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Das starke Leistungswachstum kombiniert mit dem Fachkräftemangel in der häuslichen Pflege verlangt nach einer anpassungsfähigen Betriebsorganisation. Das niederländische Buurtzorg-Modell orientiert sich am Ansatz der Holokratie und verspricht eine Reorganisation der Pflege im Privathaushalt, welche sich positiv auf die Zufriedenheit der Mitarbeitenden und die Personzentrierung auswirkt. Das Buurtzorg-Modell stößt auch in der Schweiz auf reges Interesse.

The density of wood is a key indicator of the carbon investment strategies of trees, impacting productivity and carbon storage. Despite its importance, the global variation in wood density and its environmental controls remain poorly understood, preventing accurate predictions of global forest carbon stocks. Here we analyse information from 1.1 million forest inventory plots alongside wood density data from 10,703 tree species to create a spatially explicit understanding of the global wood density distribution and its drivers. Our findings reveal a pronounced latitudinal gradient, with wood in tropical forests being up to 30% denser than that in boreal forests. In both angiosperms and gymnosperms, hydrothermal conditions represented by annual mean temperature and soil moisture emerged as the primary factors influencing the variation in wood density globally. This indicates similar environmental filters and evolutionary adaptations among distinct plant groups, underscoring the essential role of abiotic factors in determining wood density in forest ecosystems. Additionally, our study highlights the prominent role of disturbance, such as human modification and fire risk, in influencing wood density at more local scales. Factoring in the spatial variation of wood density notably changes the estimates of forest carbon stocks, leading to differences of up to 21% within biomes. Therefore, our research contributes to a deeper understanding of terrestrial biomass distribution and how environmental changes and disturbances impact forest ecosystems.

Aim: Ecological and anthropogenic factors shift the abundances of dominant and rare tree species within local forest communities, thus affecting species composition and ecosystem functioning. To inform forest and conservation management it is important to understand the drivers of dominance and rarity in local tree communities. We answer the following research questions: (1) What are the patterns of dominance and rarity in tree communities? (2) Which ecological and anthropogenic factors predict these patterns? And (3) what is the extinction risk of locally dominant and rare tree species?. Location: Global. Time period: 1990–2017. Major taxa studied: Trees. Methods: We used 1.2 million forest plots and quantified local tree dominance as the relative plot basal area of the single most dominant species and local rarity as the percentage of species that contribute together to the least 10% of plot basal area. We mapped global community dominance and rarity using machine learning models and evaluated the ecological and anthropogenic predictors with linear models. Extinction risk, for example threatened status, of geographically widespread dominant and rare species was evaluated. Results: Community dominance and rarity show contrasting latitudinal trends, with boreal forests having high levels of dominance and tropical forests having high levels of rarity. Increasing annual precipitation reduces community dominance, probably because precipitation is related to an increase in tree density and richness. Additionally, stand age is positively related to community dominance, due to stem diameter increase of the most dominant species. Surprisingly, we find that locally dominant and rare species, which are geographically widespread in our data, have an equally high rate of elevated extinction due to declining populations through large-scale land degradation. Main conclusions: By linking patterns and predictors of community dominance and rarity to extinction risk, our results suggest that also widespread species should be considered in large-scale management and conservation practices.

Abstract In close‐range remote sensing data collected in a forest, occlusion often causes incomplete or sparse point cloud representations of individual trees, impeding accurate 3D reconstruction of tree architecture and estimation of tree height and volume. Recent developments in deep learning (DL) for 3D data have produced approaches for point cloud completion, which could potentially be applied to trees. We explored the potential of a DL approach to fill gaps in dense point clouds representing the main structures of deciduous trees by applying an existing transformer‐based completion model (PoinTr). Complete point clouds are required as training data, but even dense terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) data sets contain gaps caused by occlusion, making it nearly impossible to acquire such data. We therefore investigated the ability of point cloud completion models trained on a range of synthetic data sets to handle occlusion patterns in real‐world point clouds. Despite the limited data set, we successfully fine‐tuned a general pre‐trained completion model to fill gaps within 1 m3 segments of tree point clouds. Fine‐tuning on synthetic tree data improved the model's ability to complete tree objects compared with training on diverse artificial objects. However, the quality of the predictions was influenced by the level of sophistication of the synthetic data. Our results demonstrate that incorporating even limited real‐world TLS data during training can considerably improve completion results but may introduce additional noise in the predictions. 3D point cloud completion with DL has the potential to improve and fill gaps in point clouds of individual trees, facilitating further steps in the processing and analysis of 3D forest data.

Forests are a substantial terrestrial carbon sink, but anthropogenic changes in land use and climate have considerably reduced the scale of this system1. Remote-sensing estimates to quantify carbon losses from global forests2-5 are characterized by considerable uncertainty and we lack a comprehensive ground-sourced evaluation to benchmark these estimates. Here we combine several ground-sourced6 and satellite-derived approaches2,7,8 to evaluate the scale of the global forest carbon potential outside agricultural and urban lands. Despite regional variation, the predictions demonstrated remarkable consistency at a global scale, with only a 12% difference between the ground-sourced and satellite-derived estimates. At present, global forest carbon storage is markedly under the natural potential, with a total deficit of 226 Gt (model range = 151-363 Gt) in areas with low human footprint. Most (61%, 139 Gt C) of this potential is in areas with existing forests, in which ecosystem protection can allow forests to recover to maturity. The remaining 39% (87 Gt C) of potential lies in regions in which forests have been removed or fragmented. Although forests cannot be a substitute for emissions reductions, our results support the idea2,3,9 that the conservation, restoration and sustainable management of diverse forests offer valuable contributions to meeting global climate and biodiversity targets.

Understanding what controls global leaf type variation in trees is crucial for comprehending their role in terrestrial ecosystems, including carbon, water and nutrient dynamics. Yet our understanding of the factors influencing forest leaf types remains incomplete, leaving us uncertain about the global proportions of needle-leaved, broadleaved, evergreen and deciduous trees. To address these gaps, we conducted a global, ground-sourced assessment of forest leaf-type variation by integrating forest inventory data with comprehensive leaf form (broadleaf vs needle-leaf) and habit (evergreen vs deciduous) records. We found that global variation in leaf habit is primarily driven by isothermality and soil characteristics, while leaf form is predominantly driven by temperature. Given these relationships, we estimate that 38% of global tree individuals are needle-leaved evergreen, 29% are broadleaved evergreen, 27% are broadleaved deciduous and 5% are needle-leaved deciduous. The aboveground biomass distribution among these tree types is approximately 21% (126.4 Gt), 54% (335.7 Gt), 22% (136.2 Gt) and 3% (18.7 Gt), respectively. We further project that, depending on future emissions pathways, 17-34% of forested areas will experience climate conditions by the end of the century that currently support a different forest type, highlighting the intensification of climatic stress on existing forests. By quantifying the distribution of tree leaf types and their corresponding biomass, and identifying regions where climate change will exert greatest pressure on current leaf types, our results can help improve predictions of future terrestrial ecosystem functioning and carbon cycling.

Determining the drivers of non-native plant invasions is critical for managing native ecosystems and limiting the spread of invasive species1,2. Tree invasions in particular have been relatively overlooked, even though they have the potential to transform ecosystems and economies3,4. Here, leveraging global tree databases5-7, we explore how the phylogenetic and functional diversity of native tree communities, human pressure and the environment influence the establishment of non-native tree species and the subsequent invasion severity. We find that anthropogenic factors are key to predicting whether a location is invaded, but that invasion severity is underpinned by native diversity, with higher diversity predicting lower invasion severity. Temperature and precipitation emerge as strong predictors of invasion strategy, with non-native species invading successfully when they are similar to the native community in cold or dry extremes. Yet, despite the influence of these ecological forces in determining invasion strategy, we find evidence that these patterns can be obscured by human activity, with lower ecological signal in areas with higher proximity to shipping ports. Our global perspective of non-native tree invasion highlights that human drivers influence non-native tree presence, and that native phylogenetic and functional diversity have a critical role in the establishment and spread of subsequent invasions.

