Scenario-based mission statements; Promoting sustainable urban development in the context of the energy transition

Using a planning process for the Stuttgart Neckar Valley as a case study, this paper analyzes the urban inertial forces that counteract the transformation of energy infrastructure areas in the context of the energy transition. In order to overcome these forces, a scenario-based mission statement was developed in which spatial scenarios were derived from energy scenarios and finally summarized in a concept plan for the Neckar Valley. The mission statement was developed following an analytical-deliberative and transdisciplinary approach. The approach to mission statement development presented here can respond flexibly to changing framework conditions and thus serve as a model for other cities with large-scale energy infrastructures in transition.Am Beispiel eines Planungsprozesses für das Stuttgarter Neckartal wird analysiert, welche urbanen Beharrungskräfte einer städtebaulichen Transformation von Energieinfrastrukturflächen im Rahmen der Energiewende entgegenwirken. Um diese Kräfte zu überwinden wurde ein szenariobasiertes Leitbild entwickelt, in dem auf Basis energiewirtschaftlicher Szenarien räumliche Szenarien abgeleitet und schließlich in einem Konzeptplan für das Neckartal zusammengeführt wurden. Zur Entwicklung des Leitbilds wurde ein analytisch-deliberatives und transdisziplinäres Vorgehen verfolgt. Der vorgestellte Ansatz der Leitbildentwicklung kann flexibel auf sich verändernde Rahmenbedingungen reagieren und daher als Vorbild für andere Städte mit großmaßstäblichen Energieinfrastrukturen dienen, die sich im Rahmen der Energiewende verändern werden

Folate and Cobalamin Serum Levels in Healthy Children and Adolescents and Their Association with Age, Sex, BMI and Socioeconomic Status

This study proposes age- and sex-specific percentiles for serum cobalamin and folate, and analyzes the effects of sex, age, body mass index (BMI), and socioeconomic status (SES) on cobalamin and folate concentrations in healthy children and adolescents. In total, 4478 serum samples provided by healthy participants (2 months–18.0 years) in the LIFE (Leipzig Research Centre for Civilization Diseases) Child population-based cohort study between 2011 and 2015 were analyzed by electrochemiluminescence immunoassay (ECLIA). Continuous age-and sex-related percentiles (2.5th, 10th, 50th, 90th, 97.5th) were estimated, applying Cole’s LMS method. In both sexes, folate concentrations decreased continuously with age, whereas cobalamin concentration peaked between three and seven years of age and declined thereafter. Female sex was associated with higher concentrations of both vitamins in 13- to 18-year-olds and with higher folate levels in one- to five-year-olds. BMI was inversely correlated with concentrations of both vitamins, whilst SES positively affected folate but not cobalamin concentrations. To conclude, in the assessment of cobalamin and folate status, the age- and sex-dependent dynamic of the respective serum concentrations must be considered. While BMI is a determinant of both vitamin concentrations, SES is only associated with folate concentrations

Relation of Whole Blood Amino Acid and Acylcarnitine Metabolome to Age, Sex, BMI, Puberty, and Metabolic Markers in Children and Adolescents

Background: Changes in the metabolic fingerprint of blood during child growth and development are a largely under-investigated area of research. The examination of such aspects requires a cohort of healthy children and adolescents who have been subjected to deep phenotyping, including collection of biospecimens for metabolomic analysis. The present study considered whether amino acid (AA) and acylcarnitine (AC) concentrations are associated with age, sex, body mass index (BMI), and puberty during childhood and adolescence. It also investigated whether there are associations between amino acids (AAs) and acylcarnitines (ACs) and laboratory parameters of glucose and lipid metabolism, as well as liver, kidney, and thyroid parameters. Methods: A total of 3989 dried whole blood samples collected from 2191 healthy participants, aged 3 months to 18 years, from the LIFE Child cohort (Leipzig, Germany) were analyzed using liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry to detect levels of 23 AAs, 6 ACs, and free carnitine (C0). Age- and sex-related percentiles were estimated for each metabolite. In addition, correlations between laboratory parameters and levels of the selected AAs and ACs were calculated using hierarchical models. Results: Four different age-dependent profile types were identified for AAs and ACs. Investigating the association with puberty, we mainly identified peak metabolite levels at Tanner stages 2 to 3 in girls and stages 3 to 5 in boys. Significant correlations were observed between BMI standard deviation score (BMI-SDS) and certain metabolites, among them, branched-chain (leucine/isoleucine, valine) and aromatic (phenylalanine, tyrosine) amino acids. Most of the metabolites correlated significantly with absolute concentrations of glucose, glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c), triglycerides, cystatin C (CysC), and creatinine. After age adjustment, significant correlations were observed between most metabolites and CysC, as well as HbA1c. Conclusions: During childhood, several AA and AC levels are related to age, sex, BMI, and puberty. Moreover, our data verified known associations but also revealed new correlations between AAs/ACs and specific key markers of metabolic function

DNA metabarcoding quantifies the relative biomass of arthropod taxa in songbird diets:Validation with camera-recorded diets

Ecological research is often hampered by the inability to quantify animal diets. Diet composition can be tracked through DNA metabarcoding of fecal samples, but whether (complex) diets can be quantitatively determined with metabarcoding is still debated and needs validation using free-living animals. This study validates that DNA metabarcoding of feces can retrieve actual ingested taxa, and most importantly, that read numbers retrieved from sequencing can also be used to quantify the relative biomass of dietary taxa. Validation was done with the hole-nesting insectivorous Pied Flycatcher whose diet was quantified using camera footage. Size-adjusted counts of food items delivered to nestlings were used as a proxy for provided biomass of prey orders and families, and subsequently, nestling feces were assessed through DNA metabarcoding. To explore potential effects of digestion, gizzard and lower intestine samples of freshly collected birds were subjected to DNA metabarcoding. For metabarcoding with Cytochrome Oxidase subunit I (COI), we modified published invertebrate COI primers LCO1490 and HCO1777, which reduced host reads to 0.03%, and amplified Arachnida DNA without significant changing the recovery of other arthropod taxa. DNA metabarcoding retrieved all commonly camera-recorded taxa. Overall, and in each replicate year (N = 3), the relative scaled biomass of prey taxa and COI read numbers correlated at R =.85 (95CI:0.68–0.94) at order level and at R =.75 (CI:0.67–0.82) at family level. Similarity in arthropod community composition between gizzard and intestines suggested limited digestive bias. This DNA metabarcoding validation demonstrates that quantitative analyses of arthropod diet is possible. We discuss the ecological applications for insectivorous birds

Prenatal transfer of gut bacteria in Rock pigeon

Vertebrates evolved in concert with bacteria and have developed essential mutualistic relationships. Gut bacteria are vital for the postnatal development of most organs and the immune and metabolic systems and may likewise play a role during prenatal development. Prenatal transfer of gut bacteria is shown in four mammalian species, including humans. For the 92% of the vertebrates that are oviparous, prenatal transfer is debated, but it has been demonstrated in domestic chicken. We hypothesize that also non-domestic birds can prenatally transmit gut bacteria. We investigated this in medium-sized Rock pigeon (Columba livia), ensuring neonates producing fair-sized first faeces. The first faeces of 21 neonate rock pigeons hatched in an incubator, contained a microbiome (bacterial community) the composition of which resembled the cloacal microbiome of females sampled from the same population (N = 5) as indicated by multiple shared phyla, orders, families, and genera. Neonates and females shared 16.1% of the total number of OTUs present (2881), and neonates shared 45.5% of their core microbiome with females. In contrast, the five females shared only 0.3% of the 1030 female OTUs present. These findings suggest that prenatal gut bacterial transfer may occur in birds. Our results support the hypothesis that gut bacteria may be important for prenatal development and present a heritability pathway of gut bacteria in vertebrates

Direct binding of hepatocyte growth factor and vascular endothelial growth factor to CD44v6

Volz Y, Koschut D, Matzke-Ogi A, et al. Direct binding of hepatocyte growth factor and vascular endothelial growth factor to CD44v6. Bioscience Reports. 2015;35(4): e00236.CD44v6, a member of the CD44 family of transmembrane glycoproteins is a co-receptor for two receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs), Met and VEGFR-2 (vascular endothelial growth factor receptor 2). CD44v6 is not only required for the activation of these RTKs but also for signalling. In order to understand the role of CD44v6in Met and VEGFR-2 activation and signalling we tested whether CD44v6 binds to their ligands, HGF (hepatocyte growth factor) and VEGF (vascular endothelial growth factor), respectively. FACS analysis and cellular ELISA showed binding of HGF and VEGF only to cells expressing CD44v6. Direct binding of CD44v6 to HGF and VEGF was demonstrated in pull-down assays and the binding affinities were determined using MicroScale Thermophoresis, fluorescence correlation spectroscopy and fluorescence anisotropy. The binding affinity of CD44v6 to HGF is in the micromolar range in contrast with the high-affinity binding measured in the case of VEGF and CD44v6, which is in the nanomolar range. These data reveal a heparan sulfate-independent direct binding of CD44v6 to the ligands of Met and VEGFR-2 and suggest different roles of CD44v6 for these RTKs

Current Challenges in Plant Eco-Metabolomics

The relatively new research discipline of Eco-Metabolomics is the application of metabolomics techniques to ecology with the aim to characterise biochemical interactions of organisms across different spatial and temporal scales. Metabolomics is an untargeted biochemical approach to measure many thousands of metabolites in different species, including plants and animals. Changes in metabolite concentrations can provide mechanistic evidence for biochemical processes that are relevant at ecological scales. These include physiological, phenotypic and morphological responses of plants and communities to environmental changes and also interactions with other organisms. Traditionally, research in biochemistry and ecology comes from two different directions and is performed at distinct spatiotemporal scales. Biochemical studies most often focus on intrinsic processes in individuals at physiological and cellular scales. Generally, they take a bottom-up approach scaling up cellular processes from spatiotemporally fine to coarser scales. Ecological studies usually focus on extrinsic processes acting upon organisms at population and community scales and typically study top-down and bottom-up processes in combination. Eco-Metabolomics is a transdisciplinary research discipline that links biochemistry and ecology and connects the distinct spatiotemporal scales. In this review, we focus on approaches to study chemical and biochemical interactions of plants at various ecological levels, mainly plant–organismal interactions, and discuss related examples from other domains. We present recent developments and highlight advancements in Eco-Metabolomics over the last decade from various angles. We further address the five key challenges: (1) complex experimental designs and large variation of metabolite profiles; (2) feature extraction; (3) metabolite identification; (4) statistical analyses; and (5) bioinformatics software tools and workflows. The presented solutions to these challenges will advance connecting the distinct spatiotemporal scales and bridging biochemistry and ecology

Inflammation Aggravates Disease Severity in Marfan Syndrome Patients

BACKGROUND: Marfan syndrome (MFS) is a pleiotropic genetic disorder with major features in cardiovascular, ocular and skeletal systems, associated with large clinical variability. Numerous studies reveal an involvement of TGF-beta signaling. However, the contribution of tissue inflammation is not addressed so far. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Here we showed that both TGF-beta and inflammation are up-regulated in patients with MFS. We analyzed transcriptome-wide gene expression in 55 MFS patients using Affymetrix Human Exon 1.0 ST Array and levels of TGF-beta and various cytokines in their plasma. Within our MFS population, increased plasma levels of TGF-beta were found especially in MFS patients with aortic root dilatation (124 pg/ml), when compared to MFS patients with normal aorta (10 pg/ml; p = 8x10(-6), 95% CI: 70-159 pg/ml). Interestingly, our microarray data show that increased expression of inflammatory genes was associated with major clinical features within the MFS patients group; namely severity of the aortic root dilatation (HLA-DRB1 and HLA-DRB5 genes; r = 0.56 for both; False Discovery Rate(FDR) = 0%), ocular lens dislocation (RAET1L, CCL19 and HLA-DQB2; Fold Change (FC) = 1.8; 1.4; 1.5, FDR = 0%) and specific skeletal features (HLA-DRB1, HLA-DRB5, GZMK; FC = 8.8, 7.1, 1.3; FDR = 0%). Patients with progressive aortic disease had higher levels of Macrophage Colony Stimulating Factor (M-CSF) in blood. When comparing MFS aortic root vessel wall with non-MFS aortic root, increased numbers of CD4+ T-cells were found in the media (p = 0.02) and increased number of CD8+ T-cells (p = 0.003) in the adventitia of the MFS patients. CONCLUSION/SIGNIFICANCE: In conclusion, our results imply a modifying role of inflammation in MFS. Inflammation might be a novel therapeutic target in these patients

Equal opportunities: Do shareable interfaces promote more group participation than single users displays?

Computers designed for single use are often appropriated suboptimally when used by small colocated groups working together. Our research investigates whether shareable interfaces–that are designed for more than one user to inter-act with–can facilitate more equitable participation in colocated group settings compared with single user displays. We present a conceptual framework that characterizes Shared Information Spaces (SISs) in terms of how they constrain and invite participation using different entry points. An experiment was conducted that compared three different SISs: a physical-digital set-up (least constrained), a multitouch tabletop (medium), and a laptop display (most constrained). Statistical analyses showed there to be little difference in participation levels between the three conditions other than a predictable lack of equity of control over the interface in the laptop condition. However, detailed qualitative analyses revealed more equitable participation took place in the physical-digital condition in terms of verbal utterances over time. Those who spoke the least contributed most to the physical design task. The findings are discussed in relation to the conceptual framework and, more generally, in terms of how to select, design, and combine different display technologies to support collaborative activities