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Hintergrund: Sprechen ist ein essenzieller Teil der Kommunikation und hat damit eine hohe Relevanz für die Partizipation, Teilhabe und die Lebensqualität. Dysarthrien, als häufigste Form einer neurologisch bedingten Sprechstörung, führen dazu, dass Betroffene entweder gar nicht oder nur erschwert zu verstehen sind. Eine qualitativ hochwertige Dysarthriediagnostik und -therapie erhalten daher in der Logopädie eine besondere Bedeutung. Methode: Es wurde eine systematische Literaturrecherche zu RCTs und Leitlinien mit dem Ziel durchgeführt, evidenzbasierte und aktuelle Empfehlungen für die Dysarthriediagnostik und -therapie zu identifizieren. Die Recherche schloss daher nur Evidenzen ein, die nicht älter als fünf Jahre sind. Die Qualität der gefundenen RCTs wurde mit Hilfe der CASPCheckliste bewertet. Ergebnisse: Es wurden drei RCTs und acht Leitlinien in die Auswertung eingeschlossen. Allgemein wird eine sprachtherapeutische Behandlung bei Dysarthrie empfohlen. Dabei ist eine therapeutische Anpassung an den individuellen Bedarf der Betroffenen notwendig. Der Einsatz nicht-sprachlicher oralmotorischer Bewegungen wird nicht empfohlen. Hingegen sollen Kommunikationshilfen wie die technisch unterstützte Kommunikation bei geringer Verständlichkeit in Betracht gezogen werden. Diskussion: Es liegen nur wenige Wirksamkeitsnachweise von angemessener Qualität für die Behandlung von Dysarthrien vor. Daher beinhalten die Leitlinien nur allgemein gehaltene Empfehlungen, aus denen kaum konkrete Handlungshilfen für die Praxis abgeleitet werden können. In den Empfehlungen der Leitlinien werden darüber hinaus die Störungsbilder Dysarthrie und Aphasie nicht immer konsequent und klar voneinander getrennt betrachtet. Schlussfolgerung: Um evidenzbasierte Empfehlungen für die Dysarthriediagnostik und -therapie geben zu können, bedarf es weiterer Forschung. Wünschenswert wäre auch mehr Diversität bei der Untersuchung der Behandlungsmethoden. Abstract Background: Speaking is an essential part of communication and therefore highly relevant for participation and quality of life. Dysarthrias are the most common form of neurologically induced speech disorders which means that those affected either cannot be understood at all or only with difficulty. Highquality dysarthria diagnosis and therapy therefore have a high priority in speech therapy. Methods: A systematic literature search for RCTs and guidelines was conducted with the aims of identifying evidence-based and current recommendations for dysarthria diagnosis and therapy. Thus, the search included only evidence that was not older than five years. The quality of the RCTs found was assessed using the CASP checklist. Results: Three RCTs and eight guidelines were included in the analysis. In general, speech therapy treatment is recommended for dysarthria. Therapeutic adaptation to the individual needs of the affected person is necessary. The use of non-linguistic oral-motor movements is not recommended. On the other hand, communication aids such as technology-assisted communication should be considered when intelligibility is low. Discussion: Although dysarthria often occurs as a result of stroke and neurodegenerative diseases, there is little evidence of efficacy of adequate quality for the treatment of dysarthria. As a result, guidelines only contain generalized recommendations that are unlikely to provide concrete guidance for practice. In the guidelines’ recommendations, the disorders dysarthria and aphasia are not consistently and clearly separated from each other. Conclusion: Further research is needed to make evidence-based recommendations for dysarthria diagnosis and treatment. Also, more diversity in the study of treatment methods would be desirable.

OA Förderung 2023 The task-switching paradigm is deemed a measure of cognitive flexibility. Previous research has demonstrated that individual differences in task-switch costs are moderately inversely related to cognitive ability. However, current theories emphasize multiple component processes of task switching, such as task-set preparation and task-set inertia. The relations of task-switching processes with cognitive ability were investigated in the current study. Participants completed a task-switching paradigm with geometric forms and a visuospatial working memory capacity (WMC) task. The task-switch effect was decomposed with the diffusion model. Effects of task-switching and response congruency were estimated as latent differences using structural equation modeling. Their magnitudes and relations with visuospatial WMC were investigated. Effects in the means of parameter estimates replicated previous findings, namely increased non-decision time in task- switch trials. Further, task switches and response incongruency had independent effects on drift rates, reflecting their differential effects on task readiness. Findings obtained with the figural tasks employed in this study revealed that WMC was inversely related to the task-switch effect in non- decision time. Relations with drift rates were inconsistent. Finally, WMC was moderately inversely related to response caution. These findings suggest that more able participants either needed less time for task-set preparation or that they invested less time for task-set preparation.

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) causes the release of danger-associated molecular patterns (DAMP) from damaged or dead cells, which contribute to secondary brain damage after TBI. Cell-free DNA (cfDNA) is a DAMP known to cause disruption of the blood–brain barrier (BBB), promote procoagulant processes, brain edema, and neuroinflammation. This study tested the hypothesis that administration of deoxyribonuclease-I (DNase-I) has a beneficial effect after TBI. Mice (n = 84) were subjected to controlled cortical impact (CCI) and posttraumatic intraperitoneal injections of low dose (LD) or high dose (HD) of DNase-I or vehicle solution at 30 min and 12 h after CCI. LD was most effective to reduce lesion volume (p = 0.003), brain water content (p p = 0.019) 1 day post-injury (dpi). At 6 h post injury LD-treated animals showed less cleavage of fibrin (p = 0.0014), and enhanced perfusion as assessed by micro-computer-tomography (p = 0.027). At 5 dpi the number of Iba1-positive cells (p = 0.037) were reduced, but the number of CD45-positive cells, motoric function and brain lesion volume was not different. Posttraumatic-treatment with DNase-I therefore stabilizes the BBB, reduces the formation of brain edema, immune response, and delays secondary brain damage. DNase-I might be a new approach to extend the treatment window after TBI.

ZusammenfassungEin 3‑jähriges Mädchen wird in der pädiatrischen Stoffwechselambulanz vorgestellt, da seit einigen Monaten im Rahmen der Sauberkeitsentwicklung dunkle Urinverfärbungen aufgefallen sind. Die ausführliche Abklärung bezüglich einer Porphyrie und Hämaturie führte nicht zur Diagnosestellung. Die beim Kinderarzt abgegebenen Urinproben waren jeweils unauffällig. Im Rahmen der spezifischen Diagnostik zeigten sich eine erhöhte Homogentisatausscheidung im Urin und damit die Diagnosestellung einer Alkaptonurie. Es wurde eine spezifische Therapie eingeleitet, um Gelenkschädigungen durch pathologische Ablagerungen zu reduzieren. Die weitere Prognose bleibt unklar.

Cerebral inflammation with invasion of neutrophils and lymphocytes is a crucial factor in the process of secondary brain damage after traumatic brain injury (TBI). In TBI the intrinsic renin-angiotensin system is an important mediator of cerebral inflammation, as inhibition of the angiotensin II receptor type 1 (AT1) reduces secondary brain damage and the invasion of neutrophil granulocytes into injured cerebral tissue. The present study investigated the role of immune cells in AT1 inhibition-mediated neuroprotection after experimental TBI. In four different cohorts, male mice were studied to examine effects of neutropenia (anti-Ly6G antibody mediated neutrophil depletion; C57BL/6) or lymphopenia (RAG1 deficiency, RAG1-/-) alone, or in combination with candesartan-mediated AT1 inhibition. The present results demonstrate that reduction of neutrophils (neutrophil depletion in wild type mice) and of lymphocytes (RAG1-/-) as well as AT1 inhibition in (control antibody treated) wild type and RAG1-/- mice reduce brain damage and neuroinflammation after TBI compared to control groups, while in neutropenic mice, candesartan had no effect. However, AT1 inhibition was neuroprotective in RAG1-/- mice, but not in neutropenic mice. Therefore, the results indicate that AT1 inhibition mediated neuroprotection may be exerted by anti-inflammatory effects on neutrophils, with a subsequent reduction of neutrophil invasion.

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) involves primary mechanical damage and delayed secondary damage caused by vascular dysfunction and neuroinflammation. Intracellular components released into the parenchyma and systemic circulation, termed danger-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs), are major drivers of vascular dysfunction and neuroinflammation. These DAMPs include cell-free RNAs (cfRNAs), which damage the blood–brain barrier (BBB), thereby promoting edema, procoagulatory processes, and infiltration of inflammatory cells. We tested the hypothesis that intraperitoneal injection of Ribonuclease-1 (RNase1, two doses of 20, 60, or 180 µg/kg) at 30 min and 12 h after controlled-cortical-impact (CCI) can reduce secondary lesion expansion compared to vehicle treatment 24 h and 120 h post-CCI. The lowest total dose (40 µg/kg) was most effective at reducing lesion volume (− 31% RNase 40 µg/kg vs. vehicle), brain water accumulation (− 5.5%), and loss of BBB integrity (− 21.6%) at 24 h post-CCI. RNase1 also reduced perilesional leukocyte recruitment (− 53.3%) and microglial activation (− 18.3%) at 120 h post-CCI, but there was no difference in lesion volume at this time and no functional benefit. Treatment with RNase1 in the early phase following TBI stabilizes the BBB and impedes leukocyte immigration, thereby suppressing neuroinflammation. RNase1-treatment may be a novel approach to delay brain injury to extend the window for treatment opportunities after TBI.

