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Mountain areas are defined by their high relief energy, dynamic nature, and diverse geo-, hydro-, eco-, and anthroposystems. They are significantly affected by climate change and globalization, presenting complex research challenges from local to global scales (Klein et al 2019). Since 2006, the Institute for Interdisciplinary Mountain Research (IGF), Austrian Academy of Sciences, has focused on human–environment relations, with long-term monitoring in areas such as biodiversity, population and settlement, glaciers, protected areas, natural hazards, digital landscapes, and social–ecological transformations. Over the past year, IGF's team has identified the main challenges of mountain research through a series of workshops. The 3 Ds—Drivers, Diversity, and Dynamics—emerged as central factors for gaining new knowledge and promoting sustainability transformations in mountain regions. New ways of conducting research and activities, including long-term living labs and the integration of artificial intelligence for data-based multi- and transscalar analyses, are being implemented to support this research.

In recent decades, the mountains of Latin America have undergone massive rural–urban change. In Peru, this has led to strong growth of population and settlement on the spatially limited valley floors of the Quechua elevational zone, which is part of a sophisticated vertical land use system that includes the adjacent slopes (Suni elevational zone) and high plains (Puna elevational zone). Periurban villagers not only benefit from this rural–urban change, but also bear its negative social and environmental consequences. Future-oriented mountain development in highland Peru could benefit from detecting and understanding the perceived impacts and preferred performance of rural–urban change in periurban villages. In an effort to do so, this study used structured, computer-assisted personal interviews with closed questions, complemented by informal talks, in 2 case study villages near the intermediate cities of Cusco (Huatanay Valley) and Huaraz (Santa Valley): Oropesa and Taricá. The responses of 420 interviewees, selected through nonprobability quota sampling, confirm negative impacts known from comparable studies. However, these perceptions do not lead to a negative overall assessment of rural–urban change. This supposed contradiction becomes easier to understand when considering the periurban villagers' preferred performance of future developments, which point in particular at the desire to preserve cropland and woodland on the valley floor, while, at the same time, making greater use of the high plains as settlement areas. Given these views, performance-based management of rural–urban change could potentially lead the way to a socially inclusive and environmentally balanced development and help in overcoming rural–urban dichotomies in highland Peru.

La utilización de los estudios de montaña requiere de narrativas integradoras para la geoalfabetización sobre paisajes socioecológicos productivos y motiva más investigaciones transdisciplinares en el campo de la montología. Concebimos este artículo como la confluencia de la experiencia individual y el razonamiento colectivo hacia la formación de grupos de investigación sinérgicos que se ocupan de la ciencia de montaña convergente, para hacer avanzar la montología a un nuevo nivel, mediante el cual el pensamiento innovador sobre la ciencia de la sustentabilidad y el desarrollo regenerativo incorpora propuestas alternativas para el mantenimiento, la mejora, o regeneración de las condiciones de vida de los paisajes de montaña. Buscamos utilizar este marco contemporáneo de sustentabilidad y restauración ecológica como el ímpetu para comprender mejor las relaciones de la naturaleza y la cultura, desde una perspectiva transdisciplinar, en montañas habitadas que operan en cuatro dimensiones (largo, ancho, alto y tiempo). El artículo está orientado a potenciar la transversalidad de temáticas en torno a las montañas como sistemas socioecológicos productivos, en una nueva disciplina académica institucionalizada y convergente. Concluimos con un llamado a un desarrollo regenerativo, sustentable y consiliente en las montañas del mundo.

Las montañas son vistas por lo general como el opuesto rural o incluso «silvestre» de los espacios urbanos. Pero, ¿se puede seguir justificando esta visión en tiempos de la «urbanización planetaria»? ¿Qué es realmente «silvestre», «rural» y «urbano», y en qué se diferencian estas categorías en términos estructurales y funcionales? ¿Existen características urbanas en las montañas? Partiendo de los conceptos de la urbanización planetaria y la verticalidad e incluyendo ejemplos del Norte y del Sur Global, el presente capítulo presenta un tema central de la montología urbana (o la investigación transdiciplinaria de las áreas urbanas de montaña orientada a la sostenibilidad) como es el de los vínculos campo-ciudad entre las diferentes zonas altitudinales. Los vínculos ecosistémicos, infraestructurales, demográficos, económicos y socioculturales en las montañas presentan numerosas especificidades debido al relieve y la altitud del entorno de urbanización. Así mismo, los «flujos» de servicios ecosistémicos en las montañas, los teleféricos que conectan valles y cumbres, la movilidad espacial vertical de las personas, así como el uso deliberado de entornos de montaña e identidades para crear una marca en las ciudades de montaña con el fin de atraer a inversores y visitantes: son sólo algunos ejemplos que subrayan el creciente entrelazamiento de los antiguos contrastes de las ciudades «urbanas» y las montañas «rurales» (o «silvestre»). En este sentido, todo lo anterior mencionado debe tenerse en cuenta en el estudio científico y el desarrollo sostenible de la urbanización de los espacios de montaña para crear lugares habitables para los seres humanos y no humanos.