1. Biodiversity is an important component of natural ecosystems, with higher species richness often correlating with an increase in ecosystem productivity. Yet, this relationship varies substantially across environments, typically becoming less pronounced at high levels of species richness. However, species richness alone cannot reflect all important properties of a community, including community evenness, which may mediate the relationship between biodiversity and productivity. If the evenness of a community correlates negatively with richness across forests globally, then a greater number of species may not always increase overall diversity and productivity of the system. Theoretical work and local empirical studies have shown that the effect of evenness on ecosystem functioning may be especially strong at high richness levels, yet the consistency of this remains untested at a global scale. 2. Here, we used a dataset of forests from across the globe, which includes composition, biomass accumulation and net primary productivity, to explore whether productivity correlates with community evenness and richness in a way that evenness appears to buffer the effect of richness. Specifically, we evaluated whether low levels of evenness in speciose communities correlate with the attenuation of the richness–productivity relationship. 3. We found that tree species richness and evenness are negatively correlated across forests globally, with highly speciose forests typically comprising a few dominant and many rare species. Furthermore, we found that the correlation between diversity and productivity changes with evenness: at low richness, uneven communities are more productive, while at high richness, even communities are more productive. 4. Synthesis. Collectively, these results demonstrate that evenness is an integral component of the relationship between biodiversity and productivity, and that the attenuating effect of richness on forest productivity might be partly explained by low evenness in speciose communities. Productivity generally increases with species richness, until reduced evenness limits the overall increases in community diversity. Our research suggests that evenness is a fundamental component of biodiversity–ecosystem function relationships, and is of critical importance for guiding conservation and sustainable ecosystem management decisions.

Abstract Estimating growing stock is one of the main objectives of forest inventories. It refers to the stem volume of individual trees which is typically derived by models as it cannot be easily measured directly. These models are thus based on measurable tree dimensions and their parameterization depends on the available empirical data. Historically, such data were collected by measurements of tree stem sizes, which is very time- and cost-intensive. Here, we present an exceptionally large dataset with section-wise stem measurements on 40’349 felled individual trees collected on plots of the Experimental Forest Management project. It is a revised and expanded version of previously unpublished data and contains the empirically derived coarse (diameter ≥7 cm) and fine branch volume of 27’297 and 18’980, respectively, individual trees. The data were collected between 1888 and 1974 across Switzerland covering a large topographic gradient and a diverse species range and can thus support estimations and verification of volume functions also outside Switzerland including the derivation of whole tree volume in a consistent manner.

O objetivo deste estudo foi determinar a prevalência e a severidade da fluorose dentária em todos os 259 escolares de 4 a 18 anos de idade do Município de Santa Tereza, Rio Grande do Sul, Brasil, e investigar possíveis fatores associados. Os dados foram coletados por meio de um questionário e de um exame clínico. Para a determinação da fluorose, foi utilizado o índice de Dean. A prevalência de fluorose foi de 63,7%. O grau predominante foi o muito leve (43,6%), seguido pelo grau leve (12,0%), moderado (7,7%), questionável (7,3%) e severo (0,4%). Cerca de 85,0% dos escolares apresentaram acesso atual ou passado a formas tópicas de utilização do flúor. Associações significativas foram encontradas entre local de moradia, prática atual ou passada de bochechos fluoretados e a prevalência/severidade de fluorose, como também entre a prevalência de fluorose e o nível de escolaridade dos pais dos escolares, freqüência de escovação, acesso a bochechos fluoretados e uso do flúor gel (p < 0,05).