The time on task (ToT) effect describes the relationship of the time spent on a cognitive task and the probability of successful task completion. The effect has been shown to vary in size and direction across tests and even within tests, depending on the test taker and item characteristics. Specifically, investing more time has a positive effect on response accuracy for difficult items and low ability test-takers, but a negative effect for easy items and high ability test-takers. The present study sought to test the replicability of this result pattern of the ToT effect across samples independently drawn from the same populations of persons and items. Furthermore, its generalizability was tested in terms of differential correlations across ability tests. To this end, ToT effects were estimated for three different reasoning tests and one test measuring natural sciences knowledge in 10 comparable subsamples with a total N = 2640. Results for the subsamples were highly similar, demonstrating that ToT effects are estimated with sufficient reliability. Generally, faster answers tended to be more accurate, suggesting a relatively effortless processing style. However, with increasing item difficulty and decreasing person ability, the effect flipped to the opposite direction, i.e., higher accuracy with longer processing times. The within-task moderation of the ToT effect can be reconciled with an account on effortful processing or cognitive load. By contrast, the generalizability of the ToT effect across different tests was only moderate. Cross-test relations were stronger in relative terms if performance in the respective tasks was more strongly related. This suggests that individual differences in the ToT effect depend on test characteristics such as their reliabilities but also similarities and differences of their processing requirements.

The electric quadrupole moment of $^{49}$Sc was measured by collinear laser spectroscopy at CERN-ISOLDE to be $Q_{\rm s}=-0.159(8)$ $e$b, and a nearly tenfold improvement in precision was reached for the electromagnetic moments of $^{47,49}$Sc. The single-particle behavior and nucleon-nucleon correlations are investigated with the electromagnetic moments of $Z=21$ isotopes and $N=28$ isotones as valence neutrons and protons fill the distinctive $0f_{7/2}$ orbit, respectively, located between magic numbers, 20 and 28. The experimental data are interpreted with shell-model calculations using an effective interaction, and ab-initio valence-space in-medium similarity renormalization group calculations based on chiral interactions. These results highlight the sensitivity of nuclear electromagnetic moments to different types of nucleon-nucleon correlations, and establish an important benchmark for further developments of theoretical calculations., Comment: Accepted by Physics Letters B (2022)

Antagonism of the angiotensin II type 1 receptor (AT1) improves neurological function and reduces brain damage after experimental traumatic brain injury (TBI), which may be partly a result of enhanced indirect angiotensin II type 2 receptor (AT2) stimulation. AT2 stimulation was demonstrated to be neuroprotective via anti-inflammatory, vasodilatory, and neuroregenerative mechanisms in experimental cerebral pathology models. We recently demonstrated an upregulation of AT2 after TBI suggesting a protective mechanism. The present study investigated the effect of post-traumatic (5 days after TBI) AT2 activation via high and low doses of a selective AT2 agonist, compound 21 (C21), compared to vehicle-treated controls. No differences in the extent of the TBI-induced lesions were found between both doses of C21 and the controls. We then tested AT2-knockdown animals for secondary brain damage after experimental TBI. Lesion volume and neurological outcomes in AT2-deficient mice were similar to those in wild-type control mice at both 24 h and 5 days post-trauma. Thus, in contrast to AT1 antagonism, AT2 modulation does not influence the initial pathophysiological mechanisms of TBI in the first 5 days after the insult, indicating that AT2 plays only a minor role in the early phase following trauma-induced brain damage.

