Impact of change in climate and policy from 1988 to 2007 on environmental and microbial variables at the time series station Boknis Eck, Baltic Sea

Phytoplankton and bacteria are sensitive indicators of environmental change. The temporal development of these key organisms was monitored from 1988 to the end of 2007 at the time series station Boknis Eck in the western Baltic Sea. This period was characterized by the adaption of the Baltic Sea ecosystem to changes in the environmental conditions caused by the conversion of the political system in the southern and eastern border states, accompanied by the general effects of global climate change. Measured variables were chlorophyll, primary production, bacteria number, -biomass and -production, glucose turnover rate, macro-nutrients, pH, temperature and salinity. Negative trends with time were recorded for chlorophyll, bacteria number, bacterial biomass and bacterial production, nitrate, ammonia, phosphate, silicate, oxygen and salinity while temperature, pH, and the ratio between bacteria numbers and chlorophyll increased. Strongest reductions with time occurred for the annual maximum values, e.g. for chlorophyll during the spring bloom or for nitrate during winter, while the annual minimum values remained more stable. In deep water above sediment the negative trends of oxygen, nitrate, phosphate and bacterial variables as well as the positive trend of temperature were similar to those in the surface while the trends of salinity, ammonia and silicate were opposite to those in the surface. Decreasing oxygen, even in the surface layer, was of particular interest because it suggested enhanced recycling of nutrients from the deep hypoxic zones to the surface by vertical mixing. The long-term seasonal patterns of all variables correlated positively with temperature, except chlorophyll and salinity. Salinity correlated negatively with all bacterial variables (as well as precipitation) and positively with chlorophyll. Surprisingly, bacterial variables did not correlate with chlorophyll, which may be inherent with the time lag between the peaks of phytoplankton and bacteria during spring. Compared to the 20-yr averages of the environmental and microbial variables, the strongest negative deviations of corresponding annual averages were measured about ten years after political change for nitrate and bacterial secondary production (~ −60%), followed by chlorophyll (−50%) and bacterial biomass (−40%). Considering the circulation of surface currents in the Baltic Sea we interpret the observed patterns of the microbial variables at the Boknis Eck time series station as a consequence of the improved management of water resources after 1989 and – to a minor extent – the trends of the climate variables salinity and temperature

Dissolved methane during hypoxic events at the Boknis Eck Time Series Station (Eckernförde Bay, SW Baltic Sea)

Dissolved CH4 was measured in the water column at the Boknis Eck (BE) time series station in the Eckernförde Bay (SW Baltic Sea) on a monthly basis from June 2006 to November 2008. The water column at BE was always supersaturated with CH4 and, therefore, CH4 was released to the atmosphere throughout the sampling period: the mean CH4 surface (1 m) saturation at BE was 554±317%. A pulse of enhanced CH4 emissions occurs when the CH4 accumulation in the hypoxic bottom layer during summer is terminated in late summer/autumn. We did not detect a straightforward relationship between periods of enhanced CH4 in the bottom layer and hypoxic events at BE: the sedimentary release of CH4 seemed to be mainly triggered by sedimenting organic material from phytoplankton blooms. We conclude that future CH4 emissions from BE will be determined by the intensity of phytoplankton blooms, which in turn will be influenced by eutrophication. However, hypoxic events seem to have only a modulating effect on the enhancement of sedimentary methanogenesis and the subsequent release of CH4 to the water column

Comparing Discounting of Potentially Real Rewards and Losses by Means of Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging

AimDelay discounting (DD) has often been investigated in the context of decision making whereby individuals attribute decreasing value to rewards in the distant future. Less is known about DD in the context of negative consequences. The aim of this pilot study was to identify commonalities and differences between reward and loss discounting on the behavioral as well as the neural level by means of computational modeling and functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). We furthermore compared the neural activation between anticipation of rewards and losses.MethodWe conducted a study combining an intertemporal choice task for potentially real rewards and losses (decision-making) with a monetary incentive/loss delay task (reward/loss anticipation). Thirty healthy participants (age 18-35, 14 female) completed the study. In each trial, participants had to choose between a smaller immediate loss/win and a larger loss/win at a fixed delay of two weeks. Task-related brain activation was measured with fMRI.ResultsHyperbolic discounting parameters of loss and reward conditions were correlated (r = 0.56). During decision-making, BOLD activation was observed in the parietal and prefrontal cortex, with no differences between reward and loss conditions. During reward and loss anticipation, dissociable activation was observed in the striatum, the anterior insula and the anterior cingulate cortex.ConclusionWe observed behavior concurrent with DD in both the reward and loss condition, with evidence for similar behavioral and neural patterns in the two conditions. Intertemporal decision-making recruited the fronto-parietal network, whilst reward and loss anticipation were related to activation in the salience network. The interpretation of these findings may be limited to short delays and small monetary outcomes

