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Social media usage has become a daily habit for the younger generation. It can have positive effects on educational processes, but it also raises concerns about harmful content, such as fake news or hate speech. Fake news is often distributed with the intention to manipulate the public opinion by propagating disinformation. This includes the manipulation of images taken from reputable news resources. In response to these concerns and manipulations, we developed a web-based learning environment with a virtual learning companion (VLC). The VLC is designed to assist students in developing their critical thinking skills while interacting with social media content. The VLC is incorporated into a controlled learning environment that resembles Instagram and contains real and manipulated content. The "Courage" companion communicates with the students through chat dialogue and knowledge-activating questions. It also links additional images from web sources discovered through reverse image search based on image similarity. Learners are provided with various textual descriptions and keywords and are prompted to reflect on this information. The system's effectiveness and assistance in identifying real or manipulated images have been evaluated in an empirical classroom study in August 2022 with 22 high school students in Germany that generated 95 conversations around five images and their texts assisted by the companion. Users' interactions with the companion in a controlled Instagram-like social media environment have been recorded in xAPI format and then analyzed using a research dashboard. The results of this evaluation demonstrate that guidance through the VLC, along with the provision of additional content sources containing similar images and their explanation through the companion, improves the learners' judgment. This corroborates the claim that the tool can help enhance learners' critical thinking, resilience, and sensitivity facing social media issues.

Purpose: Teachers are exposed to many stressors. Compared to other occupational groups, they are more frequently affected by psychosomatic complaints. In recent decades, numerous prevention and intervention measures for promoting health have been developed and implemented for this target group. However, it remains unclear how the uptake of health-promotion measures (HPMs) by teachers can be increased in order to prevent stress-related disorders. This paper examines two facets of health literacy--health awareness and health value--in terms of their importance in both the take-up and intended take-up of HPMs. Design/methodology/approach: In the 2017/2018 school year, data were collected by paper and pencil from a representative sample of 830 teachers across all school types in the German State of Brandenburg. Findings: Teachers who place great value on their own health show significantly higher levels of take-up and intended take-up of HPMs. The findings regarding health awareness are more heterogeneous. Further associations were found with age and psychosocial stress. Originality/value: While there has been growing academic interest in developing HPMs for teachers, there has been relatively little focus on the factors that may influence the implementation and uptake of these measures. The paper contributes to addressing this gap by shedding light on the relevance of two facets of health literacy. Strengthening the perceived importance of health could be a starting point for increasing the use of HPMs by teachers and thus improving their health.

This paper presents an analysis of resource access patterns in two recently conducted online courses. One of these has been a master level university lecture taught as a blended learning course with a wide range of online learning activities and materials, including collaborative wikis, self-tests, and thematic videos. The other course has been offered in the form of a MOOC. As a specialty of this course, master level students from two different universities could participate as a regular university class and receive credits for successful completion. In both courses, online learning resources such as videos, scientific literature, and wikis played a central role. In this context, the motivation for our research was to investigate characteristic patterns of resource usage of the learners. In order to gain deeper insights into the usage of learning materials, we have adapted methods from social network analysis and applied them to dynamic bipartite student-resource networks built from event logs of the students' resource access. In particular, we describe the clustering of students and resources in such networks and propose a method to identify patterns of the cluster evolution over time.

Discovery learning in mathematics in the domain of probability based on hands-on experiments is normally limited because of the difficulty in providing sufficient materials and data volume in terms of repetitions of the experiments. Our cooperative, computational modelling and simulation environment engages students and teachers in composing and simulating stochastic experiments, e.g. throwing dice or drawing balls, playing lottery games. It also facilitates validation and presentation. Engaging teachers in the design process led to the complementary development and evaluation of several learning activities in German secondary schools. Evaluating the results of our action research work indicated the potential of our approach for expanding traditional mathematics instruction when assisting students to develop a sustainable conceptual basis of probability principles, offering them a higher degree of responsibility for their learning. (Contains 6 figures and 1 note.)

[Display omitted] • Mass loss of logs of 13 tree species over 9.8 years is best described by a linear or a sigmoidal model. • Logs of diffuse-porous angiosperms decay faster than ring-porous angiosperms and gymnosperms. • Logs of the same tree species exhibit large variability in mass loss across 29 forest sites. • Mass loss is highest in the region with higher temperature, dry and nutrient-poor soils. • Forest structure including deadwood stock in the neighborhood had little influence on mass loss. Deadwood provides important ecological and biogeochemical functions in forest ecosystems. These functions rely on tree species-specific decay dynamics, but only few studies investigated how exogenous parameters affected the decay of deadwood at the regional scale. Here, we explore the influence of climate, soil traits and forest structure on decay dynamics and mass loss of logs of 13 tree species in 29 plots across three regions in Germany. This long-term experiment (BELongDead) comprises 1,066 logs of 9 angiosperms and 4 gymnosperms and covers a decay time of almost 10 years. Mass loss of logs was relatively high for the temperate climate with partly different half-lives ranging from 6 to 13 years (mean 8.9 ± 2.2 years). Diffuse-porous angiosperms lost 70 ± 13 % of their initial mass, followed by gymnosperms (49 ± 16 %) and ring-porous angiosperms (46 ± 12 %) within the study period. We applied three different mathematical models to fit mass loss in time and found that a linear model is most appropriate for 10 tree species. A sigmoidal model best described the mass loss of Fraxinus , Quercus and Pinus logs. A multivariate analysis revealed a significant effect of soil, temperature and precipitation on mass loss at the plot level. Mass loss increased with decreasing soil nutrient content, possibly as a result of enhanced bidirectional element translocations between nutrient-poor soils and logs by fungal hyphae. Temperature had a positive effect on mass loss, whereas increasing precipitation and soil moisture were negatively related to mass loss. The region with warmer, moderately humid climate and unfavourable soil properties led to overall higher mass loss (66 ± 4 %) whereas the other two regions were indifferent (both 57 ± 3 %). Forest structure, including canopy cover, share of coniferous trees and the stock of deadwood in the vicinity of the logs explained only a small part of the variability in mass loss. High variability within individual tree species suggests that other factors such as organismic diversity and microbial activity have stronger impact on the decay process at the regional scale than exogenous factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to identify person-level factors, rather than economic situations, that influence migration decision-making and actual migration. Building on the theory of planned behavior, this study investigated potential migrants’ expectations and attitudes toward migration and career (i.e., anticipated job benefits of migration, career aspiration) as well as beliefs (i.e., generalized self-efficacy) as predictors of migration decision-making conceptualized in three phases: the pre-decisional, pre-actional, and actional phases. This was examined with cross-sectional pre-migration questionnaire data from 1163 potential migrants from Spain to Germany. We also examined whether the migration decision-making phases predicted actual migration with a subsample ( n = 249) which provided follow-up data within twelve months. For the cross-sectional sample, multinomial logistic regressions revealed that anticipated job benefits and career aspiration are predictive for all migration phases. Self-efficacy predicts the preactional (e.g., gathering information) and actional phases (e.g., making practical arrangements). Finally, for those with low self-efficacy, anticipated job benefits play a stronger role for taking action. For the longitudinal subsample, a logistic regression revealed that being in the preactional and actional phases at baseline is predictive of actual migration within twelve months. This study expands previous research on migration intentions and behaviors by focusing on expectations, values, and beliefs as person-level predictors for migration decision-making. With a longitudinal sample, it shows that international migration is a process that involves multiple phases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper describes the internet project "Digitalisation of Prussia's official press". It was funded by the DFG. The project deals with the "Provinzial-Correspondenz" (PC, 1863-1884) and the "Neueste Mittheilungen" (NM, 1882-1994). Both papers were founded in an immense political crisis; both papers were important propagandistic instruments of Otto von Bismarck. The project enables access to a central source material of the late 19th century. It works on commentaries for subjects, persons and locations. Condensed abstracts offer surveys for both correspondences. A systematic index provides navigation from topic to topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the difficult relationship between art and Christianity due to the modernization process in the 18th century, its impact on several art movements such as the German romanticism, Nazarenes, and Classicism, as well as its influence on modern Christian art. The philosophy of the enlightenment brought rationalism into the art and challenge Christian art and its believes. Several photographs of art works are presented. Other topics mentioned in this article include depiction of Christ in art, the concept of radical pluralism in art, and the religious function of art museums and exhibitions.

In its "Lisbon Decision", the Federal Constitutional Court touched upon the question as to what extent legislation of Member States is "influenced, preformed or determined by Europe." Political science tries to measure this Europeanization by counting the number of laws from past legislative periods that originate in a "European Impulse" ("Impulse Method"). This method obtains its data primarily from the legislative documentation of the Bundestag. However, this documentation does not comprise all legislation based on European law. Furthermore, no statement is possible as to whether legislation that had been enacted in the past and which is based on a "European Impulse" is still in force today. Therefore, it is only possible to measure the influence of European law on current German law by comparing the number of current European legislative acts with the number of current German laws ("Competence Method"). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Perioperative hemodynamic management aims to optimize organ perfusion pressure and blood flow-assuming this ensures that oxygen delivery meets cellular metabolic needs. Cellular metabolic needs are reflected by energy expenditure. A better understanding of energy expenditure under general anesthesia could help tailor perioperative hemodynamic management to actual demands. We thus sought to assess energy expenditure under general anesthesia. Our primary hypothesis was that energy expenditure under general anesthesia is lower than preoperative awake resting energy expenditure., Methods: We conducted an observational study on patients having elective noncardiac surgery at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (Germany) between September 2019 and March 2020. We assessed preoperative awake resting energy expenditure, energy expenditure under general anesthesia, and energy expenditure after surgery using indirect calorimetry. We compared energy expenditure under general anesthesia at incision to preoperative awake resting energy expenditure using a Wilcoxon signed-rank test for paired measurements., Results: We analyzed 60 patients. Median (95% confidence interval [CI]) preoperative awake resting energy expenditure was 953 (95% CI, 906-962) kcal d -1 m -2 . Median energy expenditure under general anesthesia was 680 (95% CI, 642-711) kcal d -1 m -2 -and thus 263 (95% CI, 223-307) kcal d -1 m -2 or 27% (95% CI, 23%-30%) lower than preoperative awake resting energy expenditure ( P < .001)., Conclusions: Median energy expenditure under general anesthesia is about one-quarter lower than preoperative awake resting energy expenditure in patients having noncardiac surgery., Competing Interests: Conflicts of Interest: See Disclosures at the end of the article., (Copyright © 2022 International Anesthesia Research Society.)

Background: The effect of different methods for data sampling and data processing on the results of comparative statistical analyses in method comparison studies of continuous arterial blood pressure (AP) monitoring systems remains unknown., Objective: We sought to investigate the effect of different methods for data sampling and data processing on the results of statistical analyses in method comparison studies of continuous AP monitoring systems., Design: Prospective observational study., Setting: University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany, from April to October 2019., Patients: 49 patients scheduled for neurosurgery with AP measurement using a radial artery catheter., Main Outcome Measures: We assessed the agreement between continuous noninvasive finger cuff-derived (CNAP Monitor 500; CNSystems Medizintechnik, Graz, Austria) and invasive AP measurements in a prospective method comparison study in patients having neurosurgery using all beat-to-beat AP measurements (Methodall), 10-s averages (Methodavg), one 30-min period of 10-s averages (Method30), Method30 with additional offset subtraction (Method30off), and 10 30-s periods without (Methodiso) or with (Methodiso-zero) application of the zero zone. The agreement was analysed using Bland-Altman and error grid analysis., Results: For mean AP, the mean of the differences (95% limits of agreement) was 9.0 (-12.9 to 30.9) mmHg for Methodall, 9.2 (-12.5 to 30.9) mmHg for Methodavg, 6.5 (-9.3 to 22.2) mmHg for Method30, 0.5 (-9.5 to 10.5) mmHg for Method30off, 4.9 (-6.0 to 15.7) mmHg for Methodiso, and 3.4 (-5.9 to 12.7) mmHg for Methodiso-zero. Similar trends were found for systolic and diastolic AP. Results of error grid analysis were also influenced by using different methods for data sampling and data processing., Conclusion: Data sampling and data processing substantially impact the results of comparative statistics in method comparison studies of continuous AP monitoring systems. Depending on the method used for data sampling and data processing, the performance of an AP test method may be considered clinically acceptable or unacceptable., (Copyright © 2021 European Society of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care. Unauthorized reproduction of this article is prohibited.)