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) involves primary mechanical damage and delayed secondary damage caused by vascular dysfunction and neuroinflammation. Intracellular components released into the parenchyma and systemic circulation, termed danger-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs), are major drivers of vascular dysfunction and neuroinflammation. These DAMPs include cell-free RNAs (cfRNAs), which damage the blood–brain barrier (BBB), thereby promoting edema, procoagulatory processes, and infiltration of inflammatory cells. We tested the hypothesis that intraperitoneal injection of Ribonuclease-1 (RNase1, two doses of 20, 60, or 180 µg/kg) at 30 min and 12h after controlled-cortical-impact (CCI) can reduce secondary lesion expansion compared to vehicle treatment 24h and 120h post-CCI. The lowest total dose (40 µg/kg) was most effective at reducing lesion volume (−31% RNase 40µg/kg vs. vehicle), brain water accumulation (−5.5%), and loss of BBB integrity (−21.6%) at 24h post-CCI. RNase1 also reduced perilesional leukocyte recruitment (−53.3%) and microglial activation (−18.3%) at 120h post-CCI, but there was no difference in lesion volume at this time and no functional benefit. Treatment with RNase1 in the early phase following TBI stabilizes the BBB and impedes leukocyte immigration, thereby suppressing neuroinflammation. RNase1-treatment may be a novel approach to delay brain injury to extend the window for treatment opportunities after TBI.

The paper show an application of collinear laser spectroscopy by studying the field-shifts of two optical dipole transitions in Ca${}^{+}$.

We demonstrate an application of a liquid-metal ion source for collinear laser spectroscopy in proof-of-principle measurements on naturally abundant ${\mathrm{In}}^{+}$. The superior beam quality, i.e., the actively stabilized current and energy of a beam with very low transverse emittance, allowed us to perform precision spectroscopy on the $5{s}^{2}\phantom{\rule{0.28em}{0ex}}{}^{1}{S}_{0}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}5s5p\phantom{\rule{0.28em}{0ex}}{}^{3}{P}_{1}$ intercombination transition in $^{115}\mathrm{In}^{+}$, which is, to our knowledge, the slowest transition measured with collinear fluorescence laser spectroscopy so far. By applying collinear and anticollinear spectroscopy, we improved the center-of-gravity frequency ${\ensuremath{\nu}}_{\mathrm{cg}}=1\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}299\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}617\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}759.\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}3\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}(1.2)\phantom{\rule{0.28em}{0ex}}\mathrm{MHz}$ and the hyperfine constants $A=6957.19\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}(28)\phantom{\rule{0.28em}{0ex}}\mathrm{MHz}$ and $B=\ensuremath{-}443.7\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}(2.4)\phantom{\rule{0.28em}{0ex}}\mathrm{MHz}$ by more than one order of magnitude. A similar accuracy was reached for $^{113}\mathrm{In}^{+}$ in combination with the literature data, and the isotope shift between both naturally abundant isotopes was deduced to $\ensuremath{\nu}{(}^{113}\mathrm{In})\ensuremath{-}\ensuremath{\nu}{(}^{115}\mathrm{In})=696.3\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}(3.1)\phantom{\rule{0.28em}{0ex}}\mathrm{MHz}$. Nuclear alignment induced by optical pumping in a preparation section of the ion beam line was demonstrated as a pump-and-probe approach to provide sharp features on top of the Doppler-broadened resonance profile.

We present a new collinear laser spectroscopy setup that has been designed to overcome systematic uncertainty limits arising from high-voltage and frequency measurements, beam superposition, and collisions with residual gas that are present in other installations utilizing this technique. The applied methods and experimental realizations are described, including an active stabilization of the ion-source potential, new types of ion sources that have not been used for collinear laser spectroscopy so far, dedicated installations for pump-and-probe measurements, and a versatile laser system referenced to a frequency comb. The advanced setup enables us to routinely determine transition frequencies, which was so far demonstrated only for a few cases and with lower accuracy at other facilities. It has also been designed to perform accurate high-voltage measurements for metrological applications. Demonstration and performance measurements were carried out with Ca+ and In+ ions.

A laser ablation ion source has been built and tested at the COALA beamline. Time-of-flight measurements for various elements are sufficiently accurate to confirm the production of the intended ion species. Furthermore, the isotope shift between 40Ca+ and 44Ca+ has been determined on these bunched beams by collinear laser spectroscopy and compared to previous measurements. The frequency of the $4s{}{}^{2}\textit {S}_{1/2} \rightarrow 4p{}{}^{2}\textit {P}_{1/2}$ 4 s 2 S 1 / 2 → 4 p 2 P 1 / 2 transition has been determined to $\nu ^{\mathrm {D1}}_{0}=755 222 766.8(15)$ ν 0 D 1 = 755222766.8 ( 15 ) MHz for 40Ca+, as well as the corresponding isotope shift of 44Ca+ to 848.1(23) MHz. This is in a good agreement to more accurate measurements performed in a recent ion trap experiment and demonstrates the strength of the collinear-anticollinear approach to reduce systematic effects caused by the broad velocity distribution generated in the ablation process.

