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Matches in Ghent University Academic Bibliography for { ?s <http://schema.org/abstract> ?o. }

• 01GPPJVSGAZ4B7BX21GXKRPCZ7 abstract "This paper proposes a new partitioned coupling approach to simulate the wind induced excitation of a membrane structure with ponding water. This approach uses three different solvers to simulate wind, water and membrane structure. The main assumption here is that the interaction between the wind and water can be neglected due to the small depth and small fetch of the water, relative to the size of the membrane structure. This assumption results in a coupling strategy where the structural solver independently interacts with the wind and water solver. The results from this method is compared with a straightforward approach, where a two-phase solver, modeling the wind and water, is coupled to a structural solver. The obtained results agreed very well with the reference modeling approach, where all the interactions are taken into account. Furthermore, the proposed method was found to be computationally more efficient.".
• 01GPPY3FWGFSPQPTRKKC60JHW2 abstract "Controlling the momentum of carriers in semiconductors, known as valley polarization, is a new resource for optoelectronics and information technologies. Materials exhibiting high polarization are needed for valley-based devices. Few-layer WS2 shows a remarkable spin-valley polarization above 90%, even at room temperature. In stark contrast, polarization is absent for few-layer WSe2 despite the expected material similarities. Here, we explain the origin of valley polarization in both materials based on the interplay between two indirect optical transitions. We show that the relative energy minima at the ?- and K-valleys in the conduction band determine the spin-valley polarization of the direct K-K transition. Polarization appears as the energy of the K-valley rises above the ?-valley as a function of temperature and number of layers. Our results advance the understanding of the high spin-valley polarization in WS2. This insight will impact the design of both passive and tunable valleytronic devices operating at room temperature.".
• 01GPPY3FX246AHYVXN5WK12C2G abstract "Time-resolved terahertz (THz) spectroscopy is a powerful technique for the determination of charge transport properties in photoexcited semiconductors. However, the relatively long wavelengths of THz radiation and the diffraction limit imposed by optical imaging systems reduce the applicability of THz spectroscopy to large samples with dimensions in the millimeter to centimeter range. Exploiting THz near-field spectroscopy, we present the first time-resolved THz measurements on a single exfoliated 2D nanolayered crystal of a transition metal dichalcogenide (WS2). The high spatial resolution of THz near-field spectroscopy enables mapping of the sheet conductance for an increasing number of atomic layers. The single-crystalline structure of the nanolayered crystal allows for the direct observation of low-energy phonon modes, which are present in all thicknesses, coupling with free carriers. Density functional theory calculations show that the phonon mode corresponds to the breathing mode between atomic layers in the weakly bonded van der Waals layers, which can be strongly influenced by substrate-induced strain. The non-invasive and high-resolution mapping technique of carrier dynamics in nanolayered crystals by time-resolved THz time domain spectroscopy enables possibilities for the investigation of the relation between phonons and charge transport in nanoscale semiconductors for applications in two-dimensional nanodevices.".
• 01GPPY3FXBCZ2KHYVNH9CRJ1AF abstract "Excitons spread through diffusion and interact through exciton-exciton annihilation. Nanophotonics can counteract the resulting decrease in light emission. However, conventional enhancement treats emitters as immobile and non-interacting. It neglects exciton redistribution between regions with different enhancements and the increase in non-radiative decay at high exciton densities. Here, the authors went beyond the localized Purcell effect to exploit exciton dynamics and turn their typically detrimental impact into additional emission. As interacting excitons diffuse through optical hotspots, the balance of excitonic and nanophotonic properties leads to either enhanced or suppressed photoluminescence. The dominant enhancement mechanisms are identified in the limits of high and low diffusion and annihilation. Diffusion lifts the requirement of spatial overlap between excitation and emission enhancements, which are harnessed to maximize emission from highly diffusive excitons. In the presence of annihilation, improved enhancement is predicted at increasing powers in nanophotonic systems dominated by emission enhancement. The guidelines are relevant for efficient and high-power light-emitting diodes and lasers tailored to the rich dynamics of excitonic materials such as monolayer semiconductors, perovskites, or organic crystals.".
• 01GPPY3MSZMDTC6H1F3PQ55840 abstract "The discrimination of enantiomers is crucial in biochemistry. However, chiral sensing faces significant limitations due to inherently weak chiroptical signals. Nanophotonics is a promising solution to enhance sensitivity thanks to increased optical chirality maximized by strong electric and magnetic fields. Metallic and dielectric nanoparticles can separately provide electric and magnetic resonances. Here we propose their synergistic combination in hybrid metal-dielectric nanostructures to exploit their dual character for superchiral fields beyond the limits of single particles. For optimal optical chirality, in addition to maximization of the resonance strength, the resonances must spectrally coincide. Simultaneously, their electric and magnetic fields must be parallel and pi/2 out of phase and spatially overlap. We demonstrate that the interplay between the strength of the resonances and these optimal conditions constrains the attainable optical chirality in resonant systems. Starting from a simple symmetric nanodimer, we derive closed-form expressions elucidating its fundamental limits of optical chirality. Building on the trade-offs of different classes of dimers, we then suggest an asymmetric dual dimer based on realistic materials. These dual nanoresonators provide strong and decoupled electric and magnetic resonances together with optimal conditions for chiral fields. Finally, we introduce more complex dual building blocks for a metasurface with a record 300-fold enhancement of local optical chirality in nanoscale gaps, enabling circular dichroism enhancement by a factor of 20. By combining analytical insight and practical designs, our results put forward hybrid resonators to increase chiral sensitivity, particularly for small molecular quantities.".
• 01GPPY3MT9S3M7DXDS57TX4E1X abstract "Using diffraction-limited ultrafast imaging techniques, we investigate the propagation of singlet and triplet excitons in single-crystal tetracene. Instead of an expected broadening, the distribution of singlet excitons narrows on a nanosecond time scale after photoexcitation. This narrowing results in an effective negative diffusion in which singlet excitons migrate toward the high-density region, eventually leading to a singlet exciton distribution that is smaller than the laser excitation spot. Modeling the excited-state dynamics demonstrates that the origin of the anomalous diffusion is rooted in nonlinear triplet-triplet annihilation (TTA). We anticipate that this is a general phenomenon that can be used to study exciton diffusion and nonlinear TTA rates in semiconductors relevant for organic optoelectronics.".
• 01GPPY3MTEBNT33FKWN3XK7RDZ abstract "The handedness of chiral molecules can be detected in their circularly polarized fluorescence, which is typically very weak. Here, we propose dielectric nanophotonics to increase both the fluorescence intensity and polarization contrast. (C) 2021 The Author(s)".
• 01GPPY3MTKB09DD4Z3XA4FT00Y abstract "Conventional nanophotonic emission enhancement neglects excitonic phenomena of diffusion and annihilation. We go beyond the localized Purcell effect and identify the enhancement mechanisms to turn their detrimental impact into additional emission. (c) 2021 The Author(s)".
• 01GPPY3SQGZ2DPACMVGDWCWRMJ abstract "Terahertz time-domain spectroscopy enables the contact-free determination of charge carrier properties in metals and semiconductors. However, the applicability of THz spectroscopy is severely reduced by the low spatial resolution imposed by the diffraction limit. We have developed a time-resolved THz near-field microscope to circumvent this limitation, allowing the determination of the carrier dynamics with a resolution of a few microns. We use this microscope to measure a single exfoliated flake of WS2 with domains of different thickness. The THz spectra reveal phonon modes in the sheet conductance. We also observe a biexponential carrier recombination associated to surface-assisted Auger scattering.".
• 01GPPY3SQNHK50K92AXDNV124A abstract "Beam steering is one of the main challenges in energy-efficient and high-speed infrared light communication. To date, active beam-steering schemes based on a spatial light modulator (SLM) or micro-electrical mechanical system (MEMS) mirror, as well as the passive ones based on diffractive gratings, are demonstrated for infrared light communication. Here, for the first time to the authors' knowledge, an infrared beam is steered by 35 degrees on one side empowered by a passively field-programmable metasurface. By combining the centralized control of wavelength and polarization, a remote passive metasurface can steer the infrared beam in a remote access point. The proposed system has the scalability to support multiple beams, flexibility to steer the beam, high optical efficiency, simple and cheap devices on remote sides, and centralized control (low maintenance cost), while it avoids disadvantages such as grating loss, a small coverage area, and a bulky size. Based on the proposed beam-steering technology, a proof-of-concept experiment system with a data rate of 20 Gbps is also demonstrated.".
• 01GPPY3SQY9J3H615M96XN159P abstract "Optically induced Mie resonances in dielectric nanoantennas feature low dissipative losses and a large resonant enhancement of both the electric and magnetic fields. They offer an alternative platform to plasmonic resonances to study light-matter interactions from weak to strong coupling regimes. Here, we experimentally demonstrate the strong coupling of bright excitons in monolayer WS2 with Mie surface lattice resonances (Mie-SLRs). We resolve both the electric and magnetic Mie-SLRs of a Si nanoparticle array in angular dispersion measurements. At the zero detuning condition, the dispersion of electric Mie-SLRs (e-SLRs) exhibits a clear anti-crossing and a Rabi splitting of 32 meV between the upper and lower polariton bands. The magnetic Mie-SLRs (m-SLRs) nearly cross the energy band of the excitons. These results suggest that the field of m-SLRs is dominated by out-of-plane components that do not efficiently couple with the in-plane excitonic dipoles of the monolayer WS2. In contrast, e-SLRs in dielectric nanoparticle arrays with relatively high quality factors (Q similar to 120) facilitate the formation of collective Mie exciton-polaritons and may allow the development of novel polaritonic devices, which can tailor the optoelectronic properties of atomically thin two-dimensional semiconductors.".
• 01GPPY3YMESE6M7DF81WDCG0H1 abstract "Excitons in nanoscale materials can exhibit fluorescence fluctuations. Intermittency is pervasive in zero-dimensional emitters such as single molecules and quantum dots. In contrast, two-dimensional semiconductors are generally regarded as stable light sources. Noise contains, however, valuable information about a material. Here, we demonstrate fluorescence fluctuations in a monolayer semiconductor due to sensitivity to its nanoscopic environment focusing on the case of a metal film. The fluctuations are spatially correlated over tens of micrometers and follow power-law statistics, with simultaneous changes in emission intensity and lifetime. At low temperatures, an additional spectral contribution from interface trap states emerges with fluctuations that are correlated with neutral excitons and anticorrelated with trions. Mastering exciton fluctuations has implications for light-emitting devices such as single-photon sources and could lead to novel excitonic sensors. The quantification of fluorescence fluctuations, including imaging, unlocks a set of promising tools to characterize and exploit two-dimensional semiconductors and their interfaces.".
• 01GPPY3YMMRA9T6S0MPFNQ45W7 abstract "The control of defect states is becoming a powerful approach to tune two-dimensional materials. Black phosphorus (BP) is a layered material that offers opportunities in infrared optoelectronics. Its band gap depends strongly on the number of layers and covers wavelengths from 720 to 4000 nm from monolayer to bulk, but only in discrete steps and suffering from poor photostability. Here, we demonstrate tunable and stable infrared emission from defect states in few-layer BP. First, we demonstrate a continuous blue shift of the main photoluminescence peak under laser exposure in air due to the creation of crystal defects during photo-oxidation. The tunable emission spectrum continuously bridges the discrete near-infrared energies of few-layer BP for a decreasing number of layers. Second, using plasma-enhanced encapsulation, we report the creation and protection of defects with peak emission energy between bilayer and trilayer BP. The emission is photostable and has an efficiency comparable to that of pristine layers while retaining the strong polarization anisotropy characteristic of BP. Our results put forward defect engineering in few-layer BP as a flexible strategy for stable and widely tunable infrared sources and detectors in integrated spectrometers and hyperspectral sensors. (c) 2020 Optical Society of America under the terms of the OSA Open Access Publishing Agreement".
• 01GPPY3YMS9EXP29X2AF7ZEKQA abstract "Exciton-polaritons are hybrids of light and matter formed at the strong coupling regime that exhibit interesting phenomena such as enhanced transport, long-range energy transfer, and nonlinear response. These properties make exciton-polaritons very promising quasiparticles for the development of novel optoelectronic applications in the so-called polaritonic devices. However, strong coupling is significantly damped by the absorption losses of the system, which lead to short-lived exciton-polaritons. Here, we demonstrate strong coupling between excitons in organic molecules and all-dielectric metasurfaces formed by arrays of polycrystalline silicon nanoparticles supporting Mie surface lattice resonances (MSLRs). Compared to Mie resonances in individual nanoparticles, MSLRs have extended mode volumes and much larger quality factors, which enables to achieve collective strong coupling with very large coupling strengths and Rabi energies. Moreover, the presence of electric and magnetic Mie resonances in high refractive index dielectric nanoparticles introduces a new degree of freedom in light-matter interaction. We show the hybridization of excitons with electric and magnetic MSLRs, to form exciton-polaritons with an electric or magnetic character. Our results demonstrate the potential of all-dielectric metasurfaces as novel platform to investigate and manipulate exciton-polaritons in low-loss polaritonic devices.".
• 01GPPY43HD2EMPX9RAKP4A8HN0 abstract "An enhanced emission of high quantum yield molecules coupled to dielectric metasurfaces formed by periodic arrays of polycrystalline silicon nanoparticles is demonstrated. Radiative coupling of the nanoparticles, mediated by in-plane diffraction, leads to the formation of collective Mie scattering resonances or Mie surface lattice resonances (M-SLRs), with remarkable narrow line widths. These narrow line widths and the intrinsic electric and magnetic dipole moments of the individual Si nanoparticles allow resolving electric and magnetic M-SLRs. Incidence angle- and polarization-dependent extinction measurements and high-accuracy surface integral simulations show unambiguously that magnetic M-SLRs arise from in- and out-of-plane magnetic dipoles, while electric M-SLRs are due to in-plane electric dipoles. Pronounced changes in the emission spectrum of the molecules are observed, with almost a 20-fold enhancement of the emission in defined directions of molecules coupled to electric M-SLRs, and a fivefold enhancement of the emission of molecules coupled to magnetic M-SLRs. These measurements demonstrate the potential of dielectric metasurfaces for emission control and enhancement, and open new opportunities to induce asymmetric scattering and emission using collective electric and magnetic resonances.".
• 01GPPY43HMDCY0K22TMH1CKHVB abstract "Atomically thin semiconductors hold great potential for nanoscale photonic and optoelectronic devices because of their strong light absorption and emission. Despite progress, their application in integrated photonics is hindered particularly by a lack of stable layered semiconductors emitting in the infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Here we show that titanium trisulfide (TiS3), a layered van der Waals material consisting of quasi-1D chains, emits near infrared light centered around 0.91 eV (1360 nm). Its photoluminescence exhibits linear polarization anisotropy and an emission lifetime of 210 ps. At low temperature, we distinguish two spectral contributions with opposite linear polarizations attributed to excitons and defects. Moreover, the dependence on excitation power and temperature suggests that free and bound excitons dominate the excitonic emission at high and low temperatures, respectively. Our results demonstrate the promising properties of TiS3 as a stable semiconductor for optoelectronic and nanophotonic devices operating at telecommunication wavelengths.".
• 01GPPY43HRRB6N7X7YSTT4KESQ abstract "Phase-controlled synthesis of two-dimensional (2D) transition-metal chalcogenides (TMCs) at low temperatures with a precise thickness control has to date been rarely reported. Here, we report on a process for the phase controlled synthesis of TiS2 (metallic) and TiS3 (semiconducting) nanolayers by atomic layer deposition (ALD) with precise thickness control. The phase control has been obtained by carefully tuning the deposition temperature and coreactant composition during ALD. In all cases, characteristic self-limiting ALD growth behavior with a growth per cycle (GPC) of similar to 0.16 nm per cycle was observed. TiS2 was prepared at 100 degrees C using H2S gas as coreactant and was also observed using H2S plasma as a coreactant at growth temperatures between 150 and 200 degrees C. TiS3 was synthesized only at 100 degrees C using H2S plasma as the coreactant. The S-2 species in the H2S plasma, as observed by optical emission spectroscopy, has been speculated to lead to the formation of the TiS3 phase at low temperatures. The control between the synthesis of TiS2 and TiS3 was elucidated by Raman spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, high-resolution electron microscopy, and Rutherford backscattering study. Electrical transport measurements showed the low resistive nature of ALD grown 2D-TiS2 (1T-phase). Postdeposition annealing of the TiS3 layers at 400 degrees C in a sulfur-rich atmosphere improved the crystallinity of the film and yielded photoluminescence at similar to 0.9 eV, indicating the semiconducting (direct band gap) nature of TiS3. The current study opens up a new ALD-based synthesis route for controlled, scalable growth of transition-metal di- and tri-chalcogenides at low temperatures.".
• 01GPPY48E85TDNGDZB578FC26R abstract "The interaction of circularly polarized light with matter is the basis for molecular circular dichroism spectroscopy, optical spin manipulation, and optical torques. However, chiroptical effects are usually hampered by weak chiral light matter interaction. Nanophotonic structures can enhance optical intensity to boost interactions, but magnifying chiral effects requires that the near field remains chiral in the process. Here, we propose the conditions and limits for enhancing different chiroptical effects near achiral metasurfaces with maximum chirality of the evanescent fields. We illustrate these conditions with arrays of metal and dielectric nanodisks and decompose their distinct electromagnetic metrics into propagating and evanescent Fourier orders. We prove that a nanostructure cannot be universally optimal for different chirality metrics and therefore applications. For example, arrays tailored for enhanced spin excitation with spatially uniform circular polarization destroy circular dichroism. Conversely, we predict a limit of maximum attainable circular dichroism in highly evanescent Fourier orders through a simple relation with the evanescent wavevector and polarization. Our results establish guidelines and constraints for nanophotonic enhancement using evanescent fields in diverse chiroptical applications.".
• 01GPPY48EDK4R9P8VHFM07KJ7M abstract "Monolayer transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) are promising semiconductors for nanoscale photonics and optoelectronics due to their strong interactions with light. However, processes that integrate TMDs into nanophotonic and optoelectronic devices can introduce defects in the monolayers, resulting in lower emission efficiency. Quality control is therefore needed to process monolayer semiconductors effectively. Through micro-photoluminescence and fluorescence lifetime imaging measurements, this work investigates the effects of encapsulation on the optical properties of TMD monolayers, focusing on the impact of different processing techniques and different dielectric environments. Spin coating a polymer layer on top of a TMD monolayer is shown to significantly reduce its emission lifetime and efficiency. In contrast, the soft transfer of a monolayer deposited on a polymer superstrate can preserve its intrinsic emission properties almost perfectly in various dielectric environments. This approach can be widely applied to integrate TMDs into devices and heterostructures while protecting sample quality, and demonstrates that intrinsic quantum efficiency and photoluminescence lifetimes of TMDs can be preserved upon transfer to different dielectric substrates.".
• 01GPPY48EKKB488BE5PN26NH0W abstract "We demonstrate the strong coupling of direct transition excitons in tungsten disulfide (WS2) with collective plasmonic resonances at room temperature. We use open plasmonic cavities formed by periodic arrays of metallic nanoparticles. We show clear anti-crossings with monolayer, bilayer, and thicker multilayer WS2 on top of the nanoparticle array. The Rabi energy of such hybrid system varies from SO to 100 meV from monolayers to 16 layers, respectively, while it does not scale with the square root of the number of layers as expected for collective strong coupling. We prove that out-of-plane coupling components can be disregarded because the normal field is screened due to the high refractive index contrast of the dielectric layers. Even though the in-plane dipole moments of the excitons decrease beyond monolayers, the strong in-plane field distributed in the flake can still enhance the coupling strength with multilayers. The achieved coherent coupling of TMD multilayers with open cavities could be exploited for manipulating the dynamics and transport of excitons in 2D semiconductors and developing ultrafast spin-valley tronic devices.".
• 01GPPY4DB7M3BWQJ6GJN07TZXE abstract "Solid state light emitters rely on metallic contacts with a high sheet-conductivity for effective charge injection. Unfortunately, such contacts also support surface plasmon polariton and lossy wave excitations that dissipate optical energy into the metal and limit the external quantum efficiency. Here, inspired by the concept of radio-frequency high-impedance surfaces and their use in conformal antennas we illustrate how electrodes can be nanopatterned to simultaneously provide a high DC electrical conductivity and high-impedance at optical frequencies. Such electrodes do not support SPPs across the visible spectrum and greatly suppress dissipative losses while facilitating a desirable Lambertian emission profile. We verify this concept by studying the emission enhancement and photoluminescence lifetime for a dye emitter layer deposited on the electrodes.".
• 01GPPY4DBG81ASYZK9XKHT061Q abstract "Controlling light emission from quantum emitters has important applications, ranging from solid-state lighting and displays to nanoscale single-photon sources. Optical antennas have emerged as promising tools to achieve such control right at the location of the emitter, without the need for bulky, external optics. Semiconductor nanoantennas are particularly practical for this purpose because simple geometries such as wires and spheres support multiple, degenerate optical resonances. Here, we start by modifying Mie scattering theory developed for plane wave illumination to describe scattering of dipole emission. We then use this theory and experiments to demonstrate several pathways to achieve control over the directionality, polarization state and spectral emission that rely on a coherent coupling of an emitting dipole to optical resonances of a silicon nanowire. A forward-to-backward ratio of 20 was demonstrated for the electric dipole emission at 680 nm from a monolayer MoS2 by optically coupling it to a silicon nanowire.".
• 01GPPY4J8124AJYAYVYA4N20TM abstract "Applying tensile strain with silicon nitride is demonstrated to improve the responsivity of germanium-tin (Ge1-xSnx) PIN photodetectors at longer wavelengths. Such external stressor films show promise for extending the application of Ge1-xSnx optoelectronic devices into the mid-infrared range.".
• 01GPPY4J86HFBRWMYVBNVRC32A abstract "The ability to detect light over a broad spectral range is central to practical optoelectronic applications and has been successfully demonstrated with photodetectors of two-dimensional layered crystals such as graphene and MoS2. However, polarization sensitivity within such a photodetector remains elusive. Here, we demonstrate a broadband photodetector using a layered black phosphorus transistor that is polarization-sensitive over a bandwidth from similar to 400 nm to 3,750 nm. The polarization sensitivity is due to the strong intrinsic linear dichroism, which arises from the in-plane optical anisotropy of this material. In this transistor geometry, a perpendicular built-in electric field induced by gating can spatially separate the photogenerated electrons and holes in the channel, effectively reducing their recombination rate and thus enhancing the performance for linear dichroism photodetection. The use of anisotropic layered black phosphorus in polarization-sensitive photodetection might provide new functionalities in novel optical and optoelectronic device applications.".
• 01GPPY4J8DQN6EX2N6WPBKPVNH abstract "Nanostructured metallic films have the potential to replace metal oxide films as transparent electrodes in optoelectronic devices. An ideal transparent electrode should possess a high, broadband, and polarization-independent transmittance. Conventional metallic gratings and grids with wavelength-scale periodicities, however, do not have all of these qualities. Furthermore, the transmission properties of a nanostructured electrode need to be assessed in the actual dielectric environment provided by a device, where a high-index semiconductor layer can reflect a substantial fraction of the incident light. Here we propose nanostructured aluminum electrodes with space-filling fractal geometries as alternatives to gratings and grids and experimentally demonstrate their superior optoelectronic performance through integration with Si photodetectors. As shown by polarization and spectrally resolved photocurrent measurements, devices with fractal electrodes exhibit both a broadband transmission and a flat polarization response that outperforms both square grids and linear gratings. Finally, we show the benefits of adding a thin silicon nitride film to the nanostructured electrodes to further reduce reflection.".
• 01GPPY4Q4ZVBS6T71TXS11BW1F abstract "The nature of the highly efficient energy transfer in photosynthetic light-harvesting complexes is a subject of intense research. Unfortunately, the low fluorescence efficiency and limited photostability hampers the study of individual light-harvesting complexes at ambient conditions. Here we demonstrate an over 500-fold fluorescence enhancement of light-harvesting complex 2 (LH2) at the single-molecule level by coupling to a gold nanoantenna. The resonant antenna produces an excitation enhancement of circa 100 times and a fluorescence lifetime shortening to similar to 20 ps. The radiative rate enhancement results in a 5.5-fold-improved fluorescence quantum efficiency. Exploiting the unique brightness, we have recorded the first photon antibunching of a single light-harvesting complex under ambient conditions, showing that the 27 bacteriochlorophylls coordinated by LH2 act as a non-classical single-photon emitter. The presented bright antenna-enhanced LH2 emission is a highly promising system to study energy transfer and the role of quantum coherence at the level of single complexes.".
• 01GPPY4Q57ZZXQ7K5EH9KEWCF2 abstract "By directing light, optical antennas can enhance light-matter interaction and improve the efficiency of nanophotonic devices. Here we exploit the interference among the electric dipole, quadrupole, and magnetic dipole moments of a split-ring resonator to experimentally realize a compact directional optical antenna. This single-element antenna design robustly directs emission even when covered with nanometric emitters at random positions, outperforming previously demonstrated nanoantennas with a bandwidth of 200 nm and a directivity of 10.1 dB from a subwavelength structure. The advantages of this approach bring directional optical antennas closer to practical applications.".
• 01GPPY4Q5B6PNRMP4S4KFCGTNA abstract "Nanoantennae show potential for photosynthesis research for two reasons; first by spatially confining light for experiments which require high spatial resolution, and second by enhancing the photon emission of single light-harvesting complexes. For effective use of nanoantennae a detailed understanding of the interaction between the nanoantenna and the light-harvesting complex is required. Here we report how the excitation and emission of multiple purple bacterial LH2s (light-harvesting complex 2) are controlled by single gold nanorod antennae. LH2 complexes were chemically attached to such antennae, and the antenna length was systematically varied to tune the resonance with respect to the LH2 absorption and emission. There are three main findings. (i) The polarization of the LH2 emission is fully controlled by the resonant nanoantenna. (ii) The largest fluorescence enhancement, of 23 times, is reached for excitation with light at lambda = 850 nm, polarized along the long antenna-axis of the resonant antenna. The excitation enhancement is found to be 6 times, while the emission efficiency is increased 3.6 times. (iii) The fluorescence lifetime of LH2 depends strongly on the antenna length, with shortest lifetimes of similar to 40 ps for the resonant antenna. The lifetime shortening arises from an 11 times resonant enhancement of the radiative rate, together with a 2-3 times increase of the non-radiative rate, compared to the off-resonant antenna. The observed length dependence of radiative and non-radiative rate enhancement is in good agreement with simulations. Overall this work gives a complete picture of how the excitation and emission of multi-pigment light-harvesting complexes are influenced by a dipole nanoantenna.".
• 01GPPY4W247NGY4XW043R4TDKT abstract "Multipolar transitions other than electric dipoles are generally too weak to be observed at optical frequencies in single quantum emitters. For example, fluorescent molecules and quantum dots have dimensions much smaller than the wavelength of light and therefore emit predominantly as electric dipoles. Here we demonstrate controlled emission of a quantum dot into multipolar radiation through selective coupling to a linear nanowire antenna. The antenna resonance tailors the interaction of the quantum dot with light, effectively creating a hybrid nanoscale source beyond the simple Hertz dipole. Our findings establish a basis for the controlled driving of fundamental modes in nanoantennas and metamaterials, for the understanding of the coupling of quantum emitters to nanophotonic devices such as waveguides and nanolasers, and for the development of innovative quantum nano-optics components with properties not found in nature.".
• 01GPPY4W2DSH2A7P304CG581FN abstract "Optical antennas offer unique possibilities for light manipulation on a sub-wavelength scale. Here, we study log-periodic antennas that exhibit broadband directivity as a result of the self-similar relation between the lengths, separations and widths of the elements. We show through numerical simulations that the log-periodic designs have a considerable potential for improvement of both directivity and operation bandwidth over classical Yagi-Uda designs. Moreover, the directivity is more robust against changes in the location of the source or detector at different antenna elements. We systematically study the influence of geometrical parameters on angular performance and local field enhancement to arrive at optimum values. Next, we demonstrate that introducing a gap in the dipole array architecture can provide at least a ten-fold enhancement of the emitted power. Finally we present an optical zigzag antenna capable of both broader spectral response and even higher directivity. (c) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.".
• 01GPPY50YXQ48ATXXGYE79SDXD abstract "Nanoscale single-photon emitters behave generally as dipoles. Here, we demonstrate multipolar and unidirectional emission of a quantum dot by near-field coupling to optical nanowire and Yagi-Uda antennas, that determine its angular radiation pattern and polarization.".
• 01GPPY50Z2YVF4DTFW5NR431QD abstract "We reveal experimentally and theoretically the predominant magnetic dipole character of resonant slot nanoantennas. Upon excitation with local sources, the radiation differs strongly from off-resonant apertures, both in angular radiation patterns and polarization distributions.".
• 01GPPY50Z6FG8SH2Q42TAN6DWP abstract "We show unidirectional emission of a single Q-dot by coupling to a nanofabricated Yagi-Uda antenna. The Q-dot drives the resonant feed element and 82% of the Q-dot emission is emitted in a 12 degrees HWHM angle.".
• 01GPPY55VRVZ3JHXRG28JFWB2V abstract "Nanoscale quantum emitters are key elements in quantum optics and sensing. However, efficient optical excitation and detection of such emitters involves large solid angles because their interaction with freely propagating light is omnidirectional. Here, we present unidirectional emission of a single emitter by coupling to a nanofabricated Yagi-Uda antenna. A quantum dot is placed in the near field of the antenna so that it drives the resonant feed element of the antenna. The resulting quantum-dot luminescence is strongly polarized and highly directed into a narrow forward angular cone. The directionality of the quantum dot can be controlled by tuning the antenna dimensions. Our results show the potential of optical antennas to communicate energy to, from, and between nano-emitters.".
• 01GPPY55W1Z1DK5R6VKGFA4JFB abstract "We investigate the near-field focusing properties of three-dimensional phase antennas consisting of concentric rings designed to have source and image spots separated by several microns from the lens. Tight focal spots are obtained for silicon or gold rings patterned in a silica matrix. We analyze in detail the dependence of the performance of these lenses on geometrical parameters such as the number of rings, the ring thickness, and the focal distance. Subwavelength focal spots are found to form at distances of tens of wavelengths from the lens, thus suggesting applications to remote sensing and penlight microscopy and lithography. (C) 2009 Optical Society of America".
• 01GPPY5ARFY5AQWG6ZDQFSYZ28 abstract "Plasmon-mediated long-range coupling of optical excitations is shown to be attainable using near-field phase antennas involving nanoparticles situated at focal spots. The antennas rely on metal-surface features that are geometrically arranged to produce constructive interference of plasmons emanating from a source spot over a designated image position. Large image-field intensities and focal spots as narrow as one-third of the wavelength are obtained for source-image separations of tens of micrometers. The ability to strongly couple distant focal spots through phase accumulation produced by engineered plasmon scatterers opens up a vast range of possibilities in contactless plasmon sensing, optical interconnects, and microscopy.".
• 01GPQTTEEXM57662NK0TR3AAJ1 abstract "Introduction Ultrasound is a powerful technique in musculoskeletal (MSK) imaging, and it can replace MR imaging in many specific clinical scenarios. This article will feature some common and less common spot diagnoses in musculoskeletal ultrasound.Spot diagnosis Cases were collected by members of the Educational Committee of the ESSR ( European Society of Musculoskeletal Radiology) with expertise in musculoskeletal ultrasound. Sixteen clinical entities are discussed based on the features that allow US spot diagnosis.Conclusion Clinical history, location, and ultrasound appearance are the keys to spot diagnoses when performing musculoskeletal ultrasound.Citation FormatDrakonaki EE, Martinoli C, Vanhoenacker FM et al. The Beauty of Musculoskeletal Ultrasound: Spot Diagnoses. Fortschr Rontgenstr 2022; DOI: 10.1055/a-1965-9961".
• 01GPQVG40KGC2VBR26WGCQSNNK abstract "Spinal infection may occur due to iatrogenic causes. Its pathogenesis, clinical presentation, management, various imaging techniques, and its application in instrumented and noninstrumented spines are discussed. We provide an overview of the typical infection locations and its imaging correlates, such as spondylodiscitis, epidural and paravertebral abscesses, facet joint infection, and myelomeningitis. Iatrogenic spinal infection should be differentiated from postoperative fluid collections, such as hematoma, seroma, and pseudomeningocele.".
• 01GPRDA9C1YY8DYFDKNS7F3HBM abstract "Background Despite the common use of oral group treatment in pig rearing, the magnitude of the factors influencing the homogeneity and stability of antimicrobial drugs in medicated feed and medicated drinking water are largely unknown, as well as the residual concentrations of the drugs after the end of the treatment.ResultsThis study presents a qualitative risk assessment to estimate the magnitude of the risks for reduced homogeneity and stability, and increased residual concentrations of antimicrobial drugs in medicated feed and drinking water on the farm. Risk assessment was done using a questionnaire and farm visits (n = 52), combined with a second questionnaire, and concentrations of amoxicillin and doxycycline measured in medicated feed and water samples, each collected on 10 farms.For medicated feed, the duration of storage in the silo did not show to influence the concentration levels in a consistent trend, while the treatment duration had a low to negligible effect. A moderate to high risk was found caused by human error when preparing the medicated feed on the farm. Purchased medicated feed greatly reduces the risk of human error and drugs remain stable during the duration of treatment, while the risk of residual concentrations after the end of the treatment was estimated to be low to moderate. The feed intake variability was identified as a moderate to high risk factor.For medicated drinking water, the type of dosing pump, age of pre-solution, and human errors during the preparation of the pre-solution present a moderate to high risk on homogeneity and stability. Precipitation of the active substance in the absence of a stirrer in a drinking water tank was shown to be a low to moderate risk factor for residues after treatment. Waterline length had a weak correlation with the concentrations of the antimicrobials, while a moderate to high influence was detected for the water intake by the pigs.ConclusionsA considerable variation in drug concentration in both medicated feed and medicated drinking water was detected depending on their preparation. Therefore, it is important to know which factors influence the homogeneity and stability, and the residual concentrations after treatment.".
• 01GPRJYMNEB91WCDS3M4822V4A abstract "Tensor-network methods are used to perform a comparative study of the two-dimensional classical Heisenberg and RP2 models. We demonstrate that uniform matrix product states (MPSs) with explicit SO(3) symmetry can probe correlation lengths up to O(103) sites accurately, and we study the scaling of entanglement entropy and universal features of MPS entanglement spectra. For the Heisenberg model, we find no signs of a finite -temperature phase transition, supporting the scenario of asymptotic freedom. For the RP2 model we observe an abrupt onset of scaling behavior, consistent with hints of a finite-temperature phase transition reported in previous studies. A careful analysis of the softening of the correlation length divergence, the scaling of the entanglement entropy, and the MPS entanglement spectra shows that our results are inconsistent with true criticality, but are rather in agreement with the scenario of a crossover to a pseudocritical region which exhibits strong signatures of nematic quasi-long-range order at length scales below the true correlation length. Our results reveal a fundamental difference in scaling behavior between the Heisenberg and RP2 models: Whereas the emergence of scaling in the former shifts to zero temperature if the bond dimension is increased, it occurs at a finite bond-dimension independent crossover temperature in the latter.".
• 01GPT889SRVGP6ZH60WB5Y0WFT abstract "Accurate assessment of key soil attributes such as soil organic carbon (OC), available phosphorus (P), and available potassium (K) using mid-infrared spectroscopy (MIRS) is essential for better soil management in precision agriculture. However, the calibration of the portable version of MIRS is more challenging than the benchmark technologies, hence, demanding more efficient modelling methods to provide accurate outcomes. This research aims to use the stacked generalisation machine learning (SG-ML) framework, combining support vector machine (SVM), gradient boosted regression (GBR), and random forest (RF), using linear ridge regression as a meta learner, for predicting OC, P, and K using MIR spectra of 375 soil samples collected from four farms (Flanders, Belgium). The performance of the SG-ML models was compared with the multilayer perceptron (MLP) deep learning (DL) method. Results showed the superiority of the SG-ML method over the corresponding single ML and DL models. The predictive performance of SG-ML using the validation set was excellent for the three soil attributes, with coefficient of determination (R-2) and root mean square error (RMSE) values of 0.88% and 0.10%, 0.85 and 4.53 mg 100 g(-1), and 0.84 and 3.87 mg 100 g(-1) for OC, K, and P, respectively. The performance of DL models were good for OC (R-2 = 0.65, and RMSE = 0.17%), poor for K (R-2 = 0.58 and RMSE = 7.59 mg 100 g(-1)), and very poor for P (R-2 = 0.46, and RMSE = 6.57 mg 100 g(-1)). The SG-ML reduced the prediction RMSE by 10% to 31%, compared with the single ML (SVM, RF, and GBR) models. In summary, the proposed stacking method is a powerful modelling tool for the accurate prediction of key soil attributes using portable MIRS.".
• 01GPT8YA02K18DABV10P3B3CEX abstract "The aim of this study is the detection of adulteration in honey by a microcontroller measurement device. For this purpose, 18 pure honey samples from Sidr, Locoweed and Citrus honey were prepared, whose physicochemical characteristics, including moisture content and degrees Brix, pH, color and ash content were measured. To detect impurities in honey, electrical conductivity and light refraction were used as inputs of an artificial neural network (ANN) classifier. This allowed fraud detection in honey by a portable instrument developed by enclosing the electrical conductivity and light sensors connected to a smartphone application. The results revealed that increasing impurities caused a decrease in degrees Brix and an increase in the pH of honey. The highest value of moisture was 17.5% (for Locoweed) and the highest value of pH was 4.69 (for Sidr) at 75% impurity concentration. Citrus showed the highest value of ash and electrical conductivity of 0.36 and 415 ppm, respectively. The lowest error of training the ANN classifier of 13% was obtained with 14 neurons as the optimal number of neurons in the hidden layer. The honey samples with fructose concentrations of 0% (pure honey), 10%, 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% (pure fructose) were successfully classified, with correct classification rates of 100%, 83.3%, 80%, 87.5%, 100% and 100%, respectively. This reveals the acceptable performance of the designed device in detecting honey adulteration. ".
• 01GPTVV47A8V9TP8D29QSV0RQ9 abstract "Estimating the impact of climate change and emission scenarios on air pollution can be done using regional climate models (RCMs). Climate uncertainties are commonly estimated using RCM ensembles such as provided by EURO-CORDEX. Despite the strong relations between the weather and air pollutants, interactions are usually complex and require meteorological parameters that are not commonly available for the RCM ensembles. Pollution peaks, however, often coincide with stagnant atmospheric conditions that can be captured with widely-available RCM data. We first show that a commonly-used atmospheric stability index that uses rainfall, near-surface and 500 hPa wind speed, relates well to average and extreme air pollutant concentrations over Europe using Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) data. We then provide an in-depth validation of 25 RCMs to reproduce the spatio-temporal features of air stagnation by comparison with ERA5. Overall the models were found to reproduce stagnant episodes fairly well, especially after bias correction. The systematic underestimation of stagnation frequency and duration is traced back to overestimated near-surface wind speed for a large group of models at high-elevation regions where the temporal correlations are also low. Regardless of the reference dataset, two model groups are identified that, independent on their resolution, give strongly different results in terms of orographic dependence of surface wind speed. These strong discrepancies underscore the need for bias correction when using RCM data for analysis of stagnation episodes.".
