Psychotrauma and effective treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder in soldiers and peacekeepers

Psychotrauma occurs as a result to a traumatic event, which may involve witnessing someone's actual death or personally experiencing serious physical injury, assault, rape and sexual abuse, being held as a hostage, or a threat to physical or psychological integrity. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is an anxiety disorder and was defined in the past as railway spine, traumatic war neurosis, stress syndrome, shell shock, battle fatigue, combat fatigue, or post-traumatic stress syndrome (PTSS). If untreated, post-traumatic stress disorder can impair relationships of those affected and strain their families and society. Deployed soldiers are especially at a high risk to be affected by PTSD but often receive inadequate treatment. Reviews to date have focused only on a single type of treatment or groups of soldiers from only one country. The aim of the current review was to evaluate characteristics of therapeutic methods used internationally to treat male soldiers' PTSD after peacekeeping operations in South Eastern Europe and the Gulf wars

Migrationsprofil Westbalkan: Ursachen, Herausforderungen und Lösungsansätze

Die Studie (Working Paper 63) zeigt, dass die Wanderungsbewegungen in und aus der Westbalkanregion verschiedene Ursachen hatten und haben. Zu ihnen zählen neben den kriegerischen Auseinandersetzungen in den 1990er-Jahren u.a. die derzeitige schlechte wirtschaftliche Situation, ethnische Konflikte, reformbedürftige politische Systeme sowie weltweite Flüchtlingsbewegungen.The study focuses on migration in and from the Western Balkans region (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia) and the way it is handled by policy-makers. The region is characterised by a wide variety of migration processes and a large number of resulting challenges

Closing the loop: Reconnecting human dynamics to Earth System science

International commitment to the appropriately ambitious Paris climate agreement and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals in 2015 has pulled into the limelight the urgent need for major scientific progress in understanding and modelling the Anthropocene, the tightly intertwined social-environmental planetary system that humanity now inhabits. The Anthropocene qualitatively differs from previous eras in Earth’s history in three key characteristics: (1) There is planetary-scale human agency. (2) There are social and economic networks of teleconnections spanning the globe. (3) It is dominated by planetary-scale social-ecological feedbacks. Bolting together old concepts and methodologies cannot be an adequate approach to describing this new geological era. Instead, we need a new paradigm in Earth System science that is founded equally on a deep understanding of the physical and biological Earth System – and of the economic, social and cultural forces that are now an intrinsic part of it. It is time to close the loop and bring socially mediated dynamics explicitly into theory, analysis and models that let us study the whole Earth System

DNA binds to a specific site of the adhesive blood-protein von Willebrand factor guided by electrostatic interactions.

Neutrophils release their intracellular content, DNA included, into the bloodstream to form neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) that confine and kill circulating pathogens. The mechanosensitive adhesive blood protein, von Willebrand Factor (vWF), interacts with the extracellular DNA of NETs to potentially immobilize them during inflammatory and coagulatory conditions. Here, we elucidate the previously unknown molecular mechanism governing the DNA-vWF interaction by integrating atomistic, coarse-grained, and Brownian dynamics simulations, with thermophoresis, gel electrophoresis, fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (FCS), and microfluidic experiments. We demonstrate that, independently of its nucleotide sequence, double-stranded DNA binds to a specific helix of the vWF A1 domain, via three arginines. This interaction is attenuated by increasing the ionic strength. Our FCS and microfluidic measurements also highlight the key role shear-stress has in enabling this interaction. Our simulations attribute the previously-observed platelet-recruitment reduction and heparin-size modulation, upon establishment of DNA-vWF interactions, to indirect steric hindrance and partial overlap of the binding sites, respectively. Overall, we suggest electrostatics-guiding DNA to a specific protein binding site-as the main driving force defining DNA-vWF recognition. The molecular picture of a key shear-mediated DNA-protein interaction is provided here and it constitutes the basis for understanding NETs-mediated immune and hemostatic responses

Phospho-proteomic analyses of B-Raf protein complexes reveal new regulatory principles