Applied physics / B 126(5), 86 (2020). doi:10.1007/s00340-020-07433-4, Published by Springer, Berlin

COALA is a new offline collinear laser spectroscopy setup for high-precision measurements and development work at TU Darmstadt, Germany. An introduction to the technique and the experimental setup is given and an overview of current projects with recent results is presented. The idea of a novel all-optical absolute charge radius determination is discussed.

We present the results of high-voltage collinear laser spectroscopy measurements on the 5 ppm relative uncertainty level using a pump and probe scheme at the transition of involving the metastable state. With two-stage laser interaction and a reference measurement we can eliminate systematic effects such as differences in the contact potentials due to different electrode materials and thermoelectric voltages, and the unknown starting potential of the ions in the ion source. Voltage measurements were performed between −5 kV and −19 kV and parallel measurements with stable high-voltage dividers calibrated to 5 ppm relative uncertainty were used as a reference. Our measurements are compatible with the uncertainty limits of the high-voltage dividers and demonstrate an unprecedented (factor of 20) increase in the precision of direct laser-based high-voltage measurements.

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a major cause of death and disability. T cells were shown to infiltrate the brain during the first days after injury and to exacerbate tissue damage. The objective of this study was to investigate the hitherto unresolved role of immunosuppressive, regulatory T cells (Tregs) in experimental TBI."Depletion of regulatory T cell" (DEREG) and wild type (WT) C57Bl/6 mice, treated with diphtheria toxin (DTx) to deplete Tregs or to serve as control, were subjected to the controlled cortical impact (CCI) model of TBI. Neurological and motor deficits were examined until 5 days post-injury (dpi). At the 5 dpi endpoint, (immuno-) histological, protein, and gene expression analyses were carried out to evaluate the consequences of Tregs depletion. Comparison of parametric or non-parametric data between two groups was done using Student's t test or the Mann-Whitney U test. For multiple comparisons, p values were calculated by one-way or two-way ANOVA followed by specific post hoc tests.The overall neurological outcome at 5 dpi was not different between DEREG and WT mice but more severe motor deficits occurred transiently at 1 dpi in DEREG mice. DEREG and WT mice did not differ in the extent of brain damage, blood-brain barrier (BBB) disruption, or neuronal excitotoxicity, as examined by lesion volumetry, immunoglobulin G (IgG) extravasation, or calpain-generated αII-spectrin breakdown products (SBDPs), respectively. In contrast, increased protein levels of glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) and GFAP+ astrocytes in the ipsilesional brain tissue indicated exaggerated reactive astrogliosis in DEREG mice. T cell counts following anti-CD3 immunohistochemistry and gene expression analyses of Cd247 (CD3 subunit zeta) and Cd8a (CD8a) further indicated an increased number of T cells infiltrating the brain injury sites of DEREG mice compared to WT. These changes coincided with increased gene expression of pro-inflammatory interferon-γ (Ifng) in DEREG mice compared to WT in the injured brain.The results show that the depletion of Tregs attenuates T cell brain infiltration, reactive astrogliosis, interferon-γ gene expression, and transiently motor deficits in murine acute traumatic brain injury.

The first laser spectroscopic determination of the change in the nuclear charge radius for a five-electron system is reported. This is achieved by combining high-accuracy ab initio mass-shift calculations and a high-accuracy measurement of the isotope shift in the $2{s}^{2}2p\text{ }\text{ }{^{2}P}_{1/2}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}2{s}^{2}3s\text{ }\text{ }{^{2}S}_{1/2}$ ground state transition in boron atoms. Accuracy is increased by orders of magnitude for the stable isotopes $^{10,11}\mathrm{B}$ and the results are used to extract their difference in the mean-square charge radius $⟨{r}_{c}^{2}{⟩}^{11}\ensuremath{-}⟨{r}_{c}^{2}{⟩}^{10}=\ensuremath{-}0.49(12)\text{ }\text{ }{\mathrm{fm}}^{2}$. The result is qualitatively explained by a possible cluster structure of the boron nuclei and quantitatively used to benchmark new ab initio nuclear structure calculations using the no-core shell model and Green's function Monte Carlo approaches. These results are the foundation for a laser spectroscopic determination of the charge radius of the proton-halo candidate $^{8}\mathrm{B}$.

International audience; Collinear Laser spectroscopy was applied to measure the hyperfine structure of$^{135 − 137}$Pr at ISOLDE/CERN. Combined with measurements of the stable isotope$^{141}$Pr at the TRIGA-SPEC setup in Mainz we were able to determine the magnetic moments of the neutron-deficient isotopes$^{135}$Pr,$^{136}$Pr and$^{137}$Pr for the first time.

The rest-frame transition frequencies of the $6s{\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}}^{2}{S}_{1/2}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}6p{\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}}^{2}{P}_{1/2}$ (${D}_{1}$) and $6s{\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}}^{2}{S}_{1/2}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}6p{\phantom{\rule{0.16em}{0ex}}}^{2}{P}_{3/2}$ (${D}_{2}$) lines in the stable isotopes of ${\mathrm{Ba}}^{+}$ were measured with an accuracy better than $200\phantom{\rule{4pt}{0ex}}\mathrm{kHz}$ through (quasi)simultaneous collinear and anticollinear laser spectroscopy, leading to an improvement in the accuracy of the isotope shifts by more than an order of magnitude compared to previous data. The ratio of the field-shift constants in the ${D}_{1}$, ${D}_{2}$ fine-structure doublet has been determined to $f=1.0186(9)$ through a King plot analysis. These collinear laser spectroscopy measurements have reached an accuracy comparable to ion-trap measurements on allowed dipole transitions. Our result provides an accurate benchmark for atomic many-body calculations and is compared to pure Dirac-Hartree-Fock calculations and to elaborate multiconfigurational Dirac-Fock calculations. The influence of correlation effects and the Breit interaction on the isotope shift in ${\mathrm{Ba}}^{+}$ are discussed.

We present results of laser spectroscopic high voltage measurements on the 5 ppm relative uncertainty level using a pump and probe scheme on Ca+ ions. With the two-stage laser interaction and with a reference measurement we can eliminate systematic effects like differences in contact potentials of electrode materials, thermo-electric voltages, and the unknown starting potential of the ions in the ion source. Our measurements are compatible with the 5 ppm precision limits of the high voltage dividers used for comparison and demonstrate an unprecedented increase in the accuracy of laser-based high voltage measurements by a factor of 20.

Although many innovations exploiting web technologies have been suggested in distance higher education, very little original research exists investigating the impact of web-based learning environments on distance students' learning processes and outcomes. To close this gap, four sets of data have been collected in a distance-learning course: behaviour and usage data derived from the log files of an online learning environment; responses from a competence pre- and posttest that measures the competence gain of online and offline students; technology assessment data from the online students capturing their perception of the learning environment; and formal assessment data acquired from a written examination test. By analysing these data, insight into the effectiveness of online learning material compared with custom-designed textbooks for self-controlled distance study can be gained. Distance educators and open or distance universities may take the analysis results as a basis for the decision whether to migrate from textbooks to online learning materials. A video abstract of this article can be viewed at [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose to determine the nuclear charge radius of 8B by high-resolution laser spectroscopy. 8B (t 1/2 = 770 ms) is perhaps the best candidate of a nucleus exhibiting an extended proton wave-function or “one-proton-halo” in a more descriptive picture. Laser spectroscopic measurements of the isotope shift will be used to probe the change in nuclear charge radius along the three boron isotopes 8B, 10B and 11B. The change in nuclear charge radius directly correlates with the extent of the proton wave function. In-flight production and preparation of sufficient yields of 8B ions at low energies is provided by the Argonne Tandem Linac Accelerator System (ATLAS) at Argonne National Laboratory (ANL) in Chicago, IL, USA. Subsequently, the ions will be guided through a charge exchange cell for neutralization and the fluorescence signal of the atoms which interact with the resonant laser light will be detected. The charge radius can then be extracted from the measured isotope shift by employing highly accurate atomic theory calculations of this five-electron system which are carried out presently.

Collinear laser spectroscopy was performed on Zn (Z=30) isotopes at ISOLDE, CERN. The study of hyperfine spectra of nuclei across the Zn isotopic chain, N=33–49, allowed the measurement of nuclear spins for the ground and isomeric states in odd-A neutron-rich nuclei up to N=50. Exactly one long-lived (&, SCOPUS: ar.j, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

In the traditional software development cycle, requirements gathering is considered the most critical phase. Getting the requirements right first time has become a dogma in software engineering because the correction of erroneous or incomplete requirements in later software development phases becomes overly expensive. For product-service systems (PSS), this dogma and standard requirements engineering (RE) approaches are not appropriate because classical RE is considered concluded, once a product service is delivered. For PSS it is impossible to foresee all future context conditions and customization needs customers may come up with after product deployment. In addition, the services supporting a complex hardware-software product depend on the individual product configuration a customer requires. For example, when a standard laser machine is equipped with one or more special sensors, new services may be needed that depend on sensor data from these new sources combined with other data generated by the standard machine configuration. Thus, we claim that RE needs to be extended to the deployment phase of a product and an agile approach is required to cope with emerging hardware and software requirements as a PSS is marketed. In this paper, a novel view-based model-driven engineering approach is proposed that enables collaborative product-service design and customization and copes with evolving, incomplete and unforeseen requirements. A prototype has been implemented as a Proof-of-Concept (PoC) and is currently validated on four industrial pilot cases as part of the H2020 project ICP4Life.

An experimental setup for sensitive high-resolution measurements of hyperfine structure spectra of exotic calcium isotopes has been developed and commissioned at the COLLAPS beam line at ISOLDE, CERN. The technique is based on the radioactive detection of decaying isotopes after optical pumping and state selective neutralization (ROC) (Vermeeren et al 1992 Phys. Rev. Lett. 68 1679). The improvements and developments necessary to extend the applicability of the experimental technique to calcium isotopes produced at rates as low as few ions s–1 are discussed. Numerical calculations of laser-ion interaction and ion-beam simulations were explored to obtain the optimum performance of the experimental setup. Among the implemented features are a multi-step optical pumping region for sensitive measurements of isotopes with hyperfine splitting, a high-voltage platform for adequate control of low-energy ion beams and simultaneous β-detection of neutralized and remaining ions. journal_title: Journal of Physics G: Nuclear and Particle Physics article_type: paper article_title: Development of a sensitive setup for laser spectroscopy studies of very exotic calcium isotopes copyright_information: © 2017 IOP Publishing Ltd date_received: 2016-11-15 date_accepted: 2017-01-18 date_epub: 2017-02-22 ispartof: Journal of Physics G, Nuclear and Particle Physics vol:44 issue:4 status: published

Collinear laser spectroscopy on Cu58-75 isotopes was performed at the CERN-ISOLDE radioactive ion beam facility. In this paper we report on the isotope shifts obtained from these measurements. State-of-the-art atomic physics calculations have been undertaken in order to determine the changes in mean-square charge radii δ(r2)A,A′ from the observed isotope shifts. A local minimum is observed in these radii differences at N=40, providing evidence for a weak N=40 sub-shell effect. However, comparison of δ(r2)A,A′ with a droplet model prediction including static deformation deduced from the spectroscopic quadrupole moments, points to the persistence of correlations at N=40., SCOPUS: ar.j, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

The performance characteristics of two charge-exchange cells (CECs) with horizontal and vertical cell configurations were determined by neutralizing a 10-keV rubidium ion beam in a potassium vapor. The neutralization efficiency and the fluorescence line shape of the 5s 2 S 1 / 2 ↔ 5 p 2P3/2 (D2) transition in neutral 85Rb were investigated as a function of the reservoir temperature used to control the potassium vapor density. The CECs exhibited similar neutralization performance and at neutralization efficiencies greater than 25–50% an asymmetric line shape of the rubidium D2 fluorescent signal was observed. The asymmetry was attributed to inelastic channels in the charge-exchange process. The rubidium D2 fluorescence line shape was fitted with a multiple Voigt function, which quantitatively models the inelastic channels. In the present Rb+ + K charge-exchange process, the optimum neutralization efficiency to accurately determine the centroid of the Rb D2 resonance line shape was obtained by fitting single Voigt functions to the resonance spectra obtained at neutralization efficiencies where inelastic processes were negligible.

An introduction to the journal is presented in which the editor discusses various reports published within the issue including one by Andy Lane and Patrick McAndrew on learning objects, one by Tiffani Cameron and Sue Bennett on learning objects and school children, and one by Roland Klemke, Stefaan Ternier, Marco Kalz, and Marcus Specht on learning object repositories.

