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Food waste is the origin of major social and environmental issues. In industrial societies, domestic households are the biggest contributors to this problem. But why do people waste food although they buy and value it? Answering this question is mandatory to design effective interventions against food waste. So far, however, many interventions have not been based on theoretical knowledge. Integrating food waste literature and ambivalence research, we propose that domestic food waste can be understood via the concept of ambivalence—the simultaneous presence of positive and negative associations towards the same attitude object. In support of this notion, we demonstrated in three pre-registered experiments that people experienced ambivalence towards non-perishable food products with expired best before dates. The experience of ambivalence was in turn associated with an increased willingness to waste food. However, two informational interventions aiming to prevent people from experiencing ambivalence did not work as intended (Experiment 3). We hope that the outlined conceptualization inspires theory-driven research on why and when people dispose of food and on how to design effective interventions.
Background
Identifying pain-related response patterns and understanding functional mechanisms of symptom formation and recovery are important for improving treatment.
Objectives
We aimed to replicate pain-related avoidance-endurance response patterns associated with the Fear-Avoidance Model, and its extension, the Avoidance-Endurance Model, and examined their differences in secondary measures of stress, action control (i.e., dispositional action vs. state orientation), coping, and health.
Methods
Latent profile analysis (LPA) was conducted on self-report data from 536 patients with chronic non-specific low back pain at the beginning of an inpatient rehabilitation program. Measures of stress (i.e., pain, life stress) and action control were analyzed as covariates regarding their influence on the formation of different pain response profiles. Measures of coping and health were examined as dependent variables.
Results
Partially in line with our assumptions, we found three pain response profiles of distress-avoidance, eustress-endurance, and low-endurance responses that are depending on the level of perceived stress and action control. Distress-avoidance responders emerged as the most burdened, dysfunctional patient group concerning measures of stress, action control, maladaptive coping, and health. Eustress-endurance responders showed one of the highest levels of action versus state orientation, as well as the highest levels of adaptive coping and physical activity. Low-endurance responders reported lower levels of stress as well as equal levels of action versus state orientation, maladaptive coping, and health compared to eustress-endurance responders; however, equally low levels of adaptive coping and physical activity compared to distress-avoidance responders.
Conclusions
Apart from the partially supported assumptions of the Fear-Avoidance and Avoidance-Endurance Model, perceived stress and dispositional action versus state orientation may play a crucial role in the formation of pain-related avoidance-endurance response patterns that vary in degree of adaptiveness. Results suggest tailoring interventions based on behavioral and functional analysis of pain responses in order to more effectively improve patients quality of life.
Background: The body-oriented therapeutic approach Somatic Experiencing® (SE) treats posttraumatic symptoms by changing the interoceptive and proprioceptive sensations associated with the traumatic experience. Filling a gap in the landscape of trauma treatments, SE has attracted growing interest in research and therapeutic practice, recently.
Objective: To date, there is no literature review of the effectiveness and key factors of SE. This review aims to summarize initial findings on the effectiveness of SE and to outline methodspecific key factors of SE.
Method: To gain a first overview of the literature, we conducted a scoping review including studies until 13 August 2020. We identified 83 articles of which 16 fit inclusion criteria and were systematically analysed.
Results: Findings provide preliminary evidence for positive effects of SE on PTSD-related symptoms. Moreover, initial evidence suggests that SE has a positive impact on affective and somatic symptoms and measures of well-being in both traumatized and non-traumatized
samples. Practitioners and clients identified resource-orientation and use of touch as methodspecific key factors of SE. Yet, an overall studies quality assessment as well as a Cochrane analysis of risk of bias indicate that the overall study quality is mixed.
Conclusions: The results concerning effectiveness and method-specific key factors of SE are promising; yet, require more support from unbiased RCT-research. Future research should focus on filling this gap.
This intervention study explored the effects of a newly developed intergenerational encounter program on cross-generational age stereotyping (CGAS). Based on a biographical-narrative approach, participants (secondary school students and nursing home residents) were invited to share ideas about existential questions of life (e.g., about one’s core experiences, future plans, and personal values). Therefore, the dyadic Life Story Interview (LSI) had been translated into a group format (the Life Story Encounter Program, LSEP), consisting of 10 90-min sessions. Analyses verified that LSEP participants of both generations showed more favorable CGAS immediately after, but also 3 months after the program end. Such change in CGAS was absent in a control group (no LSEP participation). The LSEP-driven short- and long-term effects on CGAS could be partially explained by two program benefits, the feeling of comfort with and the experience of learning from the other generation.
Institutional and cultural determinants of speed of government responses during COVID-19 pandemic
(2021)
This article examines institutional and cultural determinants of the speed of government responses during the COVID-19 pandemic. We define the speed as the marginal rate of stringency index change. Based on cross-country data, we find that collectivism is associated with higher speed of government response. We also find a moderating role of trust in government, i.e., the association of individualism-collectivism on speed is stronger in countries with higher levels of trust in government. We do not find significant predictive power of democracy, media freedom and power distance on the speed of government responses.
The endemic argan tree (Argania spinosa) populations in southern Morocco are highly degraded due to overbrowsing, illegal firewood extraction and the expansion of intensive agriculture. Bare areas between the isolated trees increase due to limited regrowth; however, it is unknown if the trees influence the soil of the intertree areas. Hypothetically, spatial differences in soil parameters of the intertree area should result from the translocation of litter or soil particles (by runoff and erosion or wind drift) from canopy-covered areas to the intertree areas. In total, 385 soil samples were taken around the tree from the trunk along the tree drip line (within and outside the tree area) and the intertree area between two trees in four directions (upslope, downslope and in both directions parallel to the slope) up to 50 m distance from the tree. They were analysed for gravimetric soil water content, pH, electrical conductivity, percolation stability, total nitrogen content (TN), content of soil organic carbon (SOC) and C/N ratio. A total of 74 tension disc infiltrometer experiments were performed near the tree drip line, within and outside the tree area, to measure the unsaturated hydraulic conductivity. We found that the tree influence on its surrounding intertree area is limited, with, e.g., SOC and TN content decreasing significantly from tree trunk (4.4 % SOC and 0.3 % TN) to tree drip line (2.0 % SOC and 0.2 % TN). However, intertree areas near the tree drip line (1.3 % SOC and 0.2 % TN) differed significantly from intertree areas between two trees (1.0 % SOC and 0.1 % TN) yet only with a small effect. Trends for spatial patterns could be found in eastern and downslope directions due to wind drift and slope wash. Soil water content was highest in the north due to shade from the midday sun; the influence extended to the intertree areas. The unsaturated hydraulic conductivity also showed significant differences between areas within and outside the tree area near the tree drip line. This was the case on sites under different land usages (silvopastoral and agricultural), slope gradients or tree densities. Although only limited influence of the tree on its intertree area was found, the spatial pattern around the tree suggests that reforestation measures should be aimed around tree shelters in northern or eastern directions with higher soil water content or TN or SOC content to ensure seedling survival, along with measures to prevent overgrazing.
Introduction:In patients with common variable immunodeficiency (CVID),immunological response is compromised. Knowledge about COVID‐19 in CVIDpatients is sparse. We, here, synthesize current research addressing the level ofthreat COVID‐19posestoCVIDpatientsandthebest‐known treatments.
Method:Review of 14 publications.
Results:The number of CVID patients with moderate to severe (~29%) andcritical infection courses (~10%), and the number of fatal cases (~13%), areincreased compared to the general picture of COVID‐19 infection. However,this might be an overestimate. Systematic cohort‐wide studies are lacking, andasymptomatic or mild cases among CVID patients occur that can easily remainunnoticed. Regular immunoglobulin replacement therapy was administered inalmost all patients, potentially explaining why the numbers of critical and fatalcases were not higher. In addition, the application of convalescent plasma wasdemonstrated to have positive effects.