B-Raf represents a critical physiological regulator of the Ras/RAF/MEK/ERK-pathway and a pharmacological target of growing clinical relevance, in particular in oncology. To understand how B-Raf itself is regulated, we combined mass spectrometry with genetic approaches to map its interactome in MCF-10A cells as well as in B-Raf deficient murine embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs) and B-Raf/Raf-1 double deficient DT40 lymphoma cells complemented with wildtype or mutant B-Raf expression vectors. Using a multi-protease digestion approach, we identified a novel ubiquitination site and provide a detailed B-Raf phospho-map. Importantly, we identify two evolutionary conserved phosphorylation clusters around T401 and S419 in the B-Raf hinge region. SILAC labelling and genetic/biochemical follow-up revealed that these clusters are phosphorylated in the contexts of oncogenic Ras, sorafenib induced Raf dimerization and in the background of the V600E mutation. We further show that the vemurafenib sensitive phosphorylation of the T401 cluster occurs in trans within a Raf dimer. Substitution of the Ser/Thr-residues of this cluster by alanine residues enhances the transforming potential of B-Raf, indicating that these phosphorylation sites suppress its signaling output. Moreover, several B-Raf phosphorylation sites, including T401 and S419, are somatically mutated in tumors, further illustrating the importance of phosphorylation for the regulation of this kinase

Mobile Air Quality Studies (MAQS) - an international project

Due to an increasing awareness of the potential hazardousness of air pollutants, new laws, rules and guidelines have recently been implemented globally. In this respect, numerous studies have addressed traffic-related exposure to particulate matter using stationary technology so far. By contrast, only few studies used the advanced technology of mobile exposure analysis. The Mobile Air Quality Study (MAQS) addresses the issue of air pollutant exposure by combining advanced high-granularity spatial-temporal analysis with vehicle-mounted, person-mounted and roadside sensors. The MAQS-platform will be used by international collaborators in order 1) to assess air pollutant exposure in relation to road structure, 2) to assess air pollutant exposure in relation to traffic density, 3) to assess air pollutant exposure in relation to weather conditions, 4) to compare exposure within vehicles between front and back seat (children) positions, and 5) to evaluate "traffic zone"- exposure in relation to non-"traffic zone"-exposure. Primarily, the MAQS-platform will focus on particulate matter. With the establishment of advanced mobile analysis tools, it is planed to extend the analysis to other pollutants including including NO2, SO2, nanoparticles, and ozone

Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene

This is the final version of the article. Available from National Academy of Sciences via the DOI in this record.We explore the risk that self-reinforcing feedbacks could push the Earth System toward a planetary threshold that, if crossed, could prevent stabilization of the climate at intermediate temperature rises and cause continued warming on a "Hothouse Earth" pathway even as human emissions are reduced. Crossing the threshold would lead to a much higher global average temperature than any interglacial in the past 1.2 million years and to sea levels significantly higher than at any time in the Holocene. We examine the evidence that such a threshold might exist and where it might be. If the threshold is crossed, the resulting trajectory would likely cause serious disruptions to ecosystems, society, and economies. Collective human action is required to steer the Earth System away from a potential threshold and stabilize it in a habitable interglacial-like state. Such action entails stewardship of the entire Earth System-biosphere, climate, and societies-and could include decarbonization of the global economy, enhancement of biosphere carbon sinks, behavioral changes, technological innovations, new governance arrangements, and transformed social values.W.S. and C.P.S. are members of the Anthropocene Working Group. W.S., J.R., K.R., S.E.C., J.F.D., I.F., S.J.L., R.W. and H.J.S. are members of the Planetary Boundaries Research Network PB.net and the Earth League’s EarthDoc Programme supported by the Stordalen Foundation. T.M.L. was supported by a Royal Society Wolfson Research Merit Award and the European Union Framework Programme 7 Project HELIX. C.F. was supported by the Erling– Persson Family Foundation. The participation of D.L. was supported by the Haury Program in Environment and Social Justice and National Science Foundation (USA) Decadal and Regional Climate Prediction using Earth System Models Grant 1243125. S.E.C. was supported in part by Swedish Research Council Formas Grant 2012-742. J.F.D. and R.W. were supported by Leibniz Association Project DOMINOES. S.J.L. receives funding from Formas Grant 2014-589. This paper is a contribution to European Research Council Advanced Grant 2016, Earth Resilience in the Anthropocene Project 743080

Variation in water and sucrose responsiveness during the foraging season affects proboscis extension learning in honey bees

Honey bee foragers often show a variation in laboratory proboscis extension learning during the foraging season, making comparisons between experiments difficult. We analysed whether the seasonal variation in learning performance was related to a variation in sucrose responsiveness in pollen and non-pollen foragers. Pollen foragers were very responsive to water and sucrose throughout the season. Non-pollen foragers were overall less responsive and showed more variation. Sucrose responsiveness strongly correlated with tactile and olfactory learning performance in pollen and non-pollen foragers throughout the season. Learning performance was significantly better when sucrose responsiveness was high than when it was low. We suggest conditioning bees that have uniform sucrose responsiveness throughout the season to reduce experimental variance