For technology-enhanced learning, the idea of learning objects transfers the technologies of content management, methods of software engineering and principles of open access to educational resources. This paper reports on CampusContent, a research project and competence centre for e-learning at FernUniversitat in Hagen that designed and developed an integrated portal to a repository network named edu-sharing. This portal facilitates sharing, joint development and reuse of learning material and pedagogical knowledge. CampusContent focused on essential challenges concerning use and utility of learning objects and developed principles, methods and tools that support educators in the process of contextualising learning objects within educational settings. Our model offers three levels of contextualisation: configurable objects, learning scenarios and an integrated work environment for educators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A helium gas-jet system for the transport of fission products from the research reactor TRIGA Mainz has been developed, characterized and tested within the TRIGA-SPEC experiment. For the first time at TRIGA Mainz carbon aerosol particles have been used for the transport of radionuclides from a target chamber with high efficiency. The radionuclides have been identified by means of γ -spectroscopy . Transport time, efficiency as well as the absolute number of transported radionuclides for several species have been determined. The design and the characterization of the gas-jet system are described and discussed.

We report on the measurement of the 2s-3s transition frequencies in the stable lithium isotopes and 2s-2p isotope shift measurements of 7,9,10,11Be, using a femtosecond frequency comb. For the beryllium isotopes, we extract the changes in the mean-square nuclear charge radius along the isotope chain by comparison with high-precision atomic mass shift calculations. The 2s-3s transition frequency is compared with theoretical calculations, and possibilities to extract an absolute value for the nuclear charge radius of lithium isotopes are discussed.

New research activities sailing under the brands of semantic web, semantic web service, and semantic computing have extended, and partly also confused the classical meaning of the term semantics as the software engineering community established it in the last century. In this article we try to shed some light on the different connotations of meaning with this word. We reflect on the role of semantic definitions and formally defined specifications, modeling and programming languages in software engineering activities. We sketch formally defined construction and validation methods, and discuss contributions of tools that exploit semantic information to enhance the quality of software products and development processes. We explore recent work on the use of semantic computing technology in software engineering and discuss opportunities for successful future applications. We conclude with an outlook on the potential of service-oriented computing to change the way software applications are designed, laid out, delivered, and used.

Computing with services has attracted much attention as a promising approach for developing distributed applications. The approach is often advertised as being superior to distributed component-based software engineering (CBSE), because it provides a higher potential to bridge heterogeneous IT application and infrastructure landscapes. It facilitates cross-institutional cooperation, lets services run over all kinds of ubiquitous communication infrastructure, scales better and simplifies legacy software integration. If this were absolutely true, there would be no reason for a consortium of major vendors of service and Java EE technology to come up with a new specification, called service component architecture (SCA). This emerging standard tries to leverage service-oriented architecture (SOA) principles with component-based software development techniques. In this article we discuss some commonalities and fundamental differences of the CBS and SOA worlds. We illustrate SCA briefly using snippets of an ongoing case study based on an e-university federation. Then we elaborate on the qualities and current deficits of SCA in the light of CBSE findings and related works.

100 patients were prospectively and randomized treated by chemonucleolysis either by collagenase (n = 50/400 ABC-U/disc) or by chymopapain (n = 50/4000 I.U.). The success rate after 1 year was 70% for collagenase and 78% after chymopapain, and 72%/80% after 3 years, respectively. Successful results increased significantly during the first year after treatment and remained stable after that point. After chymopapain, one case of successfully treated anaphylaxis (2%) occurred. After collagenase, 3 cases of secondary sequestrations were observed in cases with primarily closed discograms with intact dorsal longitudinal ligament.

The Periarthropathia humero scapularis (PHS) represents a collective term for all pathological symptoms which come from degenerative alterations of the periarticular tissue at the shoulder. Pathologically anatomic changes appear especially at the supraspinatus tendon, the so-called rotator collar and in the sliding tissue of the long biceps tendon. Abduction entails the compression of the periarticular tissue between the Tuberculum majus humeri, the Acromion and the Ligamentum coracoacromiale. Proceeding on the intraoperative observation that lime focuses and breaches of the rotator collar are predominantly under the Ligamentum coracoacromiale, we have tried to measure the functionally topographical conditions of the space with the aid of 82 corpse specimen in all. Length an width of the Ligamentum coracoacromiale as well as the space between the humerus head and the coracoacromial bow differ individually and show right-left-differences. In the case of abduction and inner rotation the space becomes narrower. The supraspinatus sinew usually already runs under the Ligamentum coracoacromiale in the neutral-0-position, especially when abduction and inner rotation are effected. Therefore the resection of this ligament seems to be appropriate as a therapy of recidivating Periarthropathia complaints.

The oscillations of the body length during day and night are caused by hydration and dehydration of the discs. The influence of loading and unloading on the height of the discs is demonstrated by measuring the body length of 108 persons under constant conditions. The loss of height during the day is 1,1% on average. The body-length-curve can be influenced by weight bearing and lying.