Conclusions:COVID‐19 poses an elevated threat to CVID patients. However,only systematic studies can provide robust information on the extent of thisthreat. Regular immunoglobulin replacement therapy is beneficial to combatCOVID‐19 in CVID patients, and best treatment after infection includes theuse of convalescent plasma in addition to common medication.
Amphibian diversity in the Amazonian floating meadows: a Hanski core-satellite species system
(2021)
The Amazon catchment is the largest river basin on earth, and up to 30% of its waters flow across floodplains. In its open waters, floating plants known as floating meadows abound. They can act as vectors of dispersal for their associated fauna and, therefore, can be important for the spatial structure of communities. Here, we focus on amphibian diversity in the Amazonian floating meadows over large spatial scales. We recorded 50 amphibian species over 57 sites, covering around 7000 km along river courses. Using multi-site generalised dissimilarity modelling of zeta diversity, we tested Hanski's core-satellite hypothesis and identified the existence of two functional groups of species operating under different ecological processes in the floating meadows. ‘Core' species are associated with floating meadows, while ‘satellite' species are associated with adjacent environments, being only occasional or accidental occupants of the floating vegetation. At large scales, amphibian diversity in floating meadows is mostly determined by stochastic (i.e. random/neutral) processes, whereas at regional scales, climate and deterministic (i.e. niche-based) processes are central drivers. Compared with the turnover of ‘core' species, the turnover of ‘satellite' species increases much faster with distances and is also controlled by a wider range of climatic features. Distance is not a limiting factor for ‘core' species, suggesting that they have a stronger dispersal ability even over large distances. This is probably related to the existence of passive long-distance dispersal of individuals along rivers via vegetation rafts. In this sense, Amazonian rivers can facilitate dispersal, and this effect should be stronger for species associated with riverine habitats such as floating meadows.
In spite of the wide agreement among linguists as to the significance of spoken language data, actual speech data have not formed the basis of empirical work on English as much as one would think. The present paper is intended to contribute to changing this situation, on a theoretical and on a practical level. On a theoretical level, we discuss different research traditions within (English) linguistics. Whereas speech data have become increasingly important in various linguistic disciplines, major corpora of English developed within the corpus-linguistic community, carefully sampled to be representative of language usage, are usually restricted to orthographic transcriptions of spoken language. As a result, phonological phenomena have remained conspicuously understudied within traditional corpus linguistics. At the same time, work with current speech corpora often requires a considerable level of specialist knowledge and tailor-made solutions. On a practical level, we present a new feature of BNCweb (Hoffmann et al. 2008), a user-friendly interface to the British National Corpus, which gives users access to audio and phonemic transcriptions of more than five million words of spontaneous speech. With the help of a pilot study on the variability of intrusive r we illustrate the scope of the new possibilities.
The unrestrainable evolution of medical science and technology is drastically changing health-care, enabling new medical procedures and remedies, which are increasingly intertwined with moral principles. Although a uniform European approach on assisted suicide is lacking, a common trend is developing: the boundary between euthanasia, assisted suicide and end-of-life care and the frontiers of legitimate medicine are becoming increasingly blurred. In Italy, a ruling of the Constitutional Court, no. 242/2019, declared the partial unconstitutionality of article 580 of the Italian Criminal Code, which prohibited assistance in suicide.
Specifically, article 580 excluded the criminal liability for the person who, in the manner provided for in Articles 1 and 2 of the law 22 December 2017, no. 219, “facilitates the execution of intention of suicide, autonomously and freely formed, of one person kept alive by life-sustaining treatments and suffering from an irreversible pathology, source of physical or psychological suffering that he/she deems intolerable, but fully capable of making free aware decisions, provided that such conditions and methods of execution have been verified by a public structure of the national health service, following the opinion of the territorially competent ethics committee.” The present paper analyzes the legal regime of assisted suicide in Italy, the role of the rule of law, and the crucial boundary between the branches of government with regard to this delicate issue, and investigates current legal challenges and potential future legal tracks.
Energy transition strategies in Germany have led to an expansion of energy crop cultivation in landscape, with silage maize as most valuable feedstock. The changes in the traditional cropping systems, with increasing shares of maize, raised concerns about the sustainability of agricultural feedstock production regarding threats to soil health. However, spatially explicit data about silage maize cultivation are missing; thus, implications for soil cannot be estimated in a precise way. With this study, we firstly aimed to track the fields cultivated with maize based on remote sensing data. Secondly, available soil data were target-specifically processed to determine the site-specific vulnerability of the soils for erosion and compaction. The generated, spatially-explicit data served as basis for a differentiated analysis of the development of the agricultural biogas sector, associated maize cultivation and its implications for soil health. In the study area, located in a low mountain range region in Western Germany, the number and capacity of biogas producing units increased by 25 installations and 10,163 kW from 2009 to 2016. The remote sensing-based classification approach showed that the maize cultivation area was expanded by 16% from 7305 to 8447 hectares. Thus, maize cultivation accounted for about 20% of the arable land use; however, with distinct local differences. Significant shares of about 30% of the maize cultivation was done on fields that show at least high potentials for soil erosion exceeding 25 t soil ha−1 a−1. Furthermore, about 10% of the maize cultivation was done on fields that pedogenetically show an elevated risk for soil compaction. In order to reach more sustainable cultivation systems of feedstock for anaerobic digestion, changes in cultivated crops and management strategies are urgently required, particularly against first signs of climate change. The presented approach can regionally be modified in order to develop site-adapted, sustainable bioenergy cropping systems.
Background
The morphology of anuran larvae is suggested to differ between species with tadpoles living in standing (lentic) and running (lotic) waters. To explore which character combinations within the general tadpole morphospace are associated with these habitats, we studied categorical and metric larval data of 123 (one third of which from lotic environments) Madagascan anurans.
Results
Using univariate and multivariate statistics, we found that certain combinations of fin height, body musculature and eye size prevail either in larvae from lentic or lotic environments.
Conclusion
Evidence for adaptation to lotic conditions in larvae of Madagascan anurans is presented. While lentic tadpoles typically show narrow to moderate oral discs, small to medium sized eyes, convex or moderately low fins and non-robust tail muscles, tadpoles from lotic environments typically show moderate to broad oral discs, medium to big sized eyes, low fins and a robust tail muscle.
The state-of-the-art finite element software Plaxis 3D was applied in a real-world study site of the Turaida castle mound to investigate the slope stability of the mound and understand the mechanisms triggering landslides there. During the simulation, the stability of the castle mound was analysed and the most landslide-susceptible zones of hillslopes were determined. The 3D finite-element stability analysis has significant advantages over conventional 2D limit-equilibrium methods where locations of 2D stability sections are arbitrarily selected. Two modelling scenarios of the slope stability were elaborated considering deep-seated slides in bedrock and shallow landslides in the colluvial material of slopes. The model shows that shallow slides in colluvium are more probable. In the finite-element model, slope failure occurs along the weakest zone in colluvium, similarly to the situation observed in previous landslides in the study site. The physical basis of the model allows results to be obtained very close to natural conditions and delivers valuable insight in triggering mechanisms of landslides.
Natural hazards are diverse and uneven in time and space, therefore, understanding its complexity is key to save human lives and conserve natural ecosystems. Reducing the outputs obtained after each modelling analysis is key to present the results for stakeholders, land managers and policymakers. So, the main goal of this survey was to present a method to synthesize three natural hazards in one multi-hazard map and its evaluation for hazard management and land use planning. To test this methodology, we took as study area the Gorganrood Watershed, located in the Golestan Province (Iran). First, an inventory map of three different types of hazards including flood, landslides, and gullies was prepared using field surveys and different official reports. To generate the susceptibility maps, a total of 17 geo-environmental factors were selected as predictors using the MaxEnt (Maximum Entropy) machine learning technique. The accuracy of the predictive models was evaluated by drawing receiver operating characteristic-ROC curves and calculating the area under the ROC curve-AUCROC. The MaxEnt model not only implemented superbly in the degree of fitting, but also obtained significant results in predictive performance. Variables importance of the three studied types of hazards showed that river density, distance from streams, and elevation were the most important factors for flood, respectively. Lithological units, elevation, and annual mean rainfall were relevant for detecting landslides. On the other hand, annual mean rainfall, elevation, and lithological units were used for gully erosion mapping in this study area. Finally, by combining the flood, landslides, and gully erosion susceptibility maps, an integrated multi-hazard map was created. The results demonstrated that 60% of the area is subjected to hazards, reaching a proportion of landslides up to 21.2% in the whole territory. We conclude that using this type of multi-hazard map may be a useful tool for local administrators to identify areas susceptible to hazards at large scales as we demonstrated in this research.
Low-level jets (LLJs) are climatological features in polar regions. It is well known that katabatic winds over the slopes of the Antarctic ice sheet are associated with strong LLJs. Barrier winds occurring, e.g., along the Antarctic Peninsula may also show LLJ structures. A few observational studies show that LLJs occur over sea ice regions. We present a model-based climatology of the wind field, of low-level inversions and of LLJs in the Weddell Sea region of the Antarctic for the period 2002–2016. The sensitivity of the LLJ detection on the selection of the wind speed maximum is investigated. The common criterion of an anomaly of at least 2 m/s is extended to a relative criterion of wind speed decrease above and below the LLJ. The frequencies of LLJs are sensitive to the choice of the relative criterion, i.e., if the value for the relative decrease exceeds 15%. The LLJs are evaluated with respect to the frequency distributions of height, speed, directional shear and stability for different regions. LLJs are most frequent in the katabatic wind regime over the ice sheet and in barrier wind regions. During winter, katabatic LLJs occur with frequencies of more than 70% in many areas. Katabatic LLJs show a narrow range of heights (mostly below 200 m) and speeds (typically 10–20 m/s), while LLJs over the sea ice cover a broad range of speeds and heights. LLJs are associated with surface inversions or low-level lifted inversions. LLJs in the katabatic wind and barrier wind regions can last several days during winter. The duration of LLJs is sensitive to the LLJ definition criteria. We propose to use only the absolute criterion for model studies.
With the ongoing trend towards deep learning in the remote sensing community, classical pixel based algorithms are often outperformed by convolution based image segmentation algorithms. This performance was mostly validated spatially, by splitting training and validation pixels for a given year. Though generalizing models temporally is potentially more difficult, it has been a recent trend to transfer models from one year to another, and therefore to validate temporally. The study argues that it is always important to check both, in order to generate models that are useful beyond the scope of the training data. It shows that convolutional neural networks have potential to generalize better than pixel based models, since they do not rely on phenological development alone, but can also consider object geometry and texture. The UNET classifier was able to achieve the highest F1 scores, averaging 0.61 in temporal validation samples, and 0.77 in spatial validation samples. The theoretical potential for overfitting geometry and just memorizing the shape of fields that are maize has been shown to be insignificant in practical applications. In conclusion, kernel based convolutions can offer a large contribution in making agricultural classification models more transferable, both to other regions and to other years.
Intense, southward low-level winds are common in Nares Strait, between Ellesmere Island and northern Greenland. The steep topography along Nares Strait leads to channelling effects, resulting in an along-strait flow. This research study presents a 30-year climatology of the flow regime from simulations of the COSMO-CLM climate model. The simulations are available for the winter periods (November–April) 1987/88 to 2016/17, and thus, cover a period long enough to give robust long-term characteristics of Nares Strait. The horizontal resolution of 15 km is high enough to represent the complex terrain and the meteorological conditions realistically. The 30-year climatology shows that LLJs associated with gap flows are a climatological feature of Nares Strait. The maximum of the mean 10-m wind speed is around 12 m s-1 and is located at the southern exit of Smith Sound. The wind speed is strongly related to the pressure gradient. Single events reach wind speeds of 40 m s-1 in the daily mean. The LLJs are associated with gap flows within the narrowest parts of the strait under stably stratified conditions, with the main LLJ occurring at 100–250 m height. With increasing mountain Froude number, the LLJ wind speed and height increase. The frequency of strong wind events (>20 m s-1 in the daily mean) for the 10 m wind shows a strong interannual variability with an average of 15 events per winter. Channelled winds have a strong impact on the formation of the North Water polynya.
The parameterization of ocean/sea-ice/atmosphere interaction processes is a challenge for regional climate models (RCMs) of the Arctic, particularly for wintertime conditions, when small fractions of thin ice or open water cause strong modifications of the boundary layer. Thus, the treatment of sea ice and sub-grid flux parameterizations in RCMs is of crucial importance. However, verification data sets over sea ice for wintertime conditions are rare. In the present paper, data of the ship-based experiment Transarktika 2019 during the end of the Arctic winter for thick one-year ice conditions are presented. The data are used for the verification of the regional climate model COSMO-CLM (CCLM). In addition, Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data are used for the comparison of ice surface temperature (IST) simulations of the CCLM sea ice model. CCLM is used in a forecast mode (nested in ERA5) for the Norwegian and Barents Seas with 5 km resolution and is run with different configurations of the sea ice model and sub-grid flux parameterizations. The use of a new set of parameterizations yields improved results for the comparisons with in-situ data. Comparisons with MODIS IST allow for a verification over large areas and show also a good performance of CCLM. The comparison with twice-daily radiosonde ascents during Transarktika 2019, hourly microwave water vapor measurements of first 5 km in the atmosphere and hourly temperature profiler data show a very good representation of the temperature, humidity and wind structure of the whole troposphere for CCLM.
Digital technologies have become central to social interaction and accessing goods and services. Development strategies and approaches to governance have increasingly deployed self-labelled ‘smart’ technologies and systems at various spatial scales, often promoted as rectifying social and geographic inequalities and increasing economic and environmental efficiencies. These have also been accompanied with similarly digitalized commercial and non-profit offers, particularly within the sharing economy. Concern has grown, however, over possible inequalities linked to their introduction. In this paper we critically analyse the role of sharing economies’ contribution to more inclusive, socially equitable
and spatially just transitions. Conceptually, this paper brings together literature on sharing economies, smart urbanism
and just transitions. Drawing on an explorative database of sharing initiatives within the cross-border region of Luxembourg and Germany, we discuss aspects of sustainability as they relate to distributive justice through spatial accessibility, intended benefits, and their operationalization. The regional analysis shows the diversity of sharing models, how they are appropriated in different ways and how intent and operationalization matter in terms of potential benefits.
Results emphasize the need for more fine-grained, qualitative research revealing who is, and is not, participating and
benefitting from sharing economies.
We study planned changes in protective routines after the COVID-19 pandemic: in a survey in Germany among >650 respondents, we find that the majority plans to use face masks in certain situations even after the end of the pandemic. We observe that this willingness is strongly related to the perception that there is something to be learned from East Asians’ handling of pandemics, even when controlling for perceived protection by wearing masks. Given strong empirical evidence that face masks help prevent the spread of respiratory diseases and given the considerable estimated health and economic costs of such diseases even pre-Corona, this would be a very positive side effect of the current crisis.
The forward testing effect is an indirect benefit of retrieval practice. It refers to the finding that retrieval practice of previously studied information enhances learning and retention of subsequently studied other information in episodic memory tasks. Here, two experiments were conducted that investigated whether retrieval practice influences participants’ performance in other tasks, i.e., arithmetic tasks. Participants studied three lists of words in anticipation of a final recall test. In the testing condition, participants were immediately tested on lists 1 and 2 after study of each list, whereas in the restudy condition, they restudied lists 1 and 2 after initial study. Before and after study of list 3, participants did an arithmetic task. Finally, participants were tested on list 3, list 2, and list 1. Different arithmetic tasks were used in the two experiments. Participants did a modular arithmetic task in Experiment 1a and a single-digit multiplication task in Experiment 1b. The results of both experiments showed a forward testing effect with interim testing of lists 1 and 2 enhancing list 3 recall in the list 3 recall test, but no effects of recall testing of lists 1 and 2 for participants’ performance in the arithmetic tasks. The findings are discussed with respect to cognitive load theory and current theories of the forward testing effect.
Advances in eye tracking technology have enabled the development of interactive experimental setups to study social attention. Since these setups differ substantially from the eye tracker manufacturer’s test conditions, validation is essential with regard to the quality of gaze data and other factors potentially threatening the validity of this signal. In this study, we evaluated the impact of accuracy and areas of interest (AOIs) size on the classification of simulated gaze (fixation) data. We defined AOIs of different sizes using the Limited-Radius Voronoi-Tessellation (LRVT) method, and simulated gaze data for facial target points with varying accuracy. As hypothesized, we found that accuracy and AOI size had strong effects on gaze classification. In addition, these effects were not independent and differed in falsely classified gaze inside AOIs (Type I errors; false alarms) and falsely classified gaze outside the predefined AOIs (Type II errors; misses). Our results indicate that smaller AOIs generally minimize false classifications as long as accuracy is good enough. For studies with lower accuracy, Type II errors can still be compensated to some extent by using larger AOIs, but at the cost of more probable Type I errors. Proper estimation of accuracy is therefore essential for making informed decisions regarding the size of AOIs in eye tracking research.
Similarity-based retrieval of semantic graphs is a core task of Process-Oriented Case-Based Reasoning (POCBR) with applications in real-world scenarios, e.g., in smart manufacturing. The involved similarity computation is usually complex and time-consuming, as it requires some kind of inexact graph matching. To tackle these problems, we present an approach to modeling similarity measures based on embedding semantic graphs via Graph Neural Networks (GNNs). Therefore, we first examine how arbitrary semantic graphs, including node and edge types and their knowledge-rich semantic annotations, can be encoded in a numeric format that is usable by GNNs. Given this, the architecture of two generic graph embedding models from the literature is adapted to enable their usage as a similarity measure for similarity-based retrieval. Thereby, one of the two models is more optimized towards fast similarity prediction, while the other model is optimized towards knowledge-intensive, more expressive predictions. The evaluation examines the quality and performance of these models in preselecting retrieval candidates and in approximating the ground-truth similarities of a graph-matching-based similarity measure for two semantic graph domains. The results show the great potential of the approach for use in a retrieval scenario, either as a preselection model or as an approximation of a graph similarity measure.
Despite significant advances in terms of the adoption of formal Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) protection, enforcement of and compliance with IPR regulations remains a contested issue in one of the world's major contemporary economies—China. The present review seeks to offer insights into possible reasons for this discrepancy as well as possible paths of future development by reviewing prior literature on IPR in China. Specifically, it focuses on the public's perspective, which is a crucial determinant of the effectiveness of any IPR regime. It uncovers possible differences with public perspectives in other countries and points to mechanisms (e.g., political, economic, cultural, and institutional) that may foster transitions over time in both formal IPR regulation and in the public perception of and compliance with IPR in China. On this basis, the review advances suggestions for future research in order to improve scholars' understanding of the public's perspective of IPR in China, its antecedents and implications.
The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has also led to many conspiracy theories. While the origin of the pandemic in China led some, including former US president Donald Trump, to dub the pathogen “Chinese virus” and to support anti-Chinese conspiracy narratives, it caused Chinese state officials to openly support anti-US conspiracy theories about the “true” origin of the virus. In this article, we study whether nationalism, or more precisely uncritical patriotism, is related to belief in conspiracy theories among normal people. We hypothesize based on group identity theory and motivated reasoning that for the particular case of conspiracy theories related to the origin of COVID-19, such a relation should be stronger for Chinese than for Germans. To test this hypothesis, we use survey data from Germany and China, including data from the Chinese community in Germany. We also look at relations to other factors, in particular media consumption and xenophobia.
The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has had a significant impact on China in political, economic, and cultural terms. This study focuses on the cultural domain, especially on scholarship students from the countries that signed bilateral cooperation agreements with China under the BRI. Using an integrated approach combining the difference-in-differences method and the gravity model, we explore the correlation between the BRI and the increasing number of international scholarship students funded by the Chinese government, as well as the determinants of students' decision to study in China. The panel data from 2010 to 2018 show that the launch of BRI has had a positive impact on the number of scholarship students from BRI countries. The number of scholarship recipients from non-BRI countries also increased, but at a much slower rate than those from BRI countries. The sole exception is the United States, which has trended downward for both state-funded and self-funded students.
In den letzten Jahren hat die Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) das Thema Wohnen zunehmend in ihren Wahlprogrammen aufgegriffen und für die eigene politische Profilierung genutzt. Der Beitrag zeigt, inwiefern die Thematisierung des Wohnens bei der AfD so formuliert ist, dass es erhebliche Anknüpfungspunkte an rechtes Gedankengut herstellt. Der Beitrag thematisiert die damit verbundenen Herausforderungen für eine kritische Stadtforschung sowie für progressive soziale Bewegungen. Er plädiert dafür, sich der Gefahr der rechten Vereinnahmung des Themas Wohnen bewusst zu sein und sich deutlich von den rechten Übernahmeversuchen abzugrenzen sowie Gegenstrategien zu entwickeln.
The argan woodlands of South Morocco represent an open-canopy dryland forest with traditional silvopastoral usage that includes browsing by goats, sheep and camels, oil production as well as agricultural use. In the past, these forests have undergone extensive clearing, but are now protected by the state. However, the remaining argan woodlands are still under pressure from intensive grazing and illegal firewood collection. Although the argan-forest area seems to be overall decreasing due to large forest clearings for intensive agriculture, little quantitative data is available on the dynamics and overall state of the remaining argan forest. To determine how the argan woodlands in the High Atlas and the Anti-Atlas had changed in tree-crown cover from 1972 to 2018 we used historical black and white HEXAGON satellite images as well as recent WorldView satellite images (see Part A of our study). Because tree shadows can oftentimes not be separated from the tree crown on panchromatic satellite images, individual trees were mapped in three size categories to determine if trees were unchanged, had decreased/increased in crown size or had disappeared or newly grown. The current state of the argan trees was evaluated by mapping tree architectures in the field. Tree-cover changes varied highly between the test sites. Trees that remained unchanged between 1972 and 2018 were in the majority, while tree mortality and tree establishment were nearly even. Small unchanged trees made up 48.4% of all remaining trees, of these 51% showed degraded tree architectures. 40% of small (re-) grown trees were so overbrowsed that they only appeared as bushes, while medium (3–7 m crown diameter) and large trees (>7 m) showed less degraded trees regardless if they had changed or not. Approaches like grazing exclusion or cereal cultivation lead to a positive influence on tree architecture and less tree-cover decrease. Although the woodland was found to be mostly unchanged 1972–2018, the analysis of tree architecture reveals that a lot of (mostly small) trees remained stable but in a degraded state. This stability might be the result of the small trees’ high degradation status and shows the heavy pressure on the argan forest.
Measurements of the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) structure were performed for three years (October 2017–August 2020) at the Russian observatory “Ice Base Cape Baranova” (79.280° N, 101.620° E) using SODAR (Sound Detection And Ranging). These measurements were part of the YOPP (Year of Polar Prediction) project “Boundary layer measurements in the high Arctic” (CATS_BL) within the scope of a joint German–Russian project. In addition to SODAR-derived vertical profiles of wind speed and direction, a suite of complementary measurements at the observatory was available. ABL measurements were used for verification of the regional climate model COSMO-CLM (CCLM) with a 5 km resolution for 2017–2020. The CCLM was run with nesting in ERA5 data in a forecast mode for the measurement period. SODAR measurements were mostly limited to wind speeds <12 m/s since the signal was often lost for higher winds. The SODAR data showed a topographical channeling effect for the wind field in the lowest 100 m and some low-level jets (LLJs). The verification of the CCLM with near-surface data of the observatory showed good agreement for the wind and a negative bias for the 2 m temperature. The comparison with SODAR data showed a positive bias for the wind speed of about 1 m/s below 100 m, which increased to 1.5 m/s for higher levels. In contrast to the SODAR data, the CCLM data showed the frequent presence of LLJs associated with the topographic channeling in Shokalsky Strait. Although SODAR wind profiles are limited in range and have a lot of gaps, they represent a valuable data set for model verification. However, a full picture of the ABL structure and the climatology of channeling events could be obtained only with the model data. The climatological evaluation showed that the wind field at Cape Baranova was not only influenced by direct topographic channeling under conditions of southerly winds through the Shokalsky Strait but also by channeling through a mountain gap for westerly winds. LLJs were detected in 37% of all profiles and most LLJs were associated with channeling, particularly LLJs with a jet speed ≥ 15 m/s (which were 29% of all LLJs). The analysis of the simulated 10 m wind field showed that the 99%-tile of the wind speed reached 18 m/s and clearly showed a dipole structure of channeled wind at both exits of Shokalsky Strait. The climatology of channeling events showed that this dipole structure was caused by the frequent occurrence of channeling at both exits. Channeling events lasting at least 12 h occurred on about 62 days per year at both exits of Shokalsky Strait.
Soil organic matter (SOM) is an indispensable component of terrestrial ecosystems. Soil organic carbon (SOC) dynamics are influenced by a number of well-known abiotic factors such as clay content, soil pH, or pedogenic oxides. These parameters interact with each other and vary in their influence on SOC depending on local conditions. To investigate the latter, the dependence of SOC accumulation on parameters and parameter combinations was statistically assessed that vary on a local scale depending on parent material, soil texture class, and land use. To this end, topsoils were sampled from arable and grassland sites in south-western Germany in four regions with different soil parent material. Principal component analysis (PCA) revealed a distinct clustering of data according to parent material and soil texture that varied largely between the local sampling regions, while land use explained PCA results only to a small extent. The PCA clusters were differentiated into total clusters that contain the entire dataset or major proportions of it and local clusters representing only a smaller part of the dataset. All clusters were analysed for the relationships between SOC concentrations (SOC %) and mineral-phase parameters in order to assess specific parameter combinations explaining SOC and its labile fractions hot water-extractable C (HWEC) and microbial biomass C (MBC). Analyses were focused on soil parameters that are known as possible predictors for the occurrence and stabilization of SOC (e.g. fine silt plus clay and pedogenic oxides). Regarding the total clusters, we found significant relationships, by bivariate models, between SOC, its labile fractions HWEC and MBC, and the applied predictors. However, partly low explained variances indicated the limited suitability of bivariate models. Hence, mixed-effect models were used to identify specific parameter combinations that significantly explain SOC and its labile fractions of the different clusters. Comparing measured and mixed-effect-model-predicted SOC values revealed acceptable to very good regression coefficients (R2=0.41–0.91) and low to acceptable root mean square error (RMSE = 0.20 %–0.42 %). Thereby, the predictors and predictor combinations clearly differed between models obtained for the whole dataset and the different cluster groups. At a local scale, site-specific combinations of parameters explained the variability of organic carbon notably better, while the application of total models to local clusters resulted in less explained variance and a higher RMSE. Independently of that, the explained variance by marginal fixed effects decreased in the order SOC > HWEC > MBC, showing that labile fractions depend less on soil properties but presumably more on processes such as organic carbon input and turnover in soil.
Influence of Ozone and Drought on Tree Growth under Field Conditions in a 22 Year Time Series
(2022)
Studying the effect of surface ozone (O3) and water stress on tree growth is important for planning sustainable forest management and forest ecology. In the present study, a 22-year long time series (1998–2019) on basal area increment (BAI) and fructification severity of European beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) and Norway spruce (Picea abies (L.) H.Karst.) at five forest sites in Western Germany (Rhineland Palatinate) was investigated to evaluate how it correlates with drought and stomatal O3 fluxes (PODY) with an hourly threshold of uptake (Y) to represent the detoxification capacity of trees (POD1, with Y = 1 nmol O3 m−2 s−1). Between 1998 and 2019, POD1 declined over time by on average 0.31 mmol m−2 year−1. The BAI showed no significant trend at all sites, except in Leisel where a slight decline was observed over time (−0.37 cm2 per year, p < 0.05). A random forest analysis showed that the soil water content and daytime O3 mean concentration were the best predictors of BAI at all sites. The highest mean score of fructification was observed during the dry years, while low level or no fructification was observed in most humid years. Combined effects of drought and O3 pollution mostly influence tree growth decline for European beech and Norway spruce.
Der Beitrag diskutiert das Verhältnis von allgemeiner und beruflicher Bildung mithilfe einer pädagogischen Theorie der Organisation. Allgemeine Erwachsenen- und berufliche Bildung treffen sich darin, Prozess und Ergebnis der wechselseitigen Auseinandersetzung zwischen Organisationen und Individuen zu sein. Organisationen sind nicht nur Kontext von Bildung, sie sind selber gebildet und wirken pädagogisch. Der Beitrag erschließt die Funktion und Eigenlogik der Organisation in ihrem Verhältnis zu den Grundbegriffen der Erziehungswissenschaft. Der Vorschlag ermöglicht es, Lernen, Sozialisation, Erziehung, Bildung und Kompetenz in ihrer Geltung für die ineinander verflochtene Strukturdynamik von Organisation und Subjekt zu differenzieren. Als Alternative zur geläufigen Organisationsvergessenheit der Pädagogik integriert die differenzierende Ordnung dieser Begriffe eine erziehungswissenschaftliche Perspektive auf Individuum und Organisation.
Objective: Attunement is a novel measure of nonverbal synchrony reflecting the duration of the present moment shared by two interaction partners. This study examined its association with early change in outpatient psychotherapy.
Methods: Automated video analysis based on motion energy analysis (MEA) and cross-correlation of the movement time-series of patient and therapist was conducted to calculate movement synchrony for N = 161 outpatients. Movement-based attunement was defined as the range of connected time lags with significant synchrony. Latent change classes in the HSCL-11 were identified with growth mixture modeling (GMM) and predicted by pre-treatment covariates and attunement using multilevel multinomial regression.
Results: GMM identified four latent classes: high impairment, no change (Class 1); high impairment, early response (Class 2); moderate impairment (Class 3); and low impairment (Class 4). Class 2 showed the strongest attunement, the largest early response, and the best outcome. Stronger attunement was associated with a higher likelihood of membership in Class 2 (b = 0.313, p = .007), Class 3 (b = 0.251, p = .033), and Class 4 (b = 0.275, p = .043) compared to Class 1. For highly impaired patients, the probability of no early change (Class 1) decreased and the probability of early response (Class 2) increased as a function of attunement.
Conclusions: Among patients with high impairment, stronger patient-therapist attunement was associated with early response, which predicted a better treatment outcome. Video-based assessment of attunement might provide new information for therapists not available from self-report questionnaires and support therapists in their clinical decision-making.
Reconstructing invisible deviating events: A conformance checking approach for recurring events
(2022)
Conformance checking enables organizations to determine whether their executed processes are compliant with the intended process. However, if the processes contain recurring activities, state-of-the-art approaches unfortunately have difficulties calculating the conformance. The occurrence of complex temporal rules can further increase the complexity of the problem. Identifying this limitation, this paper presents a novel approach towards dealing with recurring activities in conformance checking. The core idea of the approach is to reconstruct the missing events in the event log using defined rules while incorporating specified temporal event characteristics. This approach then enables the use of native conformance checking algorithms. The paper illustrates the algorithmic approach and defines the required temporal event characteristics. Furthermore, the approach is applied and evaluated in a case study on an event log for melanoma surveillance.
List-method directed forgetting (LMDF) is the demonstration that people can intentionally forget previously studied information when they are asked to forget what they have previously learned and remember new information instead. In addition, recent research demonstrated that people can selectively forget when cued to forget only a subset of the previously studied information. Both forms of forgetting are typically observed in recall tests, in which the to-be-forgotten and to-be-remembered information is tested independent of original cuing. Thereby, both LMDF and selective directed forgetting (SDF) have been studied mostly with unrelated item materials (e.g., word lists). The present study examined whether LMDF and SDF generalize to prose material. Participants learned three prose passages, which they were cued to remember or forget after the study of each passage. At the time of testing, participants were asked to recall the three prose passages regardless of original cuing. The results showed no significant differences in recall of the three lists as a function of cuing condition. The findings suggest that LMDF and SDF do not occur with prose material. Future research is needed to replicate and extend these findings with (other) complex and meaningful materials before drawing firm conclusions. If the null effect proves to be robust, this would have implications regarding the ecological validity and generalizability of current LMDF and SDF findings.
This paper tested the ability of Mandarin learners of German, whose native language has lexical tone, to imitate pitch accent contrasts in German, an intonation language. In intonation languages, pitch accents do not convey lexical information; also, pitch accents are sparser than lexical tones as they only associate with prominent words in the utterance. We compared two kinds of German pitch-accent contrasts: (1) a “non-merger” contrast, which Mandarin listeners perceive as different and (2) a “merger” contrast, which sounds more similar to Mandarin listeners. Speakers of a tone language are generally very sensitive to pitch. Hypothesis 1 (H1) therefore stated that Mandarin learners produce the two kinds of contrasts similarly to native German speakers. However, the documented sensitivity to tonal contrasts, at the expense of processing phrase-level intonational contrasts, may generally hinder target-like production of intonational pitch accents in the L2 (Hypothesis 2, H2). Finally, cross-linguistic influence (CLI) predicts a difference in the realization of these two contrasts as well as improvement with higher proficiency (Hypothesis 3, H3). We used a delayed imitation paradigm, which is well-suited for assessing L2-phonetics and -phonology because it does not necessitate access to intonational meaning. We investigated the imitation of three kinds of accents, which were associated with the sentence-final noun in short wh-questions (e.g., Wer malt denn Mandalas, lit: “Who draws PRT mandalas?” “Who likes drawing mandalas?”). In Experiment 1, 28 native speakers of Mandarin participated (14 low- and 14 high-proficient). The learners’ productions of the two kinds of contrasts were analyzed using General Additive Mixed Models to evaluate differences in pitch accent contrasts over time, in comparison to the productions of native German participants from an earlier study in our lab. Results showed a more pronounced realization of the non-merger contrast compared to German natives and a less distinct realization of the merger contrast, with beneficial effects of proficiency, lending support to H3. Experiment 2 tested low-proficient Italian learners of German (whose L1 is an intonation language) to contextualize the Mandarin data and further investigate CLI. Italian learners realized the non-merger contrast more target-like than Mandarin learners, lending additional support to CLI (H3).
Three Kinds of Rising-Falling Contours in German wh-Questions: Evidence From Form and Function
(2022)
The intonational realization of utterances is generally characterized by regional as well as inter- and intra-speaker variability in f0. Category boundaries thus remain “fuzzy” and it is non-trivial how the (continuous) acoustic space maps onto (discrete) pitch accent categories. We focus on three types of rising-falling contours, which differ in the alignment of L(ow) and H(igh) tones with respect to the stressed syllable. Most of the intonational systems on German have described two rising accent categories, e.g., L+H* and L*+H in the German ToBI system. L+H* has a high-pitched stressed syllable and a low leading tone aligned in the pre-tonic syllable; L*+H a low-pitched stressed syllable and a high trailing tone in the post-tonic syllable. There are indications for the existence of a third category which lies between these two categories, with both L and H aligned within the stressed syllable, henceforth termed (LH)*. In the present paper, we empirically investigate the distinctiveness of three rising-falling contours [L+H*, (LH)*, and L*+H, all with a subsequent low boundary tone] in German wh-questions. We employ an approach that addresses both the form and the function of the contours, also taking regional variation into account. In Experiment 1 (form), we used a delayed imitation paradigm to test whether Northern and Southern German speakers can imitate the three rising-falling contours in wh-questions as distinct contours. In Experiment 2 (function), we used a free association task to investigate whether listeners interpret the pragmatic meaning of the three contours differently. Imitation results showed that German speakers—both from the North and the South—reproduced the three contours. There was a small but significant effect of regional variety such that contours produced by speakers from the North were slightly more distinct than those by speakers from the South. In the association task, listeners from both varieties attributed distinct meanings to the (LH)* accent as opposed to the two ToBI accents L+H* and L*+H. Combined evidence from form and function suggests that three distinct contours can be found in the acoustic and perceptual space of German rising-falling contours.
With the start of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the global education system has a faced immense challenges and disruptions resulting in and the necessity for an immediate redesign of teaching and learning in the school context. Face-to-face classroom instruction had to be replaced by ‘emergency remote teaching’, requiring teacher to adapt their daily routines to a new and unprecedented educational reality. Researchers and policymakers worldwide have agreed that, despite the fact that efforts were made to immediately adapt to emergency remote teaching, disadvantaged and vulnerable students may be especially at risk in emergency remote teaching. Given the differences in schooling organization across countries during the COVID-19 pandemic it can be expected that teachers performed inclusive instructional practices significantly different. Against the unpredictable situation, cross-country research has been urgently required to provide data that could inform education policy. Thus, this study explored teachers’ perceptions of supporting at risk students during the first COVID-19 school closures, as well as examining teachers’ inclusive teaching practices in three countries: Germany, Austria and Portugal. ANOVA results revealed important country differences. In general, it appears that teachers in Germany and Austria reported to have implemented less practices to address vulnerable and at-risk students compared to Portuguese teachers. Implications of the results, as well as further lines of research are outlined.
The global spread of the coronavirus pandemic has particularly dramatic consequences for the lives of migrants and refugees living in already marginalised and restricted conditions, whose ongoing crisis is at risk of being overlooked. But refugees are not only extremely vulnerable and at risk of infection, as several reports show, quickly develop their own protection measures like the production of hygienic products, the publication of their situation and calls for action and help. Therefore, this paper aims to research the effects of the coronavirus crisis on refugees in camp settings with a special ethnographic focus on how refugees actively deal with this crisis and if they, through already developed resilience, are capable of adapting to the restrictions as well as inventing strategies to cope with the difficult situation. To account for the variety of refugee camps as well as the different living conditions due to their locality, history and national asylum politics, we will look at three different locations, namely refugee asylum homes in Germany, hotspots on the Greek islands as well as one refugee camp in Kenya. The main questions will be how, under structurally and institutionally framed conditions of power and victimisation in refugee camps, forms of agency are established, made possible or limited. The goal is to show which strategies refugees apply to cope with the enhanced restrictions and exclusion, how they act to protect themselves and others from the virus and how they present and reflect their situation during the coronavirus pandemic. Finally, this discussion offers a new perspective to consider refugees not only as vulnerable victims, but also as actively engaged individuals.
Background: Hyperhidrosis (excessive sweating, OMIM %114110) is a complex disorder with multifactorial causes. Emotional strains and social stress increase symptoms and lead to a vicious circle. Previously, we showed significantly higher depression scores, and normal cortisol awakening responses in patients with primary focal hyperhidrosis (PFH). Stress reactivity in response to a (virtual) Trier Social Stress Test (TSST-VR) has not been studied so far. Therefore, we measured sweat secretion, salivary cortisol and alpha amylase (sAA) concentrations, and subjective stress ratings in affected and non-affected subjects in response to a TSST-VR.
Method: In this pilot study, we conducted TSST-VRs and performed general linear models with repeated measurements for salivary cortisol and sAA levels, heart rate, axillary sweat and subjective stress ratings for two groups (diagnosed PFH (n = 11), healthy controls (n = 16)).
Results: PFH patients showed significantly heightened sweat secretion over time compared to controls (p = 0.006), with highest quantities during the TSST-VR. In both groups, sweating (p < 0.001), maximum cortisol levels (p = 0.002), feelings of stress (p < 0.001), and heart rate (p < 0.001) but not sAA (p = 0.068) increased significantly in response to the TSST-VR. However, no differences were detected in subjective ratings, cortisol concentrations and heart rate between PFH patients and controls (pall > 0.131).
Conclusion: Patients with diagnosed PFH showed stress-induced higher sweat secretion compared to healthy controls but did not differ in the stress reactivity with regard to endocrine or subjective markers. This pilot study is in need of replication to elucidate the role of the sympathetic nervous system as a potential pathway involved in the stress-induced emotional sweating of PFH patients.
Formulations of macrocyclic lactone anthelmintics such as moxidectin are regularly administered to sheep to combat parasites. A disadvantage of these pharmaceuticals are their side effects on non-target organisms when entering the environment. Little is known about anthelmintic effects on plant reproduction and whether the effects depend on environmental factors. For ecological and methodological reasons, we aimed at testing whether temperature affects the efficacy of a common moxidectin-based formulation on seed germination. We carried out a germination experiment including three typical species of temperate European grasslands (Centaurea jacea, Galium mollugo, Plantago lanceolata). We applied three temperature regimes (15/5, 20/10, 30/20°C), and a four-level dilution series (1:100–1:800) of formulated moxidectin (i.e., Cydectin oral drench). These solutions represent seed-anthelmintic contacts in the digestive tract of sheep shortly after deworming. In addition, a control was carried out with purified water only. We regularly counted emerging seedlings and calculated final germination percentage, mean germination time and synchrony of germination. Formulated moxidectin significantly reduced percentage, speed and synchrony of germination. A 1:100 dilution of the formulation reduced germination percentage by a quarter and increased mean germination time by six days compared to the control. Temperature moderated effects of the anthelmintic drug on germination in all response variables and all species, but in different patterns and magnitudes (significant anthelmintic x temperature x species interactions). In all response variables, the two more extreme temperature regimes (15/5, 30/20°C) led to the strongest effects of formulated moxidectin. With respect to germination percentage, G. mollugo was more sensitive to formulated moxidectin at the warmest temperature regime, whereas P. lanceolata showed the highest sensitivity at the coldest regime. This study shows that it is important to consider temperature dependencies of the effects of pharmaceuticals on seed germination when conducting standardised germination experiments.
The process of land degradation needs to be understood at various spatial and temporal scales in order to protect ecosystem services and communities directly dependent on it. This is especially true for regions in sub-Saharan Africa, where socio economic and political factors exacerbate ecological degradation. This study identifies spatially explicit land change dynamics in the Copperbelt province of Zambia in a local context using satellite vegetation index time series derived from the MODIS sensor. Three sets of parameters, namely, monthly series, annual peaking magnitude, and annual mean growing season were developed for the period 2000 to 2019. Trend was estimated by applying harmonic regression on monthly series and linear least square regression on annually aggregated series. Estimated spatial trends were further used as a basis to map endemic land change processes. Our observations were as follows: (a) 15% of the study area dominant in the east showed positive trends, (b) 3% of the study area dominant in the west showed negative trends, (c) natural regeneration in mosaic landscapes (post shifting cultivation) and land management in forest reserves were chiefly responsible for positive trends, and (d) degradation over intact miombo woodland and cultivation areas contributed to negative trends. Additionally, lower productivity over areas with semi-permanent agriculture and shift of new encroachment into woodlands from east to west of Copperbelt was observed. Pivot agriculture was not a main driver in land change. Although overall greening trends prevailed across the study site, the risk of intact woodlands being exposed to various disturbances remains high. The outcome of this study can provide insights about natural and assisted landscape restoration specifically addressing the miombo ecoregion.
Extension of an Open GEOBIA Framework for Spatially Explicit Forest Stratification with Sentinel-2
(2022)
Spatially explicit information about forest cover is fundamental for operational forest management and forest monitoring. Although open-satellite-based earth observation data in a spatially high resolution (i.e., Sentinel-2, ≤10 m) can cover some information needs, spatially very high-resolution imagery (i.e., aerial imagery, ≤2 m) is needed to generate maps at a scale suitable for regional and local applications. In this study, we present the development, implementation, and evaluation of a Geographic Object-Based Image Analysis (GEOBIA) framework to stratify forests (needleleaved, broadleaved, non-forest) in Luxembourg. The framework is exclusively based on open data and free and open-source geospatial software. Although aerial imagery is used to derive image objects with a 0.05 ha minimum size, Sentinel-2 scenes of 2020 are the basis for random forest classifications in different single-date and multi-temporal feature setups. These setups are compared with each other and used to evaluate the framework against classifications based on features derived from aerial imagery. The highest overall accuracies (89.3%) have been achieved with classification on a Sentinel-2-based vegetation index time series (n = 8). Similar accuracies have been achieved with classification based on two (88.9%) or three (89.1%) Sentinel-2 scenes in the greening phase of broadleaved forests. A classification based on color infrared aerial imagery and derived texture measures only achieved an accuracy of 74.5%. The integration of the texture measures into the Sentinel-2-based classification did not improve its accuracy. Our results indicate that high resolution image objects can successfully be stratified based on lower spatial resolution Sentinel-2 single-date and multi-temporal features, and that those setups outperform classifications based on aerial imagery only. The conceptual framework of spatially high-resolution image objects enriched with features from lower resolution imagery facilitates the delivery of frequent and reliable updates due to higher spectral and temporal resolution. The framework additionally holds the potential to derive additional information layers (i.e., forest disturbance) as derivatives of the features attached to the image objects, thus providing up-to-date information on the state of observed forests.
A model-based temperature adjustment scheme for wintertime sea-ice production retrievals from MODIS
(2022)
Knowledge of the wintertime sea-ice production in Arctic polynyas is an important requirement for estimations of the dense water formation, which drives vertical mixing in the upper ocean. Satellite-based techniques incorporating relatively high resolution thermal-infrared data from MODIS in combination with atmospheric reanalysis data have proven to be a strong tool to monitor large and regularly forming polynyas and to resolve narrow thin-ice areas (i.e., leads) along the shelf-breaks and across the entire Arctic Ocean. However, the selection of the atmospheric data sets has a large influence on derived polynya characteristics due to their impact on the calculation of the heat loss to the atmosphere, which is determined by the local thin-ice thickness. In order to overcome this methodical ambiguity, we present a MODIS-assisted temperature adjustment (MATA) algorithm that yields corrections of the 2 m air temperature and hence decreases differences between the atmospheric input data sets. The adjustment algorithm is based on atmospheric model simulations. We focus on the Laptev Sea region for detailed case studies on the developed algorithm and present time series of polynya characteristics in the winter season 2019/2020. It shows that the application of the empirically derived correction decreases the difference between different utilized atmospheric products significantly from 49% to 23%. Additional filter strategies are applied that aim at increasing the capability to include leads in the quasi-daily and persistence-filtered thin-ice thickness composites. More generally, the winter of 2019/2020 features high polynya activity in the eastern Arctic and less activity in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, presumably as a result of the particularly strong polar vortex in early 2020.
The larval stage of the European fire salamander (Salamandra salamandra) inhabits both lentic and lotic habitats. In the latter, they are constantly exposed to unidirectional water flow, which has been shown to cause downstream drift in a variety of taxa. In this study, a closed artificial creek, which allowed us to keep the water flow constant over time and, at the same time, to simulates with predefined water quantities and durations, was used to examine the individual movement patterns of marked larval fire salamanders exposed to unidirectional flow. Movements were tracked by marking the larvae with VIAlpha tags individually and by using downstream and upstream traps. Most individuals showed stationarity, while downstream drift dominated the overall movement pattern. Upstream movements were rare and occurred only on small distances of about 30 cm; downstream drift distances exceeded 10 m (until next downstream trap). The simulated flood events increased drift rates significantly, even several days after the flood simulation experiments. Drift probability increased with decreasing body size and decreasing nutritional status. Our results support the production hypothesis as an explanation for the movements of European fire salamander larvae within creeks.
Measurements of dust emissions and the modeling of dissipation dynamics and total values are related to great uncertainties. Agricultural activity, especially soil cultivation, may be an essential component to calculate and model local and regional dust dynamics and even connect to the global dust cycle. To budget total dust and to assess the impact of tillage, measurement of mobilized and transported dust is an essential but rare basis. In this study, a simple measurement concept with Modified Wilson and Cook samplers was applied for dust measurements on a small temporal and spatial scale on steep-slope vineyards in the Moselle area. Without mechanical impact, a mean horizontal flux of 0.01 g m2 min−1 was measured, while row tillage produced a mean horizontal flux of 5.92 g m2 min−1 of mobilized material and 4.18 g m2 min−1 emitted dust from site (=soil loss). Compared on this singular-event basis, emissions during tillage operations generated 99.89% of total emitted dust from the site under low mean wind velocities. The results also indicate a differing impact of specific cultivation operations, mulching, and tillage tools as well as the additional influence of environmental conditions, with highest emissions on dry soil and with additional wind impact. The dust source function is strongly associated with cultivation operations, implying highly dynamic but also regular and thus predictable and projectable emission peaks of total suspended particles. Detailed knowledge of the effects of mechanical impulses and reliable quantification of the local dust emission inventory are a basis for analysis of risk potential and choice of adequate management options.
This study scrutinizes press photographs published during the first 6 weeks of the Russian War in Ukraine, beginning February 24th, 2022. Its objective is to shed light on the emotions evoked in Internet-savvy audiences. This empirical research aims to contribute to the understanding of emotional media effects that shape attitudes and actions of ordinary citizens. Main research questions are: What kind of empathic reactions are observed during the Q-sort study? Which visual patterns are relevant for which emotional evaluations and attributions? The assumption is that the evaluations and attributions of empathy are not random, but follow specific patterns. The empathic reactions are based on visual patterns which, in turn, influence the type of empathic reaction. The identification of specific categories for visual and emotional reaction patterns are arrived at in different methodological processes. Visual pattern categories were developed inductively, using the art history method of iconography-iconology to identify six distinct types of visual motifs in a final sample of 33 war photographs. The overarching categories for empathic reactions—empty empathy, vicarious traumatization and witnessing—were applied deductively, building on E. Ann Kaplan's pivotal distinctions. The main result of this research are three novel categories that combine visual patterns with empathic reaction patterns. The labels for these categories are a direct result of the Q-factorial analysis, interpreted through the lense of iconography-iconology. An exploratory nine-scale forced-choice Q-sort study (Nstimuli = 33) was implemented, followed by self-report interviews with a total of 25 participants [F = 16 (64%), M = 9 (36%), Mage = 26.4 years]. Results from this exploratory research include motivational statements on the meanings of war photography from semi-structured post-sort-interviews. The major result of this study are three types of visual patterns (“factors”) that govern distinct empathic reactions in participants: Factor 1 is “veiled empathy” with highest empathy being attributed to photos showing victims whose corpses or faces were veiled. Additional features of “veiled empathy” are a strong anti-politician bias and a heightened awareness of potential visual manipulation. Factor 2 is “mirrored empathy” with highest empathy attributions to photos displaying human suffering openly. Factor 3 focused on the context. It showed a proclivity for documentary style photography. This pattern ranked photos without clear contextualization lower in empathy than those photos displaying the fully contextualized setting. To the best of our knowledge, no study has tested empathic reactions to war photography empirically. In this respect, the study is novel, but also exploratory. Findings like the three patterns of visual empathy might be helpful for photo selection processes in journalism, for political decision-making, for the promotion of relief efforts, and for coping strategies in civil society to deal with the potentially numbing or traumatizing visual legacy of the War in Ukraine.
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected schooling worldwide. In many places, schools closed for weeks or months, only part of the student body could be educated at any one time, or students were taught online. Previous research discloses the relevance of schooling for the development of cognitive abilities. We therefore compared the intelligence test performance of 424 German secondary school students in Grades 7 to 9 (42% female) tested after the first six months of the COVID-19 pandemic (i.e., 2020 sample) to the results of two highly comparable student samples tested in 2002 (n = 1506) and 2012 (n = 197). The results revealed substantially and significantly lower intelligence test scores in the 2020 sample than in both the 2002 and 2012 samples. We retested the 2020 sample after another full school year of COVID-19-affected schooling in 2021. We found mean-level changes of typical magnitude, with no signs of catching up to previous cohorts or further declines in cognitive performance. Perceived stress during the pandemic did not affect changes in intelligence test results between the two measurements.
COVID-19 was a harsh reminder that diseases are an aspect of human existence and mortality. It was also a live experiment in the formation and alteration of disease-related attitudes. Not only are these attitudes relevant to an individual’s self-protective behavior, but they also seem to be associated with social and political attitudes more broadly. One of these attitudes is Social Darwinism, which holds that a pandemic benefits society by enabling nature “to weed out the weak”. In two countries (N = 300, N = 533), we introduce and provide evidence for the reliability, validity, and usefulness of the Disease-Related Social Darwinism (DRSD) Short Scale measuring this concept. Results indicate that DRSD is meaningful related to other central political attitudes like Social Dominance Orientation, Authoritarianism and neoliberalism. Importantly, the scale significantly predicted people’s protective behavior during the Pandemic over and above general social Darwinism. Moreover, it significantly predicted conservative attitudes, even after controlling for Social Dominance Orientation.
The forensic application of phonetics relies on individuality in speech. In the forensic domain, individual patterns of verbal and paraverbal behavior are of interest which are readily available, measurable, consistent, and robust to disguise and to telephone transmission. This contribution is written from the perspective of the forensic phonetic practitioner and seeks to establish a more comprehensive concept of disfluency than previous studies have. A taxonomy of possible variables forming part of what can be termed disfluency behavior is outlined. It includes the “classical” fillers, but extends well beyond these, covering, among others, additional types of fillers as well as prolongations, but also the way in which fillers are combined with pauses. In the empirical section, the materials collected for an earlier study are re-examined and subjected to two different statistical procedures in an attempt to approach the issue of individuality. Recordings consist of several minutes of spontaneous speech by eight speakers on three different occasions. Beyond the established set of hesitation markers, additional aspects of disfluency behavior which fulfill the criteria outlined above are included in the analysis. The proportion of various types of disfluency markers is determined. Both statistical approaches suggest that these speakers can be distinguished at a level far above chance using the disfluency data. At the same time, the results show that it is difficult to pin down a single measure which characterizes the disfluency behavior of an individual speaker. The forensic implications of these findings are discussed.