• 01GPV0XVW2Y56KGTAH3FBAV5QQ abstract "Objectives/hypothesis Although intonation is often addressed in speech training for gender diverse individuals, the relationship between intonation and femininity/masculinity ratings remains unclear. The aim of this study was to examine differences in intonation parameters in gender diverse individuals. Moreover, the relationship between acoustic intonation parameters and femininity/masculinity ratings was investigated. Methods Speech samples of semistructured speech were elicited from cisgender (cis) (107 ciswomen, 104 cis men), transgender (trans) (19 trans women, 10 trans men), and non-binary (n = 11) individuals using a prosody protocol. An objective acoustic analysis was performed to compare intonation parameters (upward/downward/flat intonation shift, general and final intonation shift, general fundamental frequency range, fundamental frequency variation index) between groups. In addition, a listening experiment was conducted, consisting of a cis and gender diverse listening panel (n = 41). The listeners were asked to rate the femininity/masculinity of speech samples (n = 57) using a visual analogue scale. Correlational analyses were used to examine the relationship between intonation parameters and femininity/masculinity ratings. Results Similarity was found in the intonation parameters of participants with a similar gender identity. In non-binary speakers, no significant differences in acoustic intonation parameters were found between these speakers and the cisgender speakers. In addition, no significant correlations were found between the acoustic intonation parameters and the femininity/masculinity ratings in the groups with cis men, cis women, and non-binary participants. However, moderate to strong significant correlations were found between acoustic intonation parameters and femininity/masculinity ratings in the trans participants. Conclusions Intonation is a “speech marker” that distinguishes between groups with a different gender identity. No relationship was observed between intonation and femininity/masculinity ratings for cisgender and non-binary speakers. However, the significant relationship between these parameters for transgender participants (trans men and trans women) provides evidence for intonation exercises in gender affirming voice, speech, and communication training, and therefore contribute to evidence-based intonation training in transgender persons.".
• 01GPWS66BY6C0GGS8J4BEER4D7 abstract "Recovery of biobased fertilizers derived from manure to replace synthetic fertilizers is considered a key strategy to close the nutrients loop for a more sustainable agricultural system. This study evaluated the nitrogen (N) fertilizer value of five biobased fertilizers [i.e., raw pig manure (PM), digestate (DIG), the liquid fraction of digestate (LFD), evaporator concentrate (EVA) and ammonia water (AW)] recovered from an integrated anaerobic digestion-centrifugation-evaporation process. The shoot and root growth of maize (Zea mays L.) under biobased fertilization was compared with the application of synthetic mineral N fertilizer, i.e., calcium ammonium nitrate (CAN). The non-invasive technologies, i.e., minirhizotron and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) based spectrum sensing, were integrated with the classic plant and soil sampling to enhance the in-season monitoring of the crop and soil status. Results showed no significant difference in the canopy status, biomass yield or crop N uptake under biobased fertilization as compared to CAN, except a lower crop N uptake in DIG treatment. The total root length detected by minirhizotron revealed a higher early-stage N availability at the rooting zone under biobased fertilization as compared to CAN, probably due to the liquid form of N supplied by biobased fertilizers showing higher mobility in soil under dry conditions than the solid form of CAN. Given a high soil N supply (averagely 70-232 kg ha(-1)) in the latter growing season of this study, the higher N availability in the early growing season seemed to promote a luxury N uptake in maize plants, resulting in significantly (p < 0.05) higher N concentrations in the harvested biomass of PM, LFD and AW than that in the no-N fertilized control. Therefore, the biobased fertilizers, i.e., PM, LFD, EVA and AW have a high potential as substitutes for synthetic mineral N fertilizers, with additional value in providing easier accessible N for crops during dry seasons, especially under global warming which is supposed to cause more frequent drought all over the world.".
• 01GPWSWPTWM18MH34DYXEAQZAA abstract "The non-thermal plasma (NTP) treatment of food products as an alternative for thermal processing has been investigated over the last few years. This quasi-neutral gas contains a wide variety of reactive oxygen and nitrogen species (RONS), which could be lethal for bacterial cells present in the product. However, apart from only targeting bacteria, the RONS will also interact with components present in the food matrix. Therefore, these food components will protect the microorganisms, and the NTP treatment efficiency will decrease. This effect was investigated by supplementing a plain agar medium with various representative food matrix components. After inoculation with Escherichia coli O157:H7 (STEC) MB3885, the plates were treated for 30 s by a multi-hollow surface dielectric barrier discharge (MSDBD) generated in either dry air or air at 75% humidity, at constant power (25.7 +/- 1.7 W). Subsequently, the survival of the cells was quantified. It has been found that the addition of casein hydrolysate (7.1 +/- 0.2 m%), starch (2.0 m%), or soybean oil (4.6 m%) decreased the inactivation effect significantly. Food products containing these biomolecules might therefore need a more severe NTP treatment. Additionally, with increasing humidity of the plasma input gas, ozone levels decreased, and the bactericidal effect was generally less pronounced.".
• 01GPWY459DB96K9SKFK01NGXSY abstract "We present here results of the Quantum Technology Flagship project UNIQORN in the area of integrated photonics for quantum communication applications. Three distinct integration platforms, namely indium phosphide based monolithic integration, polymer-based hybrid integration and the CMOS-compatible silicon platform, have been employed to manufacture components and sub-systems on chip for quantum communication devices. The choice of different platforms was made to exploit the best characteristics of each platform for the intended quantum communication device. The indium phosphide platform was employed to manufacture a transmitter chip for quantum key distribution featuring laser, modulators, and attenuators. The transmitter chip was evaluated in a QKD experiment achieving a secure rate of 1 kbit/s. The polymer platform was investigated for engineering non-classical light sources. Entangled and heralded single-photon sources, based on non-linear optics, were assembled on the polymer in a hybrid fashion together with waveguides and other passive micro-optical elements. A quantum random number generator, featuring a 70% randomness extraction efficiency, was also fabricated using the polymer integration technique. An array of 32 individual single-photon avalanche diodes, operating at room temperature and featuring an onboard coincidence logic, was coupled to the chip to demonstrate direct detection of photons on the polymer. Finally, a transimpedance amplifier based on gallium arsenide high electron mobility transistors was produced with an exceptional large electrical noise clearance of 28 dB at 100 MHz.".
• 01GPWY7W1P8PTK0QEC22KY1AJW abstract "Methadone substitution treatment is the standard, evidence-based treatment for opiate dependence in most countries. Many studies have evaluated its effectiveness, demonstrating reductions in heroin use, risk behavior (related to injecting drugs) and drug-related crime, and prolonged treatment retention. Methadone is a long-acting opiate agonist that causes physiological stability, eliminates opiate withdrawal symptoms, and blocks the euphoric effects of heroin use. Research shows that substitution treatment can contribute significantly to the Quality of Life of persons who use drugs, which is further explored in this chapter.".
• 01GPWZEG5Y2G66V39QJV8A23R7 abstract "Offers conceptual solutions for tackling complex management challenges Discusses tactical management as the distinctive trait for co-creation Introduces multi and transdisciplinary management methods applied to diverse domains".
• 01GPX7VZNCJE753S0SB5TJ9ABG abstract "Context Contemporary resource management paradigms within the developed world build on an understanding of human agency as ontologically distinct from the mode of existence of plants and animals. Because of this perspective, which gives priority to human agency, policies typically take their point of departure with human societies and associated ecosystems deemed of particular value. Objectives As an alternative to this worldview, social theorists have introduced what is known as "flat ontology", where all beings are bestowed equal rights to negotiate their existence. To explore the implications of introducing such an understanding into landscape management, a participatory planning process for water allocation was developed and tested in a case study in the Eerste River Catchment in South Africa. Methods The planning process was mediated using the approach "politics of nature" (PoN), which aims to operationalize flat ontology to renegotiate water allocation based on the needs of all beings instead of the desire of a subset of humans. PoN allowed participants to playfully co-develop a common ontology and value-set. Data documenting these processes were collected digitally and analysed. Results Results indicate that the approach engendered a rethinking of key relationships between human agency and ecosystem functionality, illustrating a potential for PoN-approaches to be deployed for governance of complex landscapes. Conclusions On the basis of experiments using PoN-methodology in the context of watershed management, it is discussed how the introduction of a flat ontology in landscape research, could inspire new ways of designing and intervening with collaborative resource management processes.".
• 01GPXAC64SACCTE8AD05Z301P2 abstract "Force chains are quasi-linear self-organised structures carrying large stresses and are ubiquitous in jammed amorphous materials like granular materials, foams or even cell assemblies. Predicting where they will form upon deformation is crucial to describe the properties of such materials, but remains an open question. Here we demonstrate that graph neural networks (GNN) can accurately predict the location of force chains in both frictionless and frictional materials from the undeformed structure, without any additional information. The GNN prediction accuracy also proves to be robust to changes in packing fraction, mixture composition, amount of deformation, friction coefficient, system size, and the form of the interaction potential. By analysing the structure of the force chains, we identify the key features that affect prediction accuracy. Our results and methodology will be of interest for granular matter and disordered systems, e.g. in cases where direct force chain visualisation or force measurements are impossible. The emergence of correlated and self-organized linear structures, known as force chains, is relevant for granular materials, foams, emulsions, and extreme active matter. The authors develop a machine learning-based approach to predict force chain formation in jammed disordered solids under deformation.".
• 01GPXAGDDS62D72VQMAHSJ6H6R abstract "We examine the zero-temperature Metropolis Monte Carlo (MC) algorithm as a tool for training a neural network by minimizing a loss function. We find that, as expected on theoretical grounds and shown empirically by other authors, Metropolis MC can train a neural net with an accuracy comparable to that of gradient descent (GD), if not necessarily as quickly. The Metropolis algorithm does not fail automatically when the number of parameters of a neural network is large. It can fail when a neural network's structure or neuron activations are strongly heterogenous, and we introduce an adaptive Monte Carlo algorithm (aMC) to overcome these limitations. The intrinsic stochasticity and numerical stability of the MC method allow aMC to train deep neural networks and recurrent neural networks in which the gradient is too small or too large to allow training by GD. MC methods offer a complement to gradient-based methods for training neural networks, allowing access to a distinct set of network architectures and principles.".
• 01GPXAJB5ZZQ9XHZ7Q9K8K2W7W abstract "Essentially all hydrogeological processes are strongly influenced by the subsurface spatial heterogeneity and the temporal variation of environmental conditions, hydraulic properties, and solute concentrations. This spatial and temporal variability generally leads to effective behaviors and emerging phenomena that cannot be predicted from conventional approaches based on homogeneous assumptions and models. However, it is not always clear when, why, how, and at what scale the 4D (3D + time) nature of the subsurface needs to be considered in hydrogeological monitoring, modeling, and applications. In this paper, we discuss the interest and potential for the monitoring and characterization of spatial and temporal variability, including 4D imaging, in a series of hydrogeological processes: (1) groundwater fluxes, (2) solute transport and reaction, (3) vadose zone dynamics, and (4) surface-subsurface water interactions. We first identify the main challenges related to the coupling of spatial and temporal fluctuations for these processes. We then highlight recent innovations that have led to significant breakthroughs in high-resolution space-time imaging and modeling the characterization, monitoring, and modeling of these spatial and temporal fluctuations. We finally propose a classification of processes and applications at different scales according to their need and potential for high-resolution space-time imaging. We thus advocate a more systematic characterization of the dynamic and 3D nature of the subsurface for a series of critical processes and emerging applications. This calls for the validation of 4D imaging techniques at highly instrumented observatories and the harmonization of open databases to share hydrogeological data sets in their 4D components.".
• 01GPXDV8ECKTAKJ6VRYQ7RCNV0 abstract "The Family Perceptions of Physician-Family Caregiver Communication scale (FPPFC) was developed to assess quality of physician-family end-of-life communication in nursing homes. However, its validity has been tested only in the USA and the Netherlands. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the FPPFC construct validity and its reliability, as well as the psychometric characteristics of the items comprising the scale. Data were collected in cross-sectional study in Belgium, Finland, Italy, the Netherlands and Poland. The factorial structure was tested in confirmatory factor analysis. Item parameters were obtained using an item response theory model. Participants were 737 relatives of nursing home residents who died up to 3 months prior to the study. In general, the FPPFC scale proved to be a unidimensional and reliable measure of the perceived quality of physician-family communication in nursing home settings in all five countries. Nevertheless, we found unsatisfactory fit to the data with a confirmatory model. An item that referred to advance care planning performed less well in Poland and Italy than in the Northern European countries. In the item analysis, we found that with no loss of reliability and with increased coherency of the item content across countries, the full 7-item version can be shortened to a 4-item version, which may be more appropriate for international studies. Therefore, we recommend use of the brief 4-item FPPFC version by nursing home managers and professionals as an evaluation tool, and by researchers for their studies as these four items confer the same meaning across countries.".
• 01GPXE9T64EN6NHZFNRN286GNH abstract "In keeping with the view that individuals invest cognitive effort in accordance with its relative costs and benefits, reward incentives typically improve performance in tasks that require cognitive effort. At the same time, increasing effort investment may confer larger or smaller performance benefits-that is, the marginal value of effort-depending on the situation or context. On this view, we hypothesized that the magnitude of reward-induced effort modulations should depend critically on the marginal value of effort for the given context, and furthermore, the marginal value of effort of a context should be learned over time as a function of direct experience in the context. Using two well-characterized cognitive control tasks and simple computational models, we demonstrated that individuals appear to learn the marginal value of effort for different contexts. In a task-switching paradigm (Experiment 1), we found that participants initially exhibited reward-induced switch cost reductions across contexts-here, task switch rates-but over time learned to only increase effort in contexts with a comparatively larger marginal utility of effort. Similarly, in a flanker task (Experiment 2), we observed a similar learning effect across contexts defined by the proportion of incongruent trials. Together, these results enrich theories of cost-benefit effort decision-making by highlighting the importance of the (learned) marginal utility of cognitive effort.".
• 01GPXEHTC47GBNRST57390538S abstract "General Scientific Summary The effect of punishment on cognitive control has been shown to be dependent on individual differences in trait punishment sensitivity in healthy individuals. In a between-groups design, this study finds that whereas punishments during performance of a flanker interference task promote adaptive behavior in healthy control participants characterized by low punishment sensitivity, they have a detrimental impact in individuals with anorexia nervosa, a clinical group characterized by high punishment sensitivity. Punishments can help inform us to make adaptive changes in behavior. However, previous research suggested that only low punishment-sensitive individuals "learn" from punishment, whereas high punishment-sensitive individuals do not. Here we used a flanker interference task with performance-contingent punishment signals to test the hypothesis that a clinical group characterized by heightened punishment sensitivity (i.e., patients with anorexia nervosa [AN]) would fail to adapt to conflict following punishment. To distinguish between state and trait factors, we tested for between-group differences in separate cohorts of acutely underweight patients (acAN; n = 40) and weight-recovered former patients (recAN; n = 25) relative to age-matched healthy controls (n = 48). The acAN patients showed an abnormally reversed congruency-sequence effect in error rates following punishment, despite generally superior accuracy, suggesting that punishment distracted acAN patients and interfered with interference control. The influence of punishment was more subtle in recAN and did not reach statistical significance, but both reaction time and error rate data hinted that elevated sensitivity to punishment negatively affects cognitive control even after long-term weight normalization. Together, these findings emphasize that punishment sensitivity may be a clinically relevant trait marker in AN and provide novel experimental evidence that punishment may have a detrimental impact on adaptive behavior in the disorder.".
• 01GPXEQ0J2K7FGPTTK9T8S7ACS abstract "A growing number of studies demonstrate that belief in free will (FWB) is dynamic, and can be reduced experimentally. Most of these studies assume that doing so has beneficial effects on behavior, as FWBs are thought to subdue unwanted automatic processes (e.g. racial stereotypes). However, relying on automatic processes can sometimes be advantageous, for instance during implicit learning (e.g. detecting and exploiting statistical regularities in the environment). In this registered report, we tested whether experimentally reducing FWBs positively affected implicit motor learning. We hypothesized that reducing FWBs would lead to both faster and stronger implicit learning, as measured using the alternating serial reaction time (ASRT) task. While we did show a manipulation effect on free will beliefs, there was no detectable effect on implicit learning processes. This finding adds to the growing body of evidence that free will belief manipulations do not meaningfully affect downstream behavior.".
• 01GPXM5Q6B4H44REQYMC8X9HEM abstract "Monitoring microbial electrochemical processes in a time-and cost-efficient manner requires multi-channel potentiostats with the capability to control each channel towards a unique targeted potential. State-of-the-art (SotA) PCB potentiostats cannot perform high-frequency analysis due to their limited bandwidth. Existing integrated CMOS potentiostats on the other hand enable higher sensing channel density with a high bandwidth, yet are still limited in the number of parallel stimulation channels. The presented 40nm CMOS potentiostat chip overcomes this bottleneck with 96 individually controllable stimulation and sensing channels with a wide 12 pA - 137 mu A current range and up to 3 MHz bandwidth. The architecture is optimized for area-efficiency and includes a digital feedback controller integrated on-chip, supporting multi-functional electrochemical analysis techniques. Fully parallel operation is demonstrated for a (bio-)electrochemical measurement.".
• 01GPYJ9493T34M5ACQGPDSED2E abstract "This chapter discusses the way in which the Bulletin de l'Union des Femmes colonials, a journal that ran from 1924 to 1960, served as a platform to discuss colonial architecture in the Belgian Congo. Targeting an audience of colonial housewives, it addressed from the very first issues topics such as the ideal housing type for the coloniser and apt furniture for living in the tropics, while especially from the post-war period onward, it published on a regular basis contributions on garden layout and interior decoration in which advice was provided on how to create a ‘comme chez soi’ in a colonial environment that triggered a ‘condition of displacement’ and a sense of uprootedness. Including the voices of both experts (i.e. prominent figures within the scene of tropical modernism) and those of its (female) readers, the Bulletin thus provides us with an excellent source to trace the tensions underlying the divergent views on dwelling practice and architecture in the Belgian Congo as they emerged during both the interwar and post-war years.".
• 01GPYKFH8XPG6CMRJ5GNZ7RS1B abstract "This new book is an edited volume of essays that examine the legacy of architecture in a number of African countries soon after independence. It has its origins in an exhibition and symposium that focused on architecture as an element in Nordic countries’ aid packages to newly independent states, but the expanded breadth of the essays includes work on other countries and architects. Drawing on ethnography, archival research and careful observations of buildings, remains and people, the case studies seek to connect the colonial and postcolonial origins of modernist architecture, the historical processes they underwent, and present use and habitation. It results from the 2015 seminar and exhibition Forms of Freedom at the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design in Oslo, Norway. The exhibition showed how modern Scandinavian architecture became an essential component of foreign aid to East Africa in the period 1960–80, and how the ideals of the Nordic welfare system found expression in a number of construction projects. The seminar, which built upon the exhibition as well as on a previous collaboration on the legacies of modernism in Africa between the Department of Anthropology of the University of Oslo and the Department of Architecture and Urban Planning from Ghent University, broadened the geographic scope of the discussion beyond the Scandinavian context, and set the ground for bringing together the disciplines of architectural history and social anthropology. Primary readership will be among architects and architectural historians, and graduate level architecture and urban studies students, for whom it will be valuable course material, as well as those in fields such as African studies and anthropology. It may also be of interest to those working or researching in public policy and political history.".
• 01GPZ8C3RVEV2WXJKNY63G0S02 abstract "Researchers have proposed that generating conceptual models automatically from user stories might be useful for agile software development. It is, however, unclear from the state-of-the-art what a consistent and complementary set of models to generate is, how these models can be generated such that relationships and dependencies in a set of related user stories are unveiled, and why these models are useful in agile software development projects. In this paper, we address these questions through a Design Science research study. First, we define four stylized versions of Unified Modeling Language (UML) diagrams (i.e., use case diagram, class diagram, activity diagram, state machine diagram) that will be the target of the model generation. Although these stylized UML diagrams have a reduced abstract syntax, they offer different perspectives on the software system in focus with potential usefulness for requirements and software engineering. Second, we develop an automated model generation approach based on different design artifacts including a Natural Language Processing (NLP) tool that implements our approach. Key to our solution is the use of the Behavior-Driven Development (BDD) scenario template to document user stories. Using an example set of BDD scenarios as source of the model generation, we demonstrate the feasibility of our approach via the NLP tool that implements our approach. Third, we conduct an empirical study with experts in agile software development involving the researcher-guided interactive use of our tool to explore the use of the generated models. This study shows the perceived usefulness of the models that our tool can generate and identifies different uses and benefits of the models for requirements analysis, system design, software implementation, and testing in projects that employ agile methods.".
• 01GPZFK19QGX8JPT9SXNW0Q6NR abstract "Infrared thermography is a well-known non-destructive testing technique for detecting defects in unidirectional fiber reinforced polymer laminates. When applied to woven fabric reinforced polymers, however, the weave structure causes strong disturbances and patterns in the background of the thermal images, making accurate and reliable defect assessment a challenging task. In this paper, the concept of k-space filtering is introduced for an improved evaluation of thermographic images obtained from woven fabric composites. An algorithm is intro-duced to automatically decompose a thermographic image into an image which contains the structured thermal background related to the weave pattern, and a residual image representing other features, e.g. defects. The proposed k-space filtering approach is demonstrated on thermographic data from various woven fabric com-posites with different weave patterns and defect scenarios, clearly showing an enhanced performance in terms of defect detection and sizing.".
• 01GPZGSM3JFSEBM10VBXQKTPKQ abstract "Modular drivetrains have recently been introduced in literature as a method to cope with load variations and provide an easily adaptable machine design. Although some research regarding the performance of a modular drivetrain has already been performed, a method to evaluate and compare several modular drivetrain architectures on multiple performance criteria is not yet available. This paper presents an evaluation framework that can be used to compare the different architectures against each other and the traditional benchmark alternative. The benchmark system under consideration is an industrial single motor driven slider crank application with a continuous rotating motion. Three modular variants of the benchmark system are presented. From the evaluation, the modular architectures are found to outperform the benchmark case regarding energy consumption, tracking error and speed variation at the expense of a slight cost increase. An assessment of the additional investment cost compared to the increased performance is possible using this evaluation framework".
• 01GPZJE5VZ422ENC3F90BE4NAN abstract "Besides technological innovations in energy production and management technologies, the fight against climate change requires fundamental changes in our energy consumption behavior. Behavioral interventions are key to this process, especially when tailored to different energy consumer segments accounting for their socio-demographic profiles, socio- psychological characteristics and energy consumption practices. In this work, we propose a novel approach to energy consumer segmentation that facilitates the choice of (nudging) interventions for each segment. We call it intervention-driven energy consumer profiling since it explicitly considers upfront the set of interventions that can be delivered to energy consumers and defines profiles that can be readily matched with them. The profiles are specified as combinations of socio-psychological factors with implications for energy-saving behavior and are parameterized by thresholds that measure how strongly these factors are represented in each profile. One profile represents ideal energy-savers, whereas each of the remaining five profiles shares one or two distinct features that serve as barriers towards energy-saving behavior and/or prescribe specific type of nudging interventions for strengthening such behavior. We use the responses of users to a European-wide online survey to formulate and solve an optimization problem for these thresholds and then assign the survey respondents to the profiles. Finally, we analyze them also in terms of socio-demographic variables and recommend appropriate nudging interventions for them.".
• 01GPZKF2KGYGRWK7X1Y5K32K02 abstract "High-temperature heat pumps represent an emerging technology with a great potential in supplying clean heat to energy intensive industries. Suitable refrigerants for high-temperature heat pumps (up to 200 °C) have not been identified yet. This work aims to analyze the performance of binary mixtures as working fluid in high-temperature heat pumps delivering heat up to 200 °C with a special focus on zeotropic mixtures. Three relevant processes with different heat sources and sinks were selected to integrate the heat pump: latent/latent (e.g. distillation processes), latent/sensible (e.g. superheated steam drying), sensible/sensible (e.g. pressurized water production). To determine the best working fluid and cycle configuration for each process, an optimization framework was developed with the maximization of the coefficient of performance as objective function. For the first case with a latent heat sink and heat source, the best performing binary mixtures were near-azeotropic with slightly higher coefficient of performance compared to pure fluids. Moreover, binary mixtures provided several advantages such as the reduction of the compression ratio and compressor outlet temperature compared to pure fluids. A similar behavior was observed for the second case with a latent heat source and a sensible heat sink. For the third case with a sensible heat sink and heat source, binary mixtures resulted in a higher coefficient of performance (10 %) compared to pure fluids. Most of the best performing mixtures were hydrocarbons with high risk of flammability. Water/ammonia was the only mildly-flammable mixture among the top mixtures.".
• 01GPZN6KSMJGNBG350A9WW7SWD abstract "The initial step in bile duct development is the formation of a biliary lumen, a process which involves several cellular mechanisms, such as cell division and polarization, and secretion of fluid. However, how these mechanisms are orchestrated in time and space is difficult to understand. Here, we built a computational model of biliary lumen formation which represents every cell and its function in detail. With the model we can simulate the effect of biophysical aspects that affect duct formation. We have tested the individual and combined effects of directed cell division, apical constriction, and osmotic effects on lumen expansion by varying the parameters that control their relative strength. Our simulations suggest that successful bile duct lumen formation requires the simultaneous contribution of directed cell division of cholangiocytes, local osmotic effects generated by salt excretion in the lumen, and temporally-controlled differentiation of hepatoblasts to cholangiocytes, with apical constriction of cholangiocytes only moderately affecting luminal size. Biliary ducts collect bile from liver lobules, the smallest functional and anatomical units of liver, and carry it to the gallbladder. Disruptions in this process caused by defective embryonic development, or through ductal reaction in liver disease have a major impact on life quality and survival of patients. A deep understanding of the processes underlying bile duct lumen formation is crucial to identify intervention points to avoid or treat the appearance of defective bile ducts. Several hypotheses have been proposed to characterize the biophysical mechanisms driving initial bile duct lumen formation during embryogenesis. Here, guided by the quantification of morphological features and expression of genes in bile ducts from embryonic mouse liver, we sharpened these hypotheses and collected data to develop a high resolution individual cell-based computational model that enables to test alternative hypotheses in silico. This model permits realistic simulations of tissue and cell mechanics at sub-cellular scale. Our simulations suggest that successful bile duct lumen formation requires a simultaneous contribution of directed cell division of cholangiocytes, local osmotic effects generated by salt excretion in the lumen, and temporally-controlled differentiation of hepatoblasts to cholangiocytes, with apical constriction of cholangiocytes only moderately affecting luminal size.".
• 01GPZPS6PWPT2RSS879RZKY2YD abstract "In this issue of Structure, Ge et al. report an epitope-directed strategy to select antibodies specific for Frizzled subtypes. Structural and biochemical analyses provide mechanistic insights into the target binding of the isolated antibodies that could guide the design of reagents and therapeutics targeting distinct Frizzled receptors.".
• 01GPZPW9XSNAF5Q28T1YJVY1RX abstract "Abstract Objective: To determine whether intravenous (IV) or oral iron suppletion is superior in improving physical fitness in anemic children with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Study design: We conducted a clinical trial at 11 centers. Children aged 8 to 18 with IBD and anemia (defined as hemoglobin (Hb) z-score < -2) were randomly assigned to a single IV dose of ferric carboxymaltose or 12 weeks of oral ferrous fumarate. Primary endpoint was the change in 6-minute walking distance (6MWD) from baseline, expressed as z-score. Secondary outcome was a change in Hb z-score from baseline. Results: We randomized 64 patients (33 IV iron; 31 oral iron) and followed them for 6 months. One month after the start of iron therapy, the 6MWD z-score of patients in the IV group had increased by 0.71 compared with -0.11 in the oral group (P=0.01). At 3- and 6-months follow-up, no significant differences in 6MWD z-scores were observed. Hb z-scores gradually increased in both groups and the rate of increase was not different between groups at 1, 3 and 6 months after initiation of iron therapy (overall P=0.97). Conclusion: In this trial involving anemic children with IBD, a single dose of IV ferric carboxymaltose was superior to oral ferrous fumarate with respect to quick improvement of physical fitness. At 3 and 6 months after initiation of therapy, no differences were discovered between oral or IV therapy. The increase of Hb over time was comparable in both treatment groups. Trial registration: NTR4487 [Netherlands Trial Registry]. Keywords: Crohn’s disease; Ulcerative Colitis; anemia; children; iron suppletion.".
• 01GPZPXEEFBTDF75A9W1R0QTRY abstract "Antibody drugs should exhibit not only high-binding affinity for their target antigens but also favorable physicochemical drug-like properties. Such drug-like biophysical properties are essential for the successful development of antibody drug products. The traditional approaches used in antibody drug development require significant experimentation to produce, optimize, and characterize many candidates. Therefore, it is attractive to integrate new methods that can optimize the process of selecting antibodies with both desired target-binding and drug-like biophysical properties. Here, we summarize a selection of techniques that can complement the conventional toolbox used to de-risk antibody drug development. These techniques can be integrated at different stages of the antibody development process to reduce the frequency of physicochemical liabilities in antibody libraries during initial discovery and to co-optimize multiple antibody features during early-stage antibody engineering and affinity maturation. Moreover, we highlight biophysical and computational approaches that can be used to predict physical degradation pathways relevant for long-term storage and in-use stability to reduce the need for extensive experimentation.".
• 01GPZQSN8H0GN74PAV62RQEZE0 abstract "This doctoral research made an attempt to combine several inter-related theoretical concepts to study the lived citizenship of migrant families who, through rural-urban migration, settled formally or informally in suburban areas of Ulaanbaatar city, referred to as ger areas. Lived realities of people in vulnerable situations, including migrants living at peripheries, have been insufficiently reflected in social policies and strategies in many places, and in Mongolia in particular. Dynamics of internal migration critically affect population and resource distribution within boundaries where, in the case of less developed countries, migrants are at risk of facing marginality, social exclusion and mixed sense of belonging. Acknowledging this argument, this research highlighted that there is a lack of research on local resources, relationships and life worlds of ger residents and these crucial aspects to understand the lives of ger residents have not been considered in the development of policy measures and social work practices. Therefore, this research built on the crucial premise that the “policy approach in Mongolia overshoots its aim as it suffers from a vital lack of knowledge about what is considered meaningful for ger residents themselves in shaping their lives.”".
• 01GPZRSAEPSR6526ANVCENZNXC abstract "In future 6G wireless networks, it is important to ensure that equal opportunity is offered to citizens and businesses regardless of location with a dynamic and efficient expansion of the infrastructure. Dynamic coverage and connectivity extension mechanisms exploiting multiple types of Mobile Access Points (MAPs) during a short amount of time for covering areas that cannot be easily reached, are developed by DEDICAT 6G project. This service is called Coverage Extension as a Service (CEaaS). This paper proposes a system architecture for CEaaS and the functionalities that the DEDICAT 6G platform will offer. This includes context awareness (i.e. knowledge about users and technology recognition), coverage extension decision making (i.e. MAP and swarm operation) and network operation decision making (i.e. MAP-user association and radio access technology selection). Furthermore, performance results of DEDICAT 6G framework for CEaaS are presented.".
• 01GPZRSYFHYKQ3Q5YYNH3C7K9F abstract "Intestinal infection of many host species with Lawsonia intracellularis are widely reported. Analyses of infections among carnivorous falcons have not previously been reported. Fifty juvenile captive falcons (Falco spp.) with or without Lawsonia infection were investigated in the United Arab Emirates, including clinical laboratory methods. Fresh intestinal biopsy samples were analysed by microbiological techniques for Lawsonia and other bacteria and by standard parasitological and pathological methods. Lawsonia intracellularis infection was diagnosed by microbiological examination and qPCR in 10 of 50 juvenile falcons at case examination. Seven of these 10 falcons were of normal clinical appearance, and the other three had other contributing factors to ill-thrift. A range of other conditions were noted in 40 case control falcons. This first report of Lawsonia infection in falcons suggests that the agent may have a limited contribution to clinical disease in these birds, including ill-thrift syndromes. This lack of clinical disease association mimics that noted among Lawsonia infections recorded in other avian families.".
• 01GPZXE17FBC4YWBC8HWTM7CJV abstract "BackgroundTo address the many challenges health systems and communities face, primary care is constantly searching for new strategies to improve quality of care. One of the strategies is to focus on patients' personal goals to direct the care process. To adopt an explicit focus on patients' personal goals, actions at different levels are required. As a first step in this process, this study aims to explore the experiences of primary care stakeholders (i.e., scholars, primary care providers, and policy makers) and develop a comprehensive understanding on the idea 'putting patients' goals first'. This will help to formulate suggestions about what these actions should include.MethodIn this study, 41 primary care stakeholders participating in six focus groups between January 2020 and September 2020, were recruited via maximal variation purposive sampling. Data collection was done through an open-ended semi-structured interview guide. Focus groups were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed following a phenomenological-hermeneutical philosophy of Lindseth and Norberg.ResultsAll participants expressed a strong fundamental belief for putting patients' personal goals first. The primary care providers shared that they created space for patients' personal goals by letting them talk about their values and stories. They reported to integrate their medical expertise with patients' personal goals in order to develop a balanced relationship. In this context, they also talked about the importance of taking into account the perspectives of patients' significant others. Primary care providers also talked about how they used patients' personal goals as a guide in interprofessional collaboration. Scholars denoted that (future) care providers need more training to acquire competencies to discuss patients' personal goals. The providers and policy makers talked about organizational limitations in terms of time restrictions and the lack of registration systems to support a workflow oriented towards patients' personal goals.ConclusionsThis study can be used to support the coherence of the development of different actions and strategies to get primary care stakeholders fully on board to support the adoption of patients' personal goals in care delivery at different levels. However, models of practice and policy plans are needed to work towards a person-centered integrated system.".
• 01GPZXPKXFQ5KV5EKJQ302S89T abstract "Recent studies have suggested that species of the Kazachstania genus may be interesting models of yeast domestication. Among these, Kazachstania barnettii has been isolated from various microbially transformed foodstuffs such as sourdough bread and kefir. In the present work, we sequence, assemble, and annotate the complete genomes of two K. barnettii strains: CLIB 433, being one of the two reference strains for K. barnettii that was isolated as a spoilage organism in soft drink, and CLIB 1767, recently isolated from artisan bread-making sourdough. Both assemblies are of high quality with N50 statistics greater than 1.3 Mb and BUSCO score greater than 99%. An extensive comparison of the two obtained genomes revealed very few differences between the two K. barnettii strains, considering both genome structure and gene content. The proposed genome assemblies will constitute valuable references for future comparative genomic, population genomic, or transcriptomic studies of the K. barnettii species.".
• 01GPZXZ7QWJMDMDSK80763Q0PG abstract "Objective Childhood cancer survivors experience reduced physical activity level, participation as well as health-related quality of life. This prospective, pre-/post-intervention and follow-up cohort study aims to determine the efficacy of an interdisciplinary rehabilitation on improving physical fitness, fatigue and body composition. Methods A total of 24 childhood cancer survivors (mean age: 12.15 years +/- 3.2; 14 females; 10 males) were recruited 6 months after medical treatment and received a 4-month interdisciplinary intervention. Cardiorespiratory fitness (PredVO(2peak) and PredLoad(max)), body composition (dry lean weight) and quality of life (general fatigue) were assessed at baseline, post-intervention and 1-year follow-up. Linear mixed models were used to analyse data. Results Linear mixed modelling revealed a significant main effect of time on predicted maximal load (F = 13.189, df = 36.179, p < 0.001), dry lean weight (F = 64.813, df = 37.019, p < 0.001) but also significant improvement of general fatigue score (-9.039 +/- 4.300, 95% CI -17.741 to -0.336, p = 0.042), indicating a decline in general fatigue. Conclusion With emerging evidence that physical activity is safe and feasible, together with increasing numbers of childhood cancer survivors at risk for long-term chronic co-morbidities, this study advocates for better access to interdisciplinary rehabilitation programmes in order to improve their physical condition and their body composition and reduce fatigue.".
• 01GPZYPF3M5MRPV8WMM3E8MBTR abstract "Background: 'Nebbiolo' is a grapevine cultivar typical of north-western Italy, appreciated for producing high-quality red wines. Grapevine cultivars are characterized by possessing highly heterozygous genomes, including a great incidence of genomic rearrangements larger than 50 bp, so called structural variations (SVs). Even though abundant, SVs are an under-explored source of genetic variation mainly due to methodological limitations at their detection. Results: We employed a multiple platform approach to produce long-range genomic data for two different 'Nebbiolo' clones, namely: optical mapping, long-reads and linked-reads. We performed a haplotype-resolved de novo assembly for cultivar 'Nebbiolo' (clone CVT 71) and used an ab-initio strategy to annotate it. The annotated assembly enhanced our ability to detect SVs, enabling the study of genomic regions not present in the grapevines' reference genome and accounting for their functional implications. We performed variant calling analyses at three different organizational levels: i) between haplotypes of clone CVT 71 (primary assembly vs haplotigs), ii) between 'Nebbiolo' and 'Cabernet Sauvignon' assemblies and iii) between clones CVT 71 and CVT 185, representing different 'Nebbiolo' biotypes. The cumulative size of non-redundant merged SVs indicated a total of 79.6 Mbp for the first comparison and 136.1 Mbp for the second one, while no SVs were detected for the third comparison. Interestingly, SVs differentiating cultivars and haplotypes affected similar numbers of coding genes. Conclusions: Our results suggest that SVs accumulation rate and their functional implications in 'Nebbiolo' genome are highly-dependent on the organizational level under study. SVs are abundant when comparing 'Nebbiolo' to a different cultivar or the two haplotypes of the same individual, while they turned absent between the two analysed clones.".
• 01GQ0092FTW9GM8G35N4AHX775 abstract "Lignin is a technological bottleneck to convert polysaccharides into fermentable sugars, and different strategies of genetic-based metabolic engineering have been applied to improve biomass saccharification. Using maize seedlings grown hydroponically for 24 h, we conducted a quick non-transgenic approach with five enzyme inhibitors of the lignin and tricin pathways. Two compounds [3,4-(methylenedioxy)cinnamic acid: MDCA and 2,4-pyridinedicarboxylic acid: PDCA] revealed interesting findings on root growth, lignin composition, and saccharification. By inhibiting hydroxycinnamoyl-CoA ligase, a key enzyme of phenylpropanoid pathway, MDCA decreased the lignin content and improved saccharification, but it decreased root growth. By inhibiting flavone synthase, a key enzyme of tricin biosynthesis, PDCA decreased total lignin content and improved saccharification without affecting root growth. PDCA was three-fold more effective than MDCA, suggesting that controlling lignin biosynthesis with enzymatic inhibitors may be an attractive strategy to improve biomass saccharification.".
• 01GQ019FKZEHC7PXX42FBH6M16 abstract "Summary: To advance biomedical research, increasingly large amounts of complex data need to be discovered and integrated. This requires syntactic and semantic validation to ensure shared understanding of relevant entities. This article describes the ELIXIR biovalidator, which extends the syntactic validation of the widely used AJV library with ontology-based validation of JSON documents.".
• 01GQ01X228VHJ25CGD3SKEZKEH abstract "Background: Many biological processes follow circadian rhythmicity and are controlled by the circadian clock. Predictable environmental changes such as seasonal variation in photoperiod can modulate circadian rhythms, allowing organisms to adjust the timing of their biological processes to the time of the year. In some crops such as rice, barley or soybean, mutations in circadian clock genes have altered photoperiod sensitivity, enhancing their cultivability in specific seasons and latitudes. However, how changes in circadian rhythms interact with the perception of photoperiod in crops remain poorly studied. In tomato, the appearance during domestication of mutations in EMPFINDLICHER IM DUNKELROTEN LICHT 1 (EID1, Solyc09g075080) and NIGHT LIGHT-INDUCIBLE AND CLOCK-REGULATED GENE 2 (LNK2, Solyc01g068560) delayed both the phase and period of its circadian rhythms. The fact that variation in period and phase are separated in tomato provides an optimal tool to study how these factors affect the perception of photoperiod. Results: Here we develop tomato near isogenic lines carrying combinations of wild alleles of EID1 and LNK2 and show that they recreate the changes in phase and period that occurred during its domestication. We perform transcriptomic profiling of these near isogenic lines under two different photoperiods, and observe that EID1, but not LNK2, has a large effect on how the tomato transcriptome responds to photoperiod. This large effect of EID1 is likely a consequence of the global phase shift elicited by this gene in tomato's circadian rhythms. Conclusions: Our study shows that changes in phase that occurred during tomato domestication determine photoperiod perception in this species, while changes in period have little effect.".
• 01GQ05T6KEF7FDPJ8Y0D1JMH4A abstract "The evolution of costly traits such as deer antlers and peacock trains, which drove the formation of Darwinian sexual selection theory, has been suggested to both reflect and affect patterns of genetic variance across the genome, but direct tests are missing. Here, we used an evolve and resequence approach to reveal patterns of genome-wide diversity associated with the expression of a sexually selected weapon that is dimorphic among males of the bulb mite, Rhizoglyphus robini. Populations selected for the weapon showed reduced genome-wide diversity compared to populations selected against the weapon, particularly in terms of the number of segregating non-synonymous positions, indicating enhanced purifying selection. This increased purifying selection reduced inbreeding depression, but outbred female fitness did not improve, possibly because any benefits were offset by increased sexual antagonism. Most single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that consistently diverged in response to selection were initially rare and overrepresented in exons, and enriched in regions under balancing or relaxed selection, suggesting they are probably moderately deleterious variants. These diverged SNPs were scattered across the genome, further demonstrating that selection for or against the weapon and the associated changes to the mating system can both capture and influence genome-wide variation.".
• 01GQ06EY97782GVATMK5EGFG06 abstract "A border-crossing performance par excellence translation often acts as a window on foreign cultures and regions. As the first truly mass medium, newspapers engaged in a transnational dialogue throughout the 19th century. However, reporting on foreign news events is only part of their discourse on regions abroad. Due to its compelling nature translated fiction provided the readership with a pervasive image of foreign regions. In my research on translations of Russian literature in Dutch newspapers the depiction and expression of the foreignness is one of the lines of inquiry. During the 19th and 20th century, Russian literature acted as a hub of knowledge on Russia and all things Russian. Focusing on the representation of Siberia in Dutch newspapers, I argue that fiction largely attributed to the image of a dark, dangerous region populated by loners and inmates. Initially driven by curiosity about this remote region, the discourse became dominated by stereotypes, a paradox that I aim to tackle. Joining translation and periodical studies, two fields that have recently seen greatly increased interest, this paper ponders how we can stage critically informed close readings of the extraordinary number of translations that appeared in newspapers and magazines. Its aim is to begin constructing an empirical approach that focuses on questions of discourse and cultural representation. References Brolsma, Marjet 2021 Een Nederlands Ruslandcomplex? De bekoring van Rusland als ‘onbedorven Oosten’ in de Jaren twintig. Over de Russische invloed op de Nederlandse cultuur. Uitgave ter gelegenheid van het twintigjarig bestaan van het Nederlands Instituut in Sint-Petersburg: 32-57, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Fólica, Laura, Diana Roig-Sanz & Stefania Caristia (eds.) 2020 Literary Translation in Periodicals: Methodological challenges for a transnational approach. (Benjamin Translation Library vol. 155), Amsterdam: Benjamins. O’Connor, Anne 2019 Translation in nineteenth-century periodicals. Materialities and modalities of communication. Translation and Interpreting Studies 14/2: 243-264.".
• 01GQ06H57XE7B6JNKSA7MTYYXE abstract "Entomopathogenic fungi (EF) provide a potent biocontrol tool; also, their endophytic behavior has broadened their contribution to integrated pest management (IPM) and crop production. In this work, Beauveria bassiana and Metarhizium brunneum were applied to bread wheat (Triticum aestivum) seedlings to elucidate how fungal colonization influences plant growth and the relative expression of 24 genes involved in hormonal syntheses and plant immune mechanisms. A preliminary assay was used to determine the time needed for fungal colonization and assess its effect on wheat growth. Then, plant material collected at various times after inoculation (viz., 2, 8, 20, and 36 h and 9 and 15 days) was used to investigate gene expression by quantitative reverse transcription PCR (RT-qPCR). During the colonization time, B. bassiana and M. brunneum caused strong downregulation of most genes associated with plant immunity and the synthesis of hormones like auxin, cytokinin, and gibberellin. This effect was concomitant with a slowdown of endophytic-colonization-related plant growth until 19 days postinoculation (dpi). However, the wheat started to recover at 15 dpi, simultaneously with upregulation of auxin- and gibberellin-related genes. The results suggest that the EF trigger induced systemic resistance rather than acquired systemic resistance during early plant-microbe cross talk in wheat. Also, they confirm that the hormone and immune responses of wheat triggered by EF inoculation influenced plant growth, which can be useful with a view to optimizing management of these microorganisms for sustainable agriculture. IMPORTANCE Microbial control of insect and mite pests is a key tool to develop integrated pest management (IPM) and sustainable agriculture. Entomopathogenic fungi (EF) may have associations with the plants, playing additional ecological roles in the rhizosphere, in the phylloplane, and as plant endophytes. Beauveria bassiana 04/01TIP and Metarhizium brunneum 01/58Su are two strains that showed very good results either in pest control or plant growth promotion and would be good candidates to develop mycoinsecticides as an alternative to pesticides. However, deep knowledge about their interaction with the plant would let farmers optimize their use and understand the plant response, enhancing and promoting their broader contribution to IPM and crop production.".
• 01GQ0781CG4BGW1FKJTSXYW9TP abstract "Metacaspases are essential cysteine proteases present in plants, fungi, and protists that are regulated by calcium binding and proteolytic maturation through mechanisms not yet understood. Here, we developed and validated activity-based probes for the three main metacaspase types, and used them to study calcium-mediated activation of metacaspases from their precursors in vitro. By combining substrate-inspired tetrapeptide probes containing an acyloxymethylketone (AOMK) reactive group, with purified representatives of type-I, type-II, and type-III metacaspases, we were able to demonstrate that labeling of mature metacaspases is strictly dependent on calcium. The probe with the highest affinity for all metacaspases also labels higher molecular weight proteoforms of all three metacaspases only in the presence of calcium, displaying the active, unprocessed metacaspase intermediates. Our data suggest that metacaspase activation proceeds through previously unknown active intermediates that are formed upon calcium binding, before precursor processing.".
• 01GQ08V7SSVKT9M87HVRDYXM42 abstract "This case report describes a man in his 60s who was referred to the department of dermatology for further evaluation of a lesion on the nose.".
• 01GQ0AM8QAQFDDQ14D9HKADFT3 abstract "Tutte proved that every planar 4-connected graph is hamiltonian. Thomassen showed that the same conclusion holds for the superclass of planar graphs with minimum degree at least 4 in which all vertex-deleted subgraphs are hamiltonian. We here prove that if in a planar n $n$-vertex graph with minimum degree at least 4 at least n-5 $n-5$ vertex-deleted subgraphs are hamiltonian, then the graph contains two hamiltonian cycles, but that for every c<1 $c\lt 1$ there exists a nonhamiltonian polyhedral n $n$-vertex graph with minimum degree at least 4 containing cn $cn$ hamiltonian vertex-deleted subgraphs. Furthermore, we study the hamiltonicity of planar triangulations and their vertex-deleted subgraphs as well as Bondy's meta-conjecture, and prove that a polyhedral graph with minimum degree at least 4 in which all vertex-deleted subgraphs are traceable, must itself be traceable.".
• 01GQ0AVB4HACFE8JK0VE46DBTN abstract "Properly and effectively managing reference datasets is an important task for many bioinformatics analyses. Refgenie is a reference asset management system that allows users to easily organize, retrieve and share such datasets. Here, we describe the integration of refgenie into the Galaxy platform. Server administrators are able to configure Galaxy to make use of reference datasets made available on a refgenie instance. In addition, a Galaxy Data Manager tool has been developed to provide a graphical interface to refgenie’s remote reference retrieval functionality. A large collection of reference datasets has also been made available using the CVMFS (CernVM File System) repository from GalaxyProject.org, with mirrors across the USA, Canada, Europe and Australia, enabling easy use outside of Galaxy. Availability and implementation The ability of Galaxy to use refgenie assets was added to the core Galaxy framework in version 22.01, which is available from https://github.com/galaxyproject/galaxy under the Academic Free License version 3.0. The refgenie Data Manager tool can be installed via the Galaxy ToolShed, with source code managed at https://github.com/BlankenbergLab/galaxy-tools-blankenberg/tree/main/data_managers/data_manager_refgenie_pull and released using an MIT license. Access to existing data is also available through CVMFS, with instructions at https://galaxyproject.org/admin/reference-data-repo/. No new data were generated or analyzed in support of this research.".
• 01GQ0DDA9G6624JWXK4DD0AA6R abstract "Stroke kills an estimated 5 million people worldwide each year, with developing countries contributing 3.3 million; the number one cause of stroke is hypertension. Stroke deaths moved from the 7th (2009) to the 3rd (2019) place as a leading cause of mortality in Rwanda, counting for 5.1% of total deaths. Provider adherence to screening and treatment protocols can help to control hypertension and its complications in Rwanda. Improving public awareness of the causes and symptoms of stroke can prevent over 130 stroke deaths per year.".
• 01GQ0FHCZ7ZG2M1HAKC71EEVPR abstract "Background The accessibility of blood and blood products remains challenging in many countries because of the complex supply chain of short lifetime products, timely access, and demand fluctuation at the hospital level. In an effort to improve availability and delivery times, Rwanda launched the use of drones to deliver blood products to remote health facilities. We evaluated the effect of this intervention on blood product delivery times and wastage. Methods We studied data from 20 health facilities between Jan 1, 2015, and Dec 31, 2019, in Rwanda. First, we did a cross-sectional comparison of data on emergency delivery times from the drone operator collected between March 17, 2017, and Dec 31, 2019, with two sources of estimated driving times (Regional Centre for Blood Transfusion estimates and Google Maps). Second, we used interrupted time series analysis and monthly administrative data to assess changes in blood product expirations after the commencement of drone deliveries. Findings Between March 17, 2017, and Dec 31, 2019, 12 733 blood product orders were delivered by drones. 5517 (43%) of 12 733 were emergency orders. The mean drone delivery time was 49.6 min (95% CI 49.1 to 50.2), which was 79 min faster than existing road delivery methods based on estimated driving times (p<0.0001) and 98 min faster based on Google Maps estimates (p<0.0001). The decrease in mean delivery time ranged from 3 min to 211 min depending on the distance to the facility and road quality. We also found a decrease of 7.1 blood unit expirations per month after the start of drone delivery (95% CI -11.8 to -2.4), which translated to a 67% reduction at 12 months. Interpretation We found that drone delivery led to faster delivery times and less blood component wastage in health facilities. Future studies should investigate if these improvements are cost-effective, and whether drone delivery might be effective for other pharmaceutical and health supplies that cannot be easily stored at remote facilities. Copyright (C) 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.".
• 01GQ0MNB9V8BWFFYBVVMK85C11 abstract "This paper reports on a set of proof-of-concept experiments performed to evaluate and improve the alignment of monolingual embeddings for a specialised domain, viz. the medical use case of heart failure. The presented approach, which creates domain-specific dictionaries on-the-fly from cross-lingual Wikipedia links, achieves good results for cross-lingual alignment of this specialised vocabulary in three language pairs: English-Dutch, English-French, and Dutch-French. The experimental results show that the setup incorporating a smaller but dedicated domain-specific dictionary outperforms the alignment incorporating a larger but general-domain seed dictionary. A detailed error analysis reveals that many potentially useful (near-)equivalents are found beyond those present in the gold standard, and it inspires strategies for further improvements, such as lemmatisation and improved tokenisation.".
• 01GQ0PF9VQCVTRT6H13KKCEVVK abstract "The OJAE team has developed an assessment method designated as OJAE Oral Japanese Assessment Europe, based on the plurilingual and -cultural ideas of the CEFR. In the present panel the team offers a Workshop on the methodology as a paradigm-change based on its "Communication Observations".".
• 01GQ0QGPY0J2RFJE3D3M1QBN6D abstract "The economic impact of fire needs to be considered on a macro and micro scale, from the national impact to the cost of fire protection and return on investment. This article presents the outcomes of the project “Economic Impact of Fire: Cost and Impact of Fire Protection in Buildings” which was carried out from October 2021 to July 2022 with the support of the NFPA Research Foundation. The project established and applied a methodology for evaluating the total benefits and costs related to fire protection features in buildings, such as sprinklers or passive fire protection. The methodology, based on Present Net Value (PNV) evaluation, provides a systematic approach to assess cost effectiveness of investments in fire safety features while accounting for the various dimensions of fire impact and fire losses. The methodology has been applied to five case studies with different building types. Sensitivity studies allow evaluating the robustness of the cost-benefit evaluations and highlighting the effect of input data on the outcome. The proposed methodology can support decision making for policy makers, insurance companies, and individual building owners, to inform the most efficient investments for fire safety.".
• 01GQ0YHAAPAK5SZ408FVNECSAY abstract "The primary purpose of this study is to map the temporal impact of a transformational leadership development intervention on leaders' awareness in the two public universities. Deans and heads from the two universities were involved in a six-week-long intervention. To study the short-term impact, an evaluation was conducted three months after the initial intervention with leaders of University A, and one year later, the next evaluation was conducted with leaders from University B to study the long-term impact. Semi-structured interviews and a case study method were adopted for data collection, and content analysis was carried out to identify indicators of awareness levels in leadership behaviours. Compared to the immediate post-intervention evaluation results, awareness levels decreased, but the results were still sufficiently robust compared to the baseline awareness levels measured in a control group. Implications and recommendations for future research will be discussed.".
• 01GQ125NPYTQKR9DMA5J5ZQA3K abstract "In the past decade, an unregulated system of sperm donation has developed in parallel with the formal system of fertility clinics and sperm banks. In the present paper, a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) is presented of this new development. The most important strength of the informal system is the demedicalization of sperm donation and thus the increase of women's reproductive autonomy. The main weakness seems to be the possibility of abuse and morally questionable behaviour on the part of donors. Most other reported disadvantages are based on a comparison with the formal system. A closer look, however, reveals that most of these disadvantages (no ability to limit the number of offspring per donor, no genetic testing or verification of information) also exist in the formal system. The informal system has a bright future, as regulators tend to impose ever more restrictions on institutional sperm banks, thus increasing the medicalization and costs for the users. Relaxation of quality and safety measures, flexibility in rules regarding the relationship between donor and recipient, and cost reduction in the formal system would be the main threats to unregulated sperm donation.".
• 01GQ1X8N3AZ7CM7SMAZ4VF63JQ abstract "RNA viruses have recently been detected in association with house dust mites, including laboratory cultures, dust samples, and mite-derived pharmaceuticals used for allergy diagnosis. This study aimed to assess the incidence of viral infection on Dermatophagoides pteronyssinus physiology and on the allergenic performance of extracts derived from its culture. Transcriptional changes between genetically identical control and virus-infected mite colonies were analysed by RNAseq with the support of a new D. pteronyssinus high-quality annotated genome (56.8 Mb, 108 scaffolds, N50 = 2.73 Mb, 96.7% BUSCO-completeness). Extracts of cultures and bodies from both colonies were compared by inspecting major allergen accumulation by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), allergen-related enzymatic activities by specific assays, airway inflammation in a mouse model of allergic asthma, and binding to allergic patient's sera IgE by ImmunoCAP. Viral infection induced a significant transcriptional response, including several immunity and stress-response genes, and affected the expression of seven allergens, putative isoallergens and allergen orthologs. Major allergens were unaffected except for Der p 23 that was upregulated, increasing ELISA titers up to 29% in infected-mite extracts. By contrast, serine protease allergens Der p 3, 6 and 9 were downregulated, being trypsin and chymotrypsin enzymatic activities reduced up to 21% in extracts. None of the parameters analysed in our mouse model, nor binding to human IgE were significantly different when comparing control and infected-mite extracts. Despite the described physiological impact of viral infection on the mites, no significant consequences for the allergenicity of derived extracts or their practical use in allergy diagnosis have been detected.".
• 01GQ1YC7PZ3YAWZX9Q7V42DN4Z abstract "The objective of the study was to investigate the efficacy of bentonite and fumonisin esterase, separately or combined, in mitigating the effects of aflatoxins (AF) and fumonisins (FUM) in Boran and Friesian-Boran crossbreed cattle. These effects were studied by measuring mycotoxins, their metabolites, and biomarkers that relate to animal health, productivity, and food safety. The study was divided into three experiments each lasting for 2 weeks. Cows in experiment 1 received in random order aflatoxin B1 (AFB1) [788 mu g/cow/day (69.7 mu g/kg dry matter intake (DMI)) for Borans and 2,310 mu g/cow/day (154 mu g/kg DMI) for crossbreeds], bentonite (60 g/cow/day), or both AFB1 and bentonite. Boran cows in experiment 2 received in random order FUM (12.4 mg/cow/day (1.1 mg/kg DMI)), fumonisin esterase (120 U/cow/day), or both FUM and fumonisin esterase. Boran cows in experiment 3 received in random order AFB1 (952 mu g/cow/day (84.2 mu g/kg DMI)) + FUM (30.4 mg/cow/day (2.7 mg/kg DMI)), bentonite (60 g/cow/day) + fumonisin esterase (120 U/cow/day), or both AFB1 + FUM and bentonite + fumonisin esterase. Feeding AFB1 and/or FUM contaminated feed with or without the addition of the detoxifiers for 14 days did not affect DMI, milk composition, hematology, and blood biochemical parameters. The addition of bentonite in a diet contaminated with AFB1 led to a decrease in milk aflatoxin M1 (AFM1) concentration of 30% and 43%, with the carry-over subsequently decreasing from 0.35% to 0.20% and 0.08% to 0.06% for crosses and Borans, respectively. No significant change was observed in the sphinganine/sphingosine (Sa/So) ratio following feeding with FUM alone or in combination with fumonisin esterase; however, the ability of fumonisin esterase to hydrolyze FUM into less toxic fully hydrolyzed FUM and partially hydrolyzed FUM was evident in the rumen fluid and feces. These results indicate bentonite was effective in decreasing AFM1 concentration in milk, and AFB1 and AFM1 in plasma, while fumonisin esterase can convert FUM into less toxic metabolites and can be a suitable addition to feed cocontaminated with AFB1 and FUM.".
• 01GQ2162KN4JZ2RSD1ZNM35CJR abstract "Marine environments are globally impacted by vast quantities of munition disposed following both World Wars. Dumped munitions contain conventional explosives, chemicals warfare agents as well as a variety of metals. Field monitoring studies around marine dumpsites report the presence of munition constituents in water and sediment samples. The growing interest and developments in the ocean as a new economic frontier underline the need to remediate existing dumpsites. Here, we provide a comprehensive assessment of the magnitude and potential risks associated with marine munition dumpsites. An overview of the global distribution of dumpsites identifying the most impacted areas is provided, followed by the currently available data on the detection of munition constituents in environmental samples and evidence of their toxic potential to human and environmental health. Finally, existing data gaps are identified and future research needs promoting better understanding of the impact of the dumped material on the marine environment suggested.".
• 01GQ22BEA3QZD0J7QZ002P6ANC abstract "Microphone arrays use spatial diversity for separating concurrent audio sources. Source signals from different directions of arrival (DOAs) are captured with DOA-dependent time-delays between the microphones. These can be exploited in the short-time Fourier transform domain to yield time-frequency masks that extract a target signal while suppressing unwanted components. Using deep neural networks (DNNs) for mask estimation has drastically improved separation performance. However, separation of closely spaced sources remains difficult due to their similar inter-microphone time delays. We propose using auxiliary information on source DOAs within the DNN to improve the separation. This can be encoded by the expected phase differences between the microphones. Alternatively, the DNN can learn a suitable input representation on its own when provided with a multi-hot encoding of the DOAs. Experimental results demonstrate the benefit of this information for separating closely spaced sources.".
• 01GQ22Q21TRDYJG2YVH960HEZ9 abstract "IntroductionSuicide is a serious public health concern worldwide. Current psychological interventions targeting suicidal ideation and behavior are, however, limited and often lack convincing empirical support. Future-Oriented Group Training (FOGT) targets crucial aspects of the suicidal process, thus possibly offering a promising intervention for suicidal ideation. This study aimed at investigating the short-term and long-term effects of FOGT on suicidal thoughts and related variables. MethodsA randomized controlled trial was conducted, comparing the intervention group (FOGT + treatment as usual (TAU)) to a control group (TAU) at pre and posttreatment and at a 12-week follow-up. Suicidal ideation was the primary outcome, while depressive symptoms, hopelessness, defeat, entrapment, worrying, and the ability for future-oriented thinking were secondary outcomes. ResultsWhen compared to the control group, the intervention group showed significant decreases in worrying at posttreatment and significant increases in future-oriented thinking at follow-up. Pre-post analyses within the intervention group showed significant small-to-medium effects for primary as well as most secondary outcomes. Changes in suicidal ideation, depression, hopelessness, and future-oriented thinking remained significant at follow-up. ConclusionThis study provides promising empirical evidence for the use of FOGT for individuals with suicidal ideation.".
• 01GQ24AE1JFCWT62V8P6PAFCD9 abstract "QuestionDigital interventions based on cognitive-behavioural therapy (iCBT) is associated with reductions in suicidal ideation. However, fine-grained analyses of effects and potential effect-moderating variables are missing. This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of iCBT on suicidal ideation, effect moderators, effects on suicide attempts and predictors of adherence. Study selection and analysisWe systematically searched CENTRAL, PsycINFO, Embase and PubMed for randomised controlled trials that investigated iCBT for suicidal ideation or behaviours. Participants reporting baseline suicidal ideation were eligible. We conducted a one-stage individual participant data (IPD) meta-analysis. Suicidal ideation was the primary outcome, analysed as three indices: severity of suicidal ideation, reliable changes and treatment response. FindingsWe included IPD from nine out of ten eligible trials (2037 participants). iCBT showed significant reductions of suicidal ideation compared with control conditions across all indices (severity: b=-0.247, 95% CI -0.322 to -0.173; reliable changes: b=0.633, 95% CI 0.408 to 0.859; treatment response: b=0.606, 95% CI 0.410 to 0.801). In iCBT, the rate of reliable improvement was 40.5% (controls: 27.3%); the deterioration rate was 2.8% (controls: 5.1%). No participant-level moderator effects were identified. The effects on treatment response were higher for trials with waitlist-controls compared with active controls. There were insufficient data on suicide attempts. Human support and female gender predicted treatment adherence. The main source of potential bias was missing outcome data. ConclusionsThe current evidence indicates that iCBT is effective in reducing suicidal ideation irrespective of age, gender and previous suicide attempts. Future studies should rigorously assess suicidal behaviour and drop-out reasons.".
• 01GQ24SN299H5DQWBNDJ6ST0HR abstract "Background Ultrasound for gestational age (GA) assessment is not routinely available in resource-constrained settings, particularly in rural and remote locations. The TraCer device combines a handheld wireless ultrasound probe and a tablet with artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled software that obtains GA from videos of the fetal head by automated measurements of the fetal transcerebellar diameter and head circumference. Objective The aim of this study was to assess the perceptions of pregnant women, their families, and health care workers regarding the feasibility and acceptability of the TraCer device in an appropriate setting. Methods A descriptive study using qualitative methods was conducted in two public health facilities in Kilifi county in coastal Kenya prior to introduction of the new technology. Study participants were shown a video role-play of the use of TraCer at a typical antenatal clinic visit. Data were collected through 6 focus group discussions (N=52) and 18 in-depth interviews. Results Overall, TraCer was found to be highly acceptable to women, their families, and health care workers, and its implementation at health care facilities was considered to be feasible. Its introduction was predicted to reduce anxiety regarding fetal well-being, increase antenatal care attendance, increase confidence by women in their care providers, as well as save time and cost by reducing unnecessary referrals. TraCer was felt to increase the self-image of health care workers and reduce time spent providing antenatal care. Some participants expressed hesitancy toward the new technology, indicating the need to test its performance over time before full acceptance by some users. The preferred cadre of health care professionals to use the device were antenatal clinic nurses. Important implementation considerations included adequate staff training and the need to ensure sustainability and consistency of the service. Misconceptions were common, with a tendency to overestimate the diagnostic capability, and expectations that it would provide complete reassurance of fetal and maternal well-being and not primarily the GA. Conclusions This study shows a positive attitude toward TraCer and highlights the potential role of this innovation that uses AI-enabled automation to assess GA. Clarity of messaging about the tool and its role in pregnancy is essential to address misconceptions and prevent misuse. Further research on clinical validation and related usability and safety evaluations are recommended. Keywords: gestational age, gestation, gynecology, gynecologist, prenatal, antenatal, maternal, fetus, fetal, ultrasound, imaging, pregnancy dating, handheld, portable, trust, artificial intelligence, sub-Saharan Africa, Africa, low cost, LMIC, low income, feasibility, acceptability, AI, pregnancy, pregnant, maternity, women's health, obstetrics, obstetrician, rural, remote, remote location, misconception, eHealth, digital health".

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