basis for a vast area of research spanning from evolutionary biology, community and functional ecology, to biodiversity conservation, ecosystem and landscape management, restoration, biogeography and earth system modelling. Since its foundation in 2007, the TRY database of plant traits has grown continuously. It now provides unprecedented data coverage under an open access data policy and is the main plant trait database used by the research community worldwide. Increasingly, the TRY database also supports new frontiers of trait‐based plant research, including the identification of data gaps and the subsequent mobilization or measurement of new data. To support this development, in this article we evaluate the extent of the trait data compiled in TRY and analyse emerging patterns of data coverage and representativeness. Best species coverage is achieved for categorical traits - almost complete coverage for ‘plant growth form’. However, most traits relevant for ecology and vegetation modelling are characterized by continuous intraspecific variation and trait–environmental relationships. These traits have to be measured on individual plants in their respective environment. Despite unprecedented data coverage, we observe a humbling lack of completeness and representativeness of these continuous traits in many aspects. We, therefore, conclude that reducing data gaps and biases in the TRY database remains a key challenge and requires a coordinated approach to data mobilization and trait measurements. This can only be achieved in collaboration with other initiatives