Culture

Automatic image recognition is widely used today: There are computer programs that can reliably diagnose skin cancer, navigate self-driving cars, or control robots. Up to now, all this has been based on the evaluation of image data as delivered by normal cameras - and that is time-consuming. Especially when the number of images recorded per second is high, a large volume of data is generated that can hardly be handled.

Scientists at TU Wien therefore took a different approach: using a special 2D material, an image sensor was developed that can be trained to recognize certain objects. The chip represents an artificial neural network capable of learning. The data does not have to be read out and processed by a computer, but the chip itself provides information about what it is currently seeing - within nanoseconds. The work has now been presented in the scientific journal "Nature".

Learning Hardware

Neural networks are artificial systems that are similar to our brain: Nerve cells are connected to many other nerve cells. When one cell is active, this can influence the activity of neighbouring nerve cells. Artificial learning on the computer works according to exactly the same principle: A network of neurons is simulated digitally, and the strength with which one node of this network influences the other is changed until the network shows the desired behaviour.

"Typically, the image data is first read out pixel by pixel and then processed on the computer," says Thomas Mueller. "We, on the other hand, integrate the neural network with its artificial intelligence directly into the hardware of the image sensor. This makes object recognition many orders of magnitude faster."

The chip was developed and manufactured at the TU Vienna. It is based on photodetectors made of tungsten diselenide - an ultra-thin material consisting of only three atomic layers. The individual photodetectors, the "pixels" of the camera system, are all connected to a small number of output elements that provide the result of object recognition.

Learning through variable sensitivity

"In our chip, we can specifically adjust the sensitivity of each individual detector element - in other words, we can control the way the signal picked up by a particular detector affects the output signal," says Lukas Mennel, first author of the publication. "All we have to do is simply adjust a local electric field directly at the photodetector." This adaptation is done externally, with the help of a computer program. One can, for example, use the sensor to record different letters and change the sensitivities of the individual pixels step by step until a certain letter always leads exactly to a corresponding output signal. This is how the neural network in the chip is configured - making some connections in the network stronger and others weaker.

Once this learning process is complete, the computer is no longer needed. The neural network can now work alone. If a certain letter is presented to the sensor, it generates the trained output signal within 50 nanoseconds - for example, a numerical code representing the letter that the chip has just recognized.

Object detection when things have to go fast

"Our test chip is still small at the moment, but you can easily scale up the technology depending on the task you want to solve," says Thomas Mueller. "In principle, the chip could also be trained to distinguish apples from bananas, but we see its use more in scientific experiments or other specialized applications."

The technology can be usefully applied wherever extremely high speed is required: "From fracture mechanics to particle detection - in many research areas, short events are investigated," says Thomas Mueller. "Often it is not necessary to keep all the data about this event, but rather to answer a very specific question: Does a crack propagate from left to right? Which of several possible particles has just passed by? This is exactly what our technology is good for."

Employees over 50 can feel excluded and demotivated in the workplace for various reasons. They feel particularly excluded when they believe that their cognitive abilities decrease with age, as psychologists from the University of Basel report in the journal "Work, Aging, and Retirement".

Older people are generally happier and have better social relationships than younger people - and yet, negative stereotypes about older people are widespread, for example, they are often seen as forgetful and less competent than younger people. The researchers now show that older workers who have internalized such negative age stereotypes feel belonging less to their company and their colleagues. As a consequence, they are less motivated to seek social contacts in the workplace. This, in turn, can have negative consequences for their integration and can cause them to leave the work process, for example through early retirement.

Is performance also declining?

Older employees over 50 are not only often confronted with negative stereotypes about cognitive decline, they can also internalize them; for example, by agreeing with the idea that intellectual performance declines with age and that they themselves are affected by this decline. Previous research has shown that the internalization of negative age stereotypes can have an impact on performance-related variables.

But internalized negative age stereotypes also affect the emotions and motivation of older workers. Older workers might feel insecure about their belongingness in the workplace. This was shown in four online experiments and in an overall analysis with a total of 1306 employees between 50 and 76 years of age and from various professions. The more the persons internalized negative age stereotypes, the less they were motivated to establish social contacts with their colleagues and the more they socially withdrew. Investigations of the causality of these relationships, however, did not yield any clear results.

Fewer age stereotypes

"Fewer negative age stereotypes would not only enable more older employees to maintain fulfilling social contacts in the workplace," comments project leader Prof. Dr. Jana Nikitin the studies. The professional potential of older employees could also be better capitalized: "This could, in turn, contribute to solution of economic and social challenges in connection with the latest demographic developments."

Scientists of Tomsk Polytechnic University jointly with the University of Lille (France) have developed a new material capable of purifying water effectively from oil products. It is based on an ordinary household polyurethane sponge. The research team made it superhydrophobic - it repels water, while effectively sorbing oil product molecules. The results were published in Separation and Purification Technology (IF: 5,107; Q1).

"New oil production methods, especially the ones related to production on the seabed and ocean floor, raise up the risk of spills. We all know about the environmental impact of the accident that happened on a drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. Therefore, one of the most urgent scientific problems is to obtain selective sorbents capable to extract oil products from a water-oil mixture, avoiding interactions with water.

The latter point is crucially important since interactions with water basically result in some resultant products to end up in the water and affect the ecosystem. Furthermore, water saturation drops the sorbent effectiveness. Therefore, we had to find affordable material and make it hydrophobic and efficient for the mentioned goal. We decided in favor of a regular washing sponge," Pavel Postnikov, associate professor at TPU Research School of Chemistry & Applied Biomedical Sciences, says.

Diazonium salts, special organic compounds, were used to make a sponge hydrophobic. The sponge was placed in an aqueous solution with diazonium salts and heated to 60 °C. The resulting active radicals attacked the sponge and formed on the surface new organic groups with hydrophobic properties, being at the same time sensitive to oil products. They act as sorbents that selectively absorb oil molecules.

"The second issue is to find an efficient way to remove this material from water. We chose a magnetic sorbent collection. We added iron nanoparticles in the structure of the sponge, obtained by our original method and characterized by increased susceptibility to nonpolar molecules. We also added hydrophobic organic groups. As a result, we obtained material that almost does not interact with water despite the fact that it is a sponge," the scientist explains.

Petroleum products in water are in the form of an emulsion. This implies that their microscopic droplets are distributed in another liquid, in our case, in the water. According to the researchers, in practice, such emulsions are often highly stabilized. It means they are difficult to separate into individual components.

"We tested our material with both highly stabilized and low stabilized emulsions. The experiments demonstrated that the material is excellent. We also tested its effectiveness on industrial oils that can pollute natural water bodies. The material also showed its high efficiency," Pavel Postnikov says.

Furthermore, the studies showed that the new material can be reused several times. "In experiments, we used it at least five times and there was no drop in its efficiency," the scientist says.

Local communities in the Congo rainforest have been working with researchers from the University of York in a bid to balance the bushmeat trade with conservation.

Bushmeat is the most important source of protein, iron and fat in some parts of Africa, especially in areas where the tsetse flies limits cattle rearing. This includes places like the rainforests of the Congo Basin.

For more than a year, researchers from the University of York have used participatory approaches to understand hunting dynamics around the Lomami National Park, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in a bid to create a management plan. The park is home to three unique primates including the bonobo, Dryas and Lesula monkey- the later only found in this park in the whole world. Forest elephants and okapis are other unique inhabitants of this park.

Local communities of six different tribes, including Pygmies, were surveyed and researchers also checked to see what was sold at the bushmeat market in Kindu, the largest town near the national park.

The study showed most village hunters reported a decline in several species, which they related to an increased number of foreigner hunters and the use of firearms to kill larger species more easily.

Four species of conservation concern were found in the market, including the Dwarf crocodile Osteolaemus tetraspist. The study estimated more than 40,000 carcasses were sold annually in this market, with a retail value of USD 725,000.

Dr Aida Cuni Sanchez from the Department of Environment and Geography said: "Our research helped managers of the park to answer questions like: what do people prefer to eat, what did they sell to others to pay the school fees of their children, and which are taboo and they do not hunt at all'.

"Dealing with bushmeat hunting is not easy, especially if park managers lack human and economic means, and if animal protein alternatives are limited. This research helped start the discussion, and aided stakeholders realise they are on the same side - local communities also want hunting to be sustainable in the park buffer zone, so that their children can continue to eat meat protein."

Researchers recommended more clarification for local communities and foreign hunters about which species are endangered and should not be hunted, even in the park buffer zone. They supported calls from local communities to help manage their own wildlife resources in the buffer zone of the park and in the reporting of illegal activities by 'foreigner hunters'- hunters from outside the study region.

Do rivers play a significant role in the ocean circulation and dynamics? Do we need a fine representation of river release into regional ocean models?

Rivers are well known to affect both the coastal and basin-wide ocean circulation and dynamics, but representing the net freshwater flux at river mouths is still challenging for global and regional scale ocean modelling. Several studies have demonstrated that the freshwater discharge dominates the dynamics of the shelf areas adjacent to estuaries, by producing a typical "buoyant river plume", which consists of an offshore bulge and a coastal alongshore current. Other studies have highlighted the role played by the ocean salty waters intruding into the estuