Competence oriented study in engineering education: examples from the practicing programme

The interdisciplinary and agile processing of projects in teams increasingly characterizes the engineer’s work. Problem-solving skills, creativity, entrepreneurship, and initiative, as well as the ability to engage in dialog and conflict resolution, are relevant competencies for this. All engineering students at TU Ilmenau can work on complex interdisciplinary projects in teams (practicING projects) right from the start of their studies. Participants in these practicING projects can also experience significant steps, aspects, and system engineering methods for demand-oriented products. The paper describes the motivation, the learning goals and methodology of practicING projects from the perspective of the supervising teachers and the participating students. Two examples illustrate the potential of the practicING concept: the projects "Wind turbine model with digital twin" and "CrossLab/ experimental ball drop test environment". Experiences in implementing the practicING projects to date are presented, as well as limitations and possibilities for further development

Dolls/puppets as soulmates – biographical traces of dolls/puppets in art, literature, work and performance

https://dedo.ub.uni-siegen.deDie vorliegende vierte Ausgabe der Zeitschrift denkste: puppe / just a bit of: doll (de:do), ein multidisziplinäres Online-Journal für Mensch-Puppen-Diskurse, greift den Themenschwerpunkt Puppen als Seelenverwandte – biographische Spuren von Puppen in Kunst, Literatur, Werk und Darstellung auf. Es geht um die Frage nach Wirkungen früher Puppenerfahrungen in der späteren künstlerischen Arbeit und damit nach den möglichen (biographischen) Wurzeln und Zusammenhängen von Puppenmotiv und Puppen-Narrativen im künstlerisch-literarischen Werk. Puppenbezüge in Werk- und Schaffensprozessen können frühe Erfahrungen biographischer Brüche und Verletzungen transformieren bzw. sie künstlerisch produktiv integrieren, sie können aber auch Ausdruck für Kontinuität und Intensivierung früher Prägungen und Vorlieben sein. In den vorliegenden Beiträgen geht es um puppenbezogene künstlerische Ausdrucksformen, die als Beiträge hier formal unterschiedlich aufbereitet werden: als wissenschaftsbasierter Text, Selbstbericht, Miszelle, Rezension, Interview und: Kunstwerk. Untersucht und thematisiert werden Puppen-Sammlungen, die Herstellung besonderer Puppen, literarische Puppentexte, Inszenierungen und Bilder. Außerdem wurden weitere Beiträge einbezogen, die Puppen als Varianten „künstlicher Menschen“ in unterschiedlichsten Themenbezügen behandeln. In vielen Beiträgen deutet sich an, dass die Affinität zum „Phänomen Puppe“ in seinen verschiedenen künstlerischen Umsetzungsformen auf biographisch geprägte Spuren verweist: als Ausdrucks- und Darstellungsmittel steht die Puppe somit auch für etwas Besonderes der Menschen, die sich künstlerisch auf sie beziehen und mit ihr interagieren und „spielen“.This fourth issue of denkste: puppe / just a bit of: doll (de:do), a multidisciplinary online journal for human-doll discourses, takes up the thematic focus on dolls/puppets as soulmates – biographical traces of dolls/puppets in art, literature, work and performance. It is about the impact of early doll experiences in later artistic work and thus about the possible (biographical) roots and connections of doll motifs and doll narratives in artistic-literary work. Doll/puppet references in work and creative processes can transform early experiences of biographical breaks and harm or integrate them in an artistically productive way, but they can also be an expression of continuity and intensification of early experience and preferences. The present contributions deal with doll/puppet-related artistic forms of expression, which are formally presented in different ways: as science-based text, self-report, miscellaneous, review, interview and: work of art. Doll/puppet collections, the making of particular puppets, literary puppet texts, performances and images are examined and addressed. In addition, further contributions were included, which deal with dolls as variants of "artificial humans" in the most diverse thematic contexts. Most of the contributions indicate that the affinity to the “phenomenon of the doll” in its various artistic forms of realization refers to biographically shaped traces: as a means of expression and representation the doll thus also stands for something special about the human beings who refer to it artistically and interact and "play" with it

Nitrogen dynamic in Eurasian coastal Arctic ecosystem: Insight from nitrogen isotope

Primary productivity is limited by the availability of nitrogen (N) in most of the coastal Arctic, as a large portion of N is released by the spring freshet and completely consumed during the following summer. Thus, understanding the fate of riverine nitrogen is critical to identify the link between dissolved nitrogen dynamic and coastal primary productivity to foresee upcoming changes in the Arctic seas, such as increase riverine discharge and permafrost thaw. Here, we provide a field-based study of nitrogen dynamic over the Laptev Sea shelf based on isotope geochemistry. We demonstrate that while most of the nitrate found under the surface fresh water layer is of remineralized origin, some of the nitrate originates from atmospheric input and was probably transported at depth by the mixing of brine-enriched denser water during sea-ice formation. Moreover, our results suggest that riverine dissolved organic nitrogen (DON) represents up to 6 times the total riverine release of nitrate and that about 62 to 76% of the DON is removed within the shelf waters. This is a crucial information regarding the near-future impact of climate change on primary productivity in the Eurasian coastal Arctic

Pregnane X Receptor and Yin Yang 1 Contribute to the Differential Tissue Expression and Induction of CYP3A5 and CYP3A4

The hepato-intestinal induction of the detoxifying enzymes CYP3A4 and CYP3A5 by the xenosensing pregnane X receptor (PXR) constitutes a key adaptive response to oral drugs and dietary xenobiotics. In contrast to CYP3A4, CYP3A5 is additionally expressed in several, mostly steroidogenic organs, which creates potential for induction-driven disturbances of the steroid homeostasis. Using cell lines and mice transgenic for a CYP3A5 promoter we demonstrate that the CYP3A5 expression in these organs is non-inducible and independent from PXR. Instead, it is enabled by the loss of a suppressing yin yang 1 (YY1)-binding site from the CYP3A5 promoter which occurred in haplorrhine primates. This YY1 site is conserved in CYP3A4, but its inhibitory effect can be offset by PXR acting on response elements such as XREM. Taken together, the loss of YY1 binding site from promoters of the CYP3A5 gene lineage during primate evolution may have enabled the utilization of CYP3A5 both in the adaptive hepato-intestinal response to xenobiotics and as a constitutively expressed gene in other organs. Our results thus constitute a first description of uncoupling induction from constitutive expression for a major detoxifying enzyme. They also suggest an explanation for the considerable tissue expression differences between CYP3A5 and CYP3A4

Genome-Wide Association Study in BRCA1 Mutation Carriers Identifies Novel Loci Associated with Breast and Ovarian Cancer Risk

BRCA1-associated breast and ovarian cancer risks can be modified by common genetic variants. To identify further cancer risk-modifying loci, we performed a multi-stage GWAS of 11,705 BRCA1 carriers (of whom 5,920 were diagnosed with breast and 1,839 were diagnosed with ovarian cancer), with a further replication in an additional sample of 2,646 BRCA1 carriers. We identified a novel breast cancer risk modifier locus at 1q32 for BRCA1 carriers (rs2290854, P = 2.7×10-8, HR = 1.14, 95% CI: 1.09-1.20). In addition, we identified two novel ovarian cancer risk modifier loci: 17q21.31 (rs17631303, P = 1.4×10-8, HR = 1.27, 95% CI: 1.17-1.38) and 4q32.3 (rs4691139, P = 3.4×10-8, HR = 1.20, 95% CI: 1.17-1.38). The 4q32.3 locus was not associated with ovarian cancer risk in the general population or BRCA2 carriers, suggesting a BRCA1-specific associat

Improved upper limb function in non-ambulant children with SMA type 2 and 3 during nusinersen treatment: a prospective 3-years SMArtCARE registry study

Background The development and approval of disease modifying treatments have dramatically changed disease progression in patients with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA). Nusinersen was approved in Europe in 2017 for the treatment of SMA patients irrespective of age and disease severity. Most data on therapeutic efficacy are available for the infantile-onset SMA. For patients with SMA type 2 and type 3, there is still a lack of sufficient evidence and long-term experience for nusinersen treatment. Here, we report data from the SMArtCARE registry of non-ambulant children with SMA type 2 and typen 3 under nusinersen treatment with a follow-up period of up to 38 months. Methods SMArtCARE is a disease-specific registry with data on patients with SMA irrespective of age, treatment regime or disease severity. Data are collected during routine patient visits as real-world outcome data. This analysis included all non-ambulant patients with SMA type 2 or 3 below 18 years of age before initiation of treatment. Primary outcomes were changes in motor function evaluated with the Hammersmith Functional Motor Scale Expanded (HFMSE) and the Revised Upper Limb Module (RULM). Results Data from 256 non-ambulant, pediatric patients with SMA were included in the data analysis. Improvements in motor function were more prominent in upper limb: 32.4% of patients experienced clinically meaningful improvements in RULM and 24.6% in HFMSE. 8.6% of patients gained a new motor milestone, whereas no motor milestones were lost. Only 4.3% of patients showed a clinically meaningful worsening in HFMSE and 1.2% in RULM score. Conclusion Our results demonstrate clinically meaningful improvements or stabilization of disease progression in non-ambulant, pediatric patients with SMA under nusinersen treatment. Changes were most evident in upper limb function and were observed continuously over the follow-up period. Our data confirm clinical trial data, while providing longer follow-up, an increased number of treated patients, and a wider range of age and disease severity