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Local widening in a channelized river is a common practice in restoration projects. The lateral embayments built for this purpose in the river banks are partially filled up by fine sediments. This allows the formation of aquatic habitats with hydraulic and morphologic diversity. However, the design of these lateral cavities may be compromised by the fluctuations in the water discharge. To address this problem, systematic experimental investigations have been carried out with five different fluctuating hydrograph scenarios. Water depth, sediment concentration and area covered by the settled sediments are analysed in each experiment. The process of sedimentation in the lateral embayments proved to be, in general, resilient to flow fluctuations. However, there were several differences observed during the high flow phase fluctuation phase depending on the geometric configuration of the embayments and the applied hydrograph: (i) a higher peak in discharge means that more sediments are resuspended and a complete remobilization of the in-cavity sediment deposits is possible. (ii) Long and short cavities are more resilient to high flow events than cavities with an intermediate length.

Research from several areas suggests that mental representations adapt to the specific tasks we carry out in our environment. In this study, we propose a mechanism of adaptive representational change, task imprinting. Thereby, we introduce a computational model, which portrays task imprinting as an adaptation to specific task goals via selective storage of helpful representations in long-term memory. We test the main qualitative prediction of the model in four behavioral experiments using healthy young adults as participants. In each experiment, we assess participants' baseline representations in the beginning of the experiment, then expose participants to one of two tasks intended to shape representations differently according to our model, and finally assess any potential change in representations. Crucially, the tasks used to measure representations differ in the amount that strategic, judgmental processes play a role. The results of Experiments 1 and 2 allow us to exclude the option that representations used in more perceptual tasks become biased categorically. The results of Experiment 4 make it likely that people strategically decide given the specific task context whether they use categorical information or not. One signature of representational change was however observed: category learning practice increased the perceptual sensitivity over and above mere exposure to the same stimuli., (Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Board, card or video games have been played by virtually every individual in the world. Games are popular because they are intuitive and fun. These distinctive qualities of games also make them ideal for studying the mind. By being intuitive, games provide a unique vantage point for understanding the inductive biases that support behaviour in more complex, ecological settings than traditional laboratory experiments. By being fun, games allow researchers to study new questions in cognition such as the meaning of 'play' and intrinsic motivation, while also supporting more extensive and diverse data collection by attracting many more participants. We describe the advantages and drawbacks of using games relative to standard laboratory-based experiments and lay out a set of recommendations on how to gain the most from using games to study cognition. We hope this Perspective will lead to a wider use of games as experimental paradigms, elevating the ecological validity, scale and robustness of research on the mind., (© 2024. Springer Nature Limited.)

Background: Geriatric trauma patients represent a special challenge in postoperative care and are prone to specific complications. The goal of this study was to analyse the predictive potential of a novel nursing assessment tool, the outcome-oriented nursing assessment for acute care (ePA-AC), in geriatric trauma patients with proximal femur fractures (PFF)., Methods: A retrospective cohort study of geriatric trauma patients aged ≥ 70 years with PFF was conducted at a level 1 trauma centre. The ePA-AC is a routinely used tool that evaluates pneumonia; confusion, delirium and dementia (CDD); decubitus (Braden Score); the risk of falls; the Fried Frailty index (FFI); and nutrition. Assessment of the novel tool included analysis of its ability to predict complications including delirium, pneumonia and decubitus., Results: The novel ePA-AC tool was investigated in 71 geriatric trauma patients. In total, 49 patients (67.7%) developed at least one complication. The most common complication was delirium (n = 22, 44.9%). The group with complications (Group C) had a significantly higher FFI compared with the group without complications (Group NC) (1.7 ± 0.5 vs 1.2 ± 0.4, p = 0.002). Group C had a significantly higher risk score for malnutrition compared with Group NC (6.3 ± 3.4 vs 3.9 ± 2.8, p = 0.004). A higher FFI score increased the risk of developing complications (odds ratio [OR] 9.8, 95% confidence interval [CI] 2.0 to 47.7, p = 0.005). A higher CDD score increased the risk of developing delirium (OR 9.3, 95% CI 2.9 to 29.4, p < 0.001)., Conclusion: The FFI, CDD, and nutritional assessment tools are associated with the development of complications in geriatric trauma patients with PFF. These tools can support the identification of geriatric patients at risk and might guide individualised treatment strategies and preventive measures., Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist., (Copyright: © 2023 Berk et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)

The incidence of Alzheimer's disease (AD), the leading cause of dementia, increases rapidly with age, but why age constitutes the main risk factor is still poorly understood. Brain ageing affects oligodendrocytes and the structural integrity of myelin sheaths 1 , the latter of which is associated with secondary neuroinflammation 2,3 . As oligodendrocytes support axonal energy metabolism and neuronal health 4-7 , we hypothesized that loss of myelin integrity could be an upstream risk factor for neuronal amyloid-β (Aβ) deposition, the central neuropathological hallmark of AD. Here we identify genetic pathways of myelin dysfunction and demyelinating injuries as potent drivers of amyloid deposition in mouse models of AD. Mechanistically, myelin dysfunction causes the accumulation of the Aβ-producing machinery within axonal swellings and increases the cleavage of cortical amyloid precursor protein. Suprisingly, AD mice with dysfunctional myelin lack plaque-corralling microglia despite an overall increase in their numbers. Bulk and single-cell transcriptomics of AD mouse models with myelin defects show that there is a concomitant induction of highly similar but distinct disease-associated microglia signatures specific to myelin damage and amyloid plaques, respectively. Despite successful induction, amyloid disease-associated microglia (DAM) that usually clear amyloid plaques are apparently distracted to nearby myelin damage. Our data suggest a working model whereby age-dependent structural defects of myelin promote Aβ plaque formation directly and indirectly and are therefore an upstream AD risk factor. Improving oligodendrocyte health and myelin integrity could be a promising target to delay development and slow progression of AD., (© 2023. The Author(s).)