Este artigo enfoca, numa abordagem qualitativa, o problema das barreiras ao atendimento odontológico de gestantes inscritas no Programa Saúde da Família no Cabo de Santo Agostinho, Pernambuco, Brasil. Para tal, trabalhou-se com três grupos focais compostos por quatro a nove gestantes. Os dados foram analisados usando a técnica de análise de conteúdo. As principais barreiras concernentes ao indivíduo observadas foram: crenças populares que desaconselham a busca do atendimento odontológico na gravidez, baixa percepção de necessidade e medo de sentir dor. Além disso, as gestantes relataram a dificuldade de sair de casa de madrugada para marcar a consulta, salientando a questão social da violência urbana, um aspecto das barreiras ao serviço odontológico que não foi mencionado anteriormente na literatura. O artigo conclui apontando a importância da educação em saúde para as usuárias gestantes, da humanização do atendimento e da educação continuada dirigida aos profissionais em exercício.

Abstract: Aim: To determine the relationships between the functional trait composition of forest communities and environmental gradients across scales and biomes and the role of species relative abundances in these relationships. Location: Global. Time period: Recent. Major taxa studied: Trees. Methods: We integrated species abundance records from worldwide forest inventories and associated functional traits (wood density, specific leaf area and seed mass) to obtain a data set of 99,953 to 149,285 plots (depending on the trait) spanning all forested continents. We computed community‐weighted and unweighted means of trait values for each plot and related them to three broad environmental gradients and their interactions (energy availability, precipitation and soil properties) at two scales (global and biomes). Results: Our models explained up to 60% of the variance in trait distribution. At global scale, the energy gradient had the strongest influence on traits. However, within‐biome models revealed different relationships among biomes. Notably, the functional composition of tropical forests was more influenced by precipitation and soil properties than energy availability, whereas temperate forests showed the opposite pattern. Depending on the trait studied, response to gradients was more variable and proportionally weaker in boreal forests. Community unweighted means were better predicted than weighted means for almost all models. Main conclusions: Worldwide, trees require a large amount of energy (following latitude) to produce dense wood and seeds, while leaves with large surface to weight ratios are concentrated in temperate forests. However, patterns of functional composition within‐biome differ from global patterns due to biome specificities such as the presence of conifers or unique combinations of climatic and soil properties. We recommend assessing the sensitivity of tree functional traits to environmental changes in their geographic context. Furthermore, at a given site, the distribution of tree functional traits appears to be driven more by species presence than species abundance.

Abstract Gephyrin is the main scaffolding protein at inhibitory postsynaptic sites, and its clusters are the signaling hubs where several molecular pathways converge. Post-translational modifications (PTMs) of gephyrin alter GABAA receptor clustering at the synapse, but it is unclear how this affects neuronal activity at the circuit level. We assessed the contribution of gephyrin PTMs to microcircuit activity in the mouse barrel cortex by slice electrophysiology and in vivo two-photon calcium imaging of layer 2/3 (L2/3) pyramidal cells during single-whisker stimulation. Our results suggest that, depending on the type of gephyrin PTM, the neuronal activities of L2/3 pyramidal neurons can be differentially modulated, leading to changes in the size of the neuronal population responding to the single-whisker stimulation. Furthermore, we show that gephyrin PTMs have their preference for selecting synaptic GABAA receptor subunits. Our results identify an important role of gephyrin and GABAergic postsynaptic sites for cortical microcircuit function during sensory stimulation.

Key message Evolving societal demands and accelerated ecological dynamics due to global change are rapidly altering forest ecosystems and their services. This has prompted the need for advancing forest inventorying and monitoring initatives to expand their scope, improve data collection, foster scientific understanding, and better inform policy responses. Here, we discuss the collaborative processes followed to develop an Advanced Inventorying and Monitoring (AIM) system for Swiss forests. Further, we provide the key messages that emerged from this process which can be of interest to those involved in similar processes at the national/international level.