Introduction Systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS), sepsis and associated organ dysfunctions are life-threating conditions occurring at paediatric intensive care units (PICUs). Early recognition and treatment within the first hours of onset are critical. However, time pressure, lack of personnel resources, and the need for complex age-dependent diagnoses impede an accurate and timely diagnosis by PICU physicians. Data-driven prediction models integrated in clinical decision support systems (CDSS) could facilitate early recognition of disease onset.Objectives To estimate the sensitivity and specificity of previously developed prediction models (index tests) for the detection of SIRS, sepsis and associated organ dysfunctions in critically ill children up to 12 hours before reference standard diagnosis is possible.Methods and analysis We conduct a monocentre, prospective diagnostic test accuracy study. Clinicians in the PICU of the tertiary care centre Hannover Medical School, Germany, continuously screen and recruit patients until the adaptive sample size (originally intended sample size of 500 patients) is enrolled. Eligible are children (0–17 years, all sexes) who stay in the PICU for ≥12 hours and for whom an informed consent is given. All eligible patients are independently assessed for SIRS, sepsis and organ dysfunctions using corresponding predictive and knowledge-based CDSS models. The knowledge-based CDSS models serve as imperfect reference standards. The assessments are used to estimate the sensitivities and specificities of each predictive model using a clustered nonparametric approach (main analysis). Subgroup analyses (‘age groups’, ‘sex’ and ‘age groups by sex’) are predefined.Ethics and dissemination This study obtained ethics approval from the Hannover Medical School Ethics Committee (No. 10188_BO_SK_2022). Results will be disseminated as peer-reviewed publications, at scientific conferences, and to patients in an appropriate dissemination approach.Trial registration number This study was registered with the German Clinical Trial Register (DRKS00029071) on 2022-05-23.Protocol version 10188_BO_SK_2022_V.2.0–20220330_4_Studienprotokoll.

We study electronic transport in Weyl semimetals with spatially varying nodal tilt profiles. We find that the flow of electrons can be guided precisely by judiciously chosen tilt profiles. In a broad regime of parameters, we show that electron flow is described well by semiclassical equations of motion similar to the ones governing gravitational attraction. This analogy provides a physically transparent tool for designing tiltronic devices like electronic lenses. The analogy to gravity circumvents the notoriously difficult full-fledged description of inhomogeneous solids. A comparison to microscopic lattice simulations shows that it is only valid for trajectories sufficiently far from analogue black holes. We finally comment on the Berry curvature-driven transverse motion and relate the latter to spin precession physics.

The sustainable development of mountain regions requires inter- and transdisciplinary knowledge. The Institute for Interdisciplinary Mountain Research contributes to this global endeavor as part of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and as a member of international scientific networks, together with local partners and stakeholders. As a joint effort of individual researchers covering multiple fields, this article highlights our views on mountains as research objects, the phenomena we investigate as parts of entire mountain systems, and the synergies and differences of the disciplinary frames within which we work.

Parafermion bound states (PBSs) are generalizations of Majorana bound states (MBSs) and have been predicted to exist as zero-energy eigenstates in proximitized fractional quantum Hall edge states. Similarly to MBSs, a finite distance between the PBS can split the ground-state degeneracy. However, parafermionic modes have a richer exchange statistics than MBSs, so several interaction terms are allowed by the underlying Z_{2n} symmetry, rendering the effective Hamiltonian governing a pair of PBSs at a finite distance nontrivial. Here, we use a combination of analytical techniques (semiclassical instanton approximation) and numerical techniques (quantum Monte Carlo simulations) to determine the effective coupling Hamiltonian. For this purpose, we go beyond the dilute one-instanton gas approximation and show how finite-size effects can give rise to higher-order parafermion interactions. We find good quantitative agreement between the analytical results and Monte Carlo simulations. We estimate that these finite-size corrections should be observable in some of the recently proposed experiments to observe PBSs in strongly correlated systems.

Skyrmions are topological magnetic textures that can arise in noncentrosymmetric ferromagnetic materials. In most systems experimentally investigated to date, skyrmions emerge as classical objects. However, the discovery of skyrmions with nanometer length scales has sparked interest in their quantum properties. Here, we simulate the ground states of two-dimensional spin-1/2 Heisenberg lattices with Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions and discover a broad region in the zero-temperature phase diagram which hosts quantum skyrmion lattices. We argue that the quantum skyrmion lattice phase can be detected experimentally in the magnetization profile via local magnetic polarization measurements as well as in the spin structure factor measurable via neutron scattering experiments. Finally, we explore the resulting quantum skyrmion state, analyze its real-space polarization profile and show that it is a nonclassical state featuring entanglement between quasiparticle and environment mainly localized near the boundary spins of the skyrmion.