Apathy is a very common behavioural and psychological symptom across brain disorders. In the last decade, there have been considerable advances in research on apathy and motivation. It is thus ...important to revise the apathy diagnostic criteria published in 2009. The main objectives were to: a) revise the definition of apathy; b) update the list of apathy dimensions; c) operationalise the diagnostic criteria; and d) suggest appropriate assessment tools including new technologies.
The expert panel (N = 23) included researchers and health care professionals working on brain disorders and apathy, a representative of a regulatory body, and a representative of the pharmaceutical industry. The revised diagnostic criteria for apathy were developed in a two-step process. First, following the standard Delphi methodology, the experts were asked to answer questions via web-survey in two rounds. Second, all the collected information was discussed on the occasion of the 26th European Congress of Psychiatry held in Nice (France).
Apathy was defined as a quantitative reduction of goal-directed activity in comparison to the patient’s previous level of functioning (criterion A). Symptoms must persist for at least four weeks, and affect at least two of the three apathy dimensions (behaviour/cognition; emotion; social interaction; criterion B). Apathy should cause identifiable functional impairments (criterion C), and should not be fully explained by other factors, such as effects of a substance or major changes in the patient’s environment (Criterion D).
The new diagnostic criteria for apathy provide a clinical and scientific framework to increase the validity of apathy as a clinical construct. This should also help to pave the path for apathy in brain disorders to be an interventional target.
Mining contributes importantly to tropical deforestation and land degradation. To mitigate these effects, mining companies are increasingly obliged to restore abandoned mine lands, but factors ...driving restoration success are hardly evaluated. Here, we investigate the influence of ecological factors (restoration age, soil properties and surrounding forest area) and management factors (diversity and density of planted species, mine zone) on the recovery rate of forest structure and tree diversity on 40 post-mining restoration areas in Southern Amazonia, Brazil, using a 9-year annual monitoring dataset consisting of over 25 000 trees. We found that recovery of forest structure was closely associated with interactions between soil quality and the planted tree communities, and that tree diversity recovery was positively associated with the amount of surrounding forests. We also observed that forest structure and diversity recover more slowly in mine tailings compared to pit surroundings. Our study confirms the complexity of mine land restoration but also reveals that planting design and soil improvement can increase restoration success. For resource-efficient mine restoration, we recommend the focusing of efforts on tailings, which are hardest to restore, and reducing efforts in pit surroundings and areas close to surrounding forest because of their potential for restoration by natural regeneration. This article is part of the theme issue 'Understanding forest landscape restoration: reinforcing scientific foundations for the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration'.
•Accurate simulations of forest regeneration under climate change remain aspirations.•Tree regeneration models often rely on strong assumptions.•More dynamic representations of forest regeneration ...are needed.•Increasing the ecological data basis is required to close knowledge gaps.
Climate change impacts on Europe’s forests are becoming visible much sooner than previously anticipated. The increase in natural disturbances leads to tree mortality and raises concerns about the forest’s adaptive potential to sustain vital ecosystem services. In this context, the regeneration phase is crucial and comprises the largest potential to adapt to new environmental conditions with long lasting implications. Yet, forest regeneration is particularly susceptible to climatic changes due to the many directly climate-dependent processes, such as seed production and germination but also seedling and sapling development. Models of forest dynamics (MFDs) are essential to describe, understand and predict the effects of changing environmental and management factors on forest dynamics and subsequently on associated ecosystem services. We review a large variety of MFDs with regard to their representation and climate sensitivity of regeneration processes. Starting with a description of the underlying biological processes, we evaluate the various approaches taking into account specific model purposes, and provide recommendations for future developments. We distinguish between models based on ecological principles and models based on empirical relationships. We found an ample mix of regeneration modelling approaches tailored to different model purposes. We conclude that current approaches should be refined to adequately capture altered regeneration trends. Specifically, refinement is needed for MFDs that rely on ecological principals, as they suffer from knowledge gaps and underrepresented processes, thereby limiting their ability to accurately simulate forest regeneration under climate change. Global vegetation models are strongly constrained by their weak representation of vegetation structure and composition, and need to include more detail regarding structural complexity and functional diversity. Models focused on timber yield often rely on strong assumptions regarding the abundance and composition of the next tree generation, which may no longer hold true with changes in climate and forest management. With the increased utilization of natural regeneration as a source of forest renewal, more dynamic representations of tree regeneration are needed. Our review highlights the necessity to increase the data basis to close knowledge gaps and to enable the adequate incorporation and parameterization of the involved processes. This would allow to capture altered regeneration patterns and subsequent effects on forest structure, composition and, ultimately, forest functioning under climate change.
Light‐driven water splitting is a potential source of abundant, clean energy, yet efficient charge‐separation and size and position of the bandgap in heterogeneous photocatalysts are challenging to ...predict and design. Synthetic attempts to tune the bandgap of polymer photocatalysts classically rely on variations of the sizes of their π‐conjugated domains. However, only donor–acceptor dyads hold the key to prevent undesired electron‐hole recombination within the catalyst via efficient charge separation. Building on our previous success in incorporating electron‐donating, sulphur‐containing linkers and electron‐withdrawing, triazine (C3N3) units into porous polymers, we report the synthesis of six visible‐light‐active, triazine‐based polymers with a high heteroatom‐content of S and N that photocatalytically generate H2 from water: up to 915 μmol h−1 g−1 with Pt co‐catalyst, and—as one of the highest to‐date reported values −200 μmol h−1 g−1 without. The highly modular Sonogashira–Hagihara cross‐coupling reaction we employ, enables a systematic study of mixed (S, N, C) and (N, C)‐only polymer systems. Our results highlight that photocatalytic water‐splitting does not only require an ideal optical bandgap of ≈2.2 eV, but that the choice of donor–acceptor motifs profoundly impacts charge‐transfer and catalytic activity.
It′s been a hard Dyad′s light: Donor–acceptor domains in sulphur and nitrogen containing porous polymers enable effective charge separation and bandgap tuning, and hence, photocatalytic water splitting.
In nanophotonics, there is a current demand for ultrathin, flexible nanostructures that are simultaneously easily tunable, demonstrate a high contrast, and have a strong response in photoluminescent ...polarization. In this work, the template‐assisted self‐assembly of water‐dispersed colloidal core–shell quantum dots into 1D light‐emitting sub‐micrometer gratings on a flexible substrate is demonstrated. Combining such structures with a light‐absorbing metallic counterpart by simple stacking at various angles results in a tunable Moiré pattern with strong lateral contrast. Furthermore, a combination with an identical emitter‐based grating leads to a chiroptical effect with a remarkably high degree of polarization of 0.72. Such a structure demonstrates direct circular polarized photoluminescence, for the first time, without a need for an additional chiral template as an intermediary. The suggested approach allows for reproducible, large‐area manufacturing at reasonable costs and is of potential use for chiroptical sensors, photonic circuit applications, or preventing counterfeit.
A loss‐free, flexible, and reconfigurable Moiré metasurface demonstrates direct circular polarized photoluminescence, for the first time, without a need for an additional chiral template. This approach allows for reproducible, large‐area manufacturing at reasonable costs and is of potential use for chiroptical sensors, photonic circuit applications, or preventing counterfeit.
Silicon strip sensors as used for tracking detectors in high-energy physics experiments are bare large-area silicon devices without any packaging. To protect them from environmental influences like ...humidity and mechanical damage, a passivation is deposited as the uppermost layer. The passivation can consist of different materials like silicon oxide, silicon nitride, polyimides or doped glasses. In this study we first demonstrate the impact of static surface charge on the sensor characteristics. This is followed by investigations on how sensitive different passivation layers of silicon strip sensors are against charge-up and how these charges retain. For such purpose, a corona charge-up device has been built and used to charge up the detectors. The surface potential distribution caused by the charge was mapped using an electrostatic voltmeter. The self-discharge of sensors with different passivation layers was investigated by long-term studies.
Previously, we have identified the transcription factor CUTL1 as an important mediator of tumor invasion and target of tumor growth factor-beta. Using high-throughput approaches, we identified ...several putative downstream effectors of CUTL1, among them WNT5A, a secreted member of the Wnt multigene family. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of WNT5A as a novel target of CUTL1 in pancreatic cancer. CUTL1 and WNT5A were stably over-expressed as well as transiently and stably knocked down by RNA interference. Effects on proliferation, migration and invasiveness were investigated by thymidine incorporation, Boyden chamber experiments and time-lapse microscopy. Expression of WNT5A in pancreatic cancer tissues was analyzed by real-time polymerase chain reaction (RT–PCR) and immunohistochemistry. We found that CUTL1 transcriptionally up-regulated WNT5A on RNA, protein and promoter level. WNT5A significantly enhanced migration, proliferation and invasiveness, mediating the pro-invasive effects of CUTL1 to a major extent. WNT5A effects were accompanied by a marked modulation of marker genes associated with epithelial–mesenchymal transition. Using RT–PCR and immunohistochemistry, we found that WNT5A is up-regulated early during pancreatic cancerogenesis in pancreatic intraepithelial neoplasias lesions and in invasive pancreatic adenocarcinomas, as compared with normal pancreas tissues. These data identify WNT5A as important target of CUTL1 and as novel mediator of invasiveness and tumor progression in pancreatic cancer.
Chains of coupled metallic nanoparticles are of special interest for plasmonic applications because they can sustain highly dispersive plasmon bands, allowing strong ballistic plasmon wave transport. ...Whereas early studies focused on homogeneous particle chains exhibiting only one dominant band, heterogeneous assemblies consisting of different nanoparticle species came into the spotlight recently. Their increased configuration space principally allows engineering multiple bands, bandgaps, or topological states. Simultaneously, the challenge of the precise arrangement of nanoparticles, including their distances and geometric patterns, as well as the precise characterization of the plasmonics in these systems, persists. Here, the surface plasmon resonances in heterogeneous AgAu nanoparticle chains are reported. Wrinkled templates are used for directed self‐assembly of monodisperse gold and silver nanospheres as chains, which allows assembling statistical combinations of more than 109 particles. To reveal the spatial and spectral distribution of the plasmonic response, state‐of‐the‐art scanning transmission electron microscopy coupled with electron energy loss spectroscopy accompanied by boundary element simulations is used. A variety of modes in the heterogeneous chains are found, ranging from localized surface plasmon modes occurring in single gold or silver spheres, respectively, to modes that result from the hybridization of the single particles. This approach opens a novel avenue toward combinatorial studies of plasmonic properties in heterosystems.
Heterogeneous chains of plasmonic particles are promising structures for engineering waveguiding properties of plasmonic structures. In this work, heterogeneous particle chains composed of gold and silver spheres are stochastically assembled, virtually generating every possible combination up to a length of 17. Their plasmonic properties are investigated by electron energy loss spectroscopy and boundary element simulations.
We present ensembles of surface-ordered nanoparticle arrangements, which are formed by template-assisted self-assembly of monodisperse, protein-coated gold nanoparticles in wrinkle templates. ...Centimeter-squared areas of highly regular, linear assemblies with tunable line width are fabricated and their extinction cross sections can be characterized by conventional UV/vis/NIR spectroscopy. Modeling based on electrodynamic simulations shows a clear signature of strong plasmonic coupling with an interparticle spacing of 1–2 nm. We find evidence for well-defined plasmonic modes of quasi-infinite chains, such as resonance splitting and multiple radiant modes. Beyond elementary simulations on the individual chain level, we introduce an advanced model, which considers the chain length distribution as well as disorder. The step toward macroscopic sample areas not only opens perspectives for a range of applications in sensing, plasmonic light harvesting, surface enhanced spectroscopy, and information technology but also eases the investigation of hybridization and metamaterial effects fundamentally.
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