OBJETIVOS: Avaliar alguns hábitos de higiene bucal (escovação dentária, uso do palito e uso do fio dental) em um grupo de adultos, em relação a fatores sociodemográficos, e investigar o nível de placa bacteriana e sangramento gengival. METODOLOGIA: A amostra foi constituída por 234 mulheres e 237 homens de duas categorias socioeconômicas, com idade entre 24 e 44 anos. Os dados foram coletados através de entrevistas estruturadas e exames clínicos. RESULTADOS: A freqüência de escovação encontrada foi alta: (mediana e moda de três vezes ao dia) e apresentou associação com sexo e categoria socioeconômica. A maioria dos entrevistados (67,5%) declarou usar fio dental, estando seu uso associado com sexo e categoria socioeconômica. Usar palito foi descrito como um hábito comum para a maioria das pessoas entrevistadas:(54,6%) o usam. O uso do palito apresentou associação com sexo, idade e categoria socioeconômica . O nível de placa bacteriana foi moderado para a maioria das pessoas (62,6%), e estava associado com a categoria socioeconômica. Um quarto dos participantes do estudo não apresentou sangramento gengival, e este estava associado com a idade e a categoria socioeconômica. CONCLUSÃO: Os hábitos de higiene bucal foram considerados bons para a maioria dos indivíduos que participaram do estudo, havendo necessidade de melhoria para os homens e pessoas de categoria socioeconômica inferior.

Summary: Studying synapses in vivo presents challenges due to the complexity of accurately targeting and visualizing specific synaptic proteins within the brain. Here, we present a protocol for in vivo analysis of pre- and post-synaptic protein function in mice. We describe steps for combining adeno-associated virus (AAV)-mediated gene transfer to manipulate specific neuron subtypes. We also describe immunofluorescence on artificial cerebrospinal fluid (ACSF)-perfused brain sections to enhance the visualization of synaptic proteins.For complete details on the use and execution of this protocol, please refer to Cramer et al.1 : Publisher’s note: Undertaking any experimental protocol requires adherence to local institutional guidelines for laboratory safety and ethics.

IntroductionTo achieve net-zero targets, it is essential to evaluate and model the costs and scalability of emerging carbon dioxide removal technologies like direct air capture with CO2 storage (DACCS) and bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS). Yet such efforts are often impeded by varying assessments of the climate impact and potential contributions of these technologies. This study explores the future costs and scalability of DACCS and BECCS to advance net-zero goals.MethodsWe analyze expert opinions on these technologies’ potential costs and deployment scales for 2030, 2040, and 2050. Data was collected from 34 experts, comprising 21 DACCS and 13 BECCS specialists. They provided 90% confidence interval estimates and ‘best estimates’ for future costs and deployment under two International Energy Agency (IEA) policy scenarios—Stated Policies (STEPS) and Net Zero Emissions by 2050 (NZE).ResultsWe find that BECCS costs start at a lower level but decrease more slowly, whereas DACCS costs decline more steeply from a higher initial cost. However, DACCS estimates varied significantly among experts, showing no convergence over time. Regarding potential scalability, both technologies are associated with substantially higher deployment under the NZE scenario. Yet the combined estimated capacity of DACCS and BECCS by 2050 is only about a quarter of the CO2 removals projected by the IEA for its NZE scenario (1.9 GtCO2).DiscussionThis study provides valuable insights into the future of DACCS and BECCS technologies in Europe, especially since our experts expect that DACCS and BECCS costs will be even higher (and deployment scales lower) than those predicted by recent IEA tracking, opening future research directions.

Nature evolves molecular interaction networks through persistent perturbation and selection, in stark contrast to drug discovery, which evaluates candidates one at a time by screening. Here, nature's highly parallel ligand-target search paradigm is recapitulated in a screen of a DNA-encoded library (DEL; 73,728 ligands) against a library of RNA structures (4,096 targets). In total, the screen evaluated ∼300 million interactions and identified numerous bona fide ligand-RNA three-dimensional fold target pairs. One of the discovered ligands bound a 5'GAG/3'CCC internal loop that is present in primary microRNA-27a (pri-miR-27a), the oncogenic precursor of microRNA-27a. The DEL-derived pri-miR-27a ligand was cell active, potently and selectively inhibiting pri-miR-27a processing to reprogram gene expression and halt an otherwise invasive phenotype in triple-negative breast cancer cells. By exploiting evolutionary principles at the earliest stages of drug discovery, it is possible to identify high-affinity and selective target-ligand interactions and predict engagements in cells that short circuit disease pathways in preclinical disease models.

Abstract Background Branch retinal vein occlusion is a frequent cause of visual loss with currently insufficient treatment options. We evaluate the effect of Bevacizumab (Avastin®) treatment in patients with macular edema induced by branch retinal vein occlusion. Methods Retrospective analysis of 32 eyes in 32 patients with fluorescein angiography proven branch retinal vein occlusion, macular edema and Bevacizumab treatment. Outcome measures were best corrected visual acuity in logMAR and central retinal thickness in OCT. Results Visual acuity was significantly better 4 to 6 weeks after Bevacizumab treatment compared to visual acuity prior to treatment (before 0.7 ± 0.3 and after 0.5 ± 0.3; mean ± standard deviation; p < 0.01, paired t-test). Gain in visual acuity was accompanied by a significant decrease in retinal thickness (454 ± 117 to 305 ± 129 μm, p < 0.01, paired t-test). Follow up (170, 27 – 418 days; median, range) shows that improvement for both visual acuity and retinal thickness last for several months after Bevacizumab use. Conclusion We present evidence that intravitreal Bevacizumab is an effective and lasting treatment for macular edema after branch retinal vein occlusion.

A preocupação temática nas últimas décadas de trabalho docente no ensino superior, no âmbito da formação inicial de professores de Ciências da Natureza e suas Tecnologias, tem sido a iniciação à docência investigativa na perspectiva da Educação como Prática da Liberdade (EPL). Como docentes universitários(a)s, nossa prática profissional tem sido colaborativa e mediada por tecnologias criativas educacionais em rede, nas duas últimas décadas com o Moodle. O foco desta se alinha com o movimento STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) na interface universidade-escola básica, com problematização segundo PBL (Problem-Based Learning) e conceitual-unificadora (regularidades-transformações e escala-energia). Temos pesquisado ativamente uma metodologia do ensino ancorada no tripé STEAM, PBL e EPL, mediado tecnologicamente pelo bloco CLPMtool e Wiki do Moodle, como estratégia dialógico-problematizadoras no âmbito de uma disciplina complementar de graduação (DCG). Os resultados obtidos, oriundos de pesquisa-ação emancipatória potencializaram a parametrização e sistematização didático-metodológica das atividades de estudo hipermidiática.

Human-induced climate change potentially impacts nature-based activities in Lofoten and may limit the attractiveness of the destination for tourists seeking recreation and adventure in the mountains. As a climate service, we calculated climate indicators relevant to the tourism sector based on the representative concentration pathways RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 until 2060. We used high-resolution gridded climate data and projections to calculate indicators such as changes in the frequency and intensity of consecutive wet days, changes in precipitation type (snow, sleet, rain), changes in the number of skiing days on ungroomed, natural snow, and changes of the monthly 0 °C-isoline. We found a minor, but non-robust increase in the number of consecutive wet days with a precipitation intensity > 8 mm/day, and a clear change in the precipitation regime depending on altitude that leads to more precipitation falling as rain instead of snow. Also, a strong decrease in the number of skiing days is projected by the climate models as the monthly near-surface 0 °C-isoline increases. These are important findings for long-term planning and investments in the tourism sector in Lofoten, especially as tourism growth is considered an important tool for regional economic development. The analytical methods used in this study are transferable to analyses on a regional to national scale. National maps and data material for 11 regions were recently published on https://klimaservicesenter.no/kss/framskr/sno-sludd-regn.

Global tree abundance is demonstrated to correlate with latitudinal variables, with tree size and self-thinning strategies impacting current estimates of tree count.