Automatic data quality control for understanding extreme climate event

The understanding of extreme events strongly depends on knowledge gained from data. Data integration of mul-tiple sources, scales and earth compartments is the fo-cus of the project Digital Earth, which also join efforts on the quality control of data. Automatic quality control is embedded in the ingest component of the O2A, the ob-servation-to-archive data flow framework of the Alfred-Wegener-Institute. In that framework, the O2A-Sensor provides observation properties to the O2A-Ingest, which delivers quality-flagged data to the O2A-dash-board. The automatic quality control currently follows a procedural approach, where modules are included to implement formulations found in the literature and other operational observatory networks. A set of plausibility tests including range, spike and gradient tests are cur-rently operational. The automatic quality control scans the ingesting data in near-real-time (NRT) format, builds a table of devices, and search - either by absolute or derivative values - for correctness and validity of obser-vations. The availability of observation properties, for in-stance tests parameters like physical or operation ranges, triggers the automatic quality control, which in turn iterates through the table of devices to set the qual-ity flag for each sample and observation. To date, the quality flags in use are sequential and qualitative, i.e. it describes a level of quality in the data. A new flagging system is under development to include a descriptive characteristic that will comprise technical and user inter-pretation. Within Digital Earth, data on flood and drought events along the Elbe River and methane emissions in the North Sea are to be reviewed using automatic qual-ity control. Fast and scalable automatic quality control will disentangle uncertainty raised by quality issues and thus improve our understanding of extreme events in those cases

An integrative solution for managing, tracing and citing sensor-related information

In a data-driven scientific world, the need to capture information on sensors used in the data acquisition process has become increasingly important. Following the recommendations of the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC), we started by adopting the SensorML standard for describing platforms, devices and sensors. However, it soon became obvious to us that understanding, implementing and filling such standards costs significant effort and cannot be expected from every scientist individually. So we developed a web-based sensor management solution (https://sensor.awi.de) for describing platforms, devices and sensors as hierarchy of systems which supports tracing changes to a system whereas hiding complexity. Each platform contains devices where each device can have sensors associated with specific identifiers, contacts, events, related online resources (e.g. manufacturer factsheets, calibration documentation, data processing documentation), sensor output parameters and geo-location. In order to better understand and address real world requirements, we have closely interacted with field-going scientists in the context of the key national infrastructure project “FRontiers in Arctic marine Monitoring ocean observatory” (FRAM) during the software development. We learned that not only the lineage of observations is crucial for scientists but also alert services using value ranges, flexible output formats and information on data providers (e.g. FTP sources) for example. Mostly important, persistent and citable versions of sensor descriptions are required for traceability and reproducibility allowing seamless integration with existing information systems, e.g. PANGAEA. Within the context of the EU-funded Ocean Data Interoperability Platform project (ODIP II) and in cooperation with 52north we are proving near real-time data via Sensor Observation Services (SOS) along with sensor descriptions based on our sensor management solution. ODIP II also aims to develop a harmonized SensorML profile for the marine community which we will be adopting in our solution as soon as available. In this presentation we will show our sensor management solution which is embedded in our data flow framework to offer out-of-the-box interoperability with existing information systems and standards. In addition, we will present real world examples and challenges related to the description and traceability of sensor metadata

Sexual and Mental Health Inequalities across Gender Identity and Sex-Assigned-at-Birth among Men-Who-Have-Sex-with-Men in Europe: Findings from EMIS-2017.

Some men who have sex with men (MSM) were assigned female at birth (AFB) and/or identify as trans men. Little is known about how these men differ from other MSM. We compared sexual and mental health indicators from the European MSM Internet Survey (EMIS-2017), comparing men AFB and/or currently identifying as trans men with those assigned male at birth (AMB) who identified as men. EMIS-2017 was an opportunistic 33-language online sexual health survey for MSM recruiting throughout Europe. We used regression models adjusting for age, country of residence and employment status to examine differences across groups. An analytic sample of 125,720 men living in 45 countries was used, of which 674 (0.5%) were AFB and 871 (0.7%) identified as trans men. The two sub-groups were not coterminous, forming three minority groups: AFB men, AFB trans men and AMB trans men. Minority groups were younger and more likely unemployed. Anxiety, depression, alcohol dependence and sexual unhappiness were more prevalent in sex/gender minority men. Conversely HIV and STI diagnoses were less common. AMB trans men were most likely to have sexual risk behavior with steady partners and to have unmet health promotion needs, and were least likely to be reached by interventions. Sex assigned at birth and trans identification were associated with different sexual and mental health needs. To facilitate service planning and to foster inclusion, sex-assigned-at-birth and current gender identity should be routinely collected in health surveys

O2A - Data Flow Framework from Sensor Observations to Archives

The Alfred Wegener Institute coordinates German polar research and is one of the most productive polar research institutions worldwide with scientists working in both Polar Regions – a task that can only be successful with the help of excellent infrastructure and logistics. Conducting research in the Arctic and Antarctic requires research stations staffed throughout the year as the basis for expeditions and data collection. It needs research vessels, aircrafts and long-term observatories for large-scale measurements as well as sophisticated technology. In this sense, the AWI also provides this infrastructure and competence to national and international partners. To meet the challenge the AWI has been progressively developing and sustaining an e-Infrastructure for coherent discovery, visualization, dissemination and archival of scientific information and data. Most of the data originates from research activities being carried out in a wide range of sea-, airand land-based operating research platforms. Archival and publishing in PANGAEA repository along with DOI assignment to individual datasets is a pursued end-of-line step. Within AWI, a workflow for data acquisition from vessel-mounted devices along with ingestion procedures for the raw data into the institutional archives has been well established. However, the increasing number of ocean-based stations and respective sensors along with heterogeneous project-driven requirements towards satellite communication, sensor monitoring, quality control and validation, processing algorithms, visualization and dissemination has recently lead us to build a more generic and cost-effective framework, hereafter named O2A (observations to archives). The main strengths of our framework (https://www.awi.de/en/data-flow) are the seamless flow of sensor observation to archives and the fact that it complies with internationally used OGC standards and assuring interoperability in international context (e.g. SOS/SWE, WMS, WFS, etc.). O2A comprises several extensible and exchangeable modules (e.g. controlled vocabularies and gazetteers, file type and structure validation, aggregation solutions, processing algorithms, etc.) as well as various interoperability services. We are providing integrated tools for standardized platform, device and sensor descriptions following SensorML (https://sensor.awi.de), automated near-real time and “big data” data streams supporting SOS and O&M and dashboards allowing data specialists to monitor their data streams for trends and early detection of malfunction of sensors (https://dashboard.awi.de). Also in the context of the “Helmholtz Data Federation” with outlook towards the European Open Science Cloud we are developing a cloud-based workspace providing user-friendly solutions for data storage on petabyte-scale and state-of-the-art computing solutions (Hadoop, Spark, Notebooks, rasdaman, etc.) to support scientists in collaborative data analysis and visualization activities including geo-information systems (http://maps.awi.de). Our affiliated repositories offer archival and long-term preservation as well as publication solutions for data, data products, publications, presentations and field reports (https://www.pangaea.de, https://epic.awi.de)

Sexual happiness and satisfaction with sexual safety among German trans men who have sex with men: results from EMIS-2017

INTRODUCTION: The population of men-who-have-sex-with-men (MSM) includes people who are on the masculine spectrum but were assigned female at birth (AFAB), that is trans MSM. This study aims to identify current circumstances regarding sexual happiness and safety among German trans MSM. To date, there is no health information about trans MSM in Germany, limiting the ability of MSM sexual health programmes to meet their needs. METHODS: Data were used from the European MSM Internet Survey (EMIS-2017), where people identifying as men and/or trans men were recruited through dating apps for MSM, community websites and social media to participate in an online survey. We analysed parameters on sexual happiness and satisfaction with sexual safety among Germany-based trans MSM and compared those to outcomes of MSM assigned male at birth (cis MSM) living in Germany using descriptive methods and logistic regression models adjusting for age. RESULTS: In total, 23,001 participants from Germany were included, of which 122 (0.5%) indicated to be AFAB (i.e. trans MSM). Trans MSM were markedly younger than cis participants (median age: 28.5 vs. 39 years). Trans MSM more often reported being unhappy with their current sex life (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] = 1.82, 95% CI 1.24-2.67), had higher odds of disagreeing with the statements "the sex I have is always as safe as I want" ([aOR] = 1.82, 95% CI 1.24-2.67) and "I find it easy to say no to sex that I don't want" ([aOR] = 1.80, 95% CI 1.18-2.77). Trans MSM were more likely to not be living comfortably financially ([aOR] = 2.43, 95% CI 1.60-3.67) and to be living with severe anxiety and/or depression ([aOR] = 3.90, 95% CI 2.22-6.83). Trans MSM were less likely to have ever tested for HIV ([aOR] = 0.63, 95% CI 0.43-0.93). CONCLUSIONS: Sexual happiness, control of sexual boundaries, satisfaction with sexual safety, financial security, mental wellbeing and HIV testing were all lower in German trans MSM compared with cis MSM. Tailored sexual health interventions, contextualized with regard to needs and vulnerabilities, could address this inequality

Persistent hematologic and immunologic disturbances in 8-year-old Dutch children associated with perinatal dioxin exposure.

Perinatal exposure to Dutch "background" dioxin levels in 1990 was high, but comparable with that of other industrialized Western European countries. Exposure during the sensitive perinatal period may cause permanent disturbances. Therefore, we assessed the health status and various hematologic and immunologic parameters among our longitudinal cohort. A medical history was taken and venipuncture performed in a longitudinal cohort of 27 healthy 8-year-old children who had documented perinatal dioxin exposure. Linear regression revealed a decrease in allergy in relation to prenatal (p = 0.02) and postnatal (p = 0.03) dioxin exposure. Increases in CD4+ T-helper cells (p = 0.006) and in CD45RA+ cells (p = 0.02) were seen in relation to postnatal exposure. A persistently decreased platelet count (p = 0.04) and increased thrombopoietin concentration (p = 0.03) were seen in relation to postnatal exposure. This follow-up has shown a decrease in allergy, persistently decreased thrombocytes, increased thrombopoietin, and increased CD4+ T-helper and increased CD45RA+ cell counts. This study provides indications of effects at the stem cell level of perinatal dioxin exposure, persisting until minimally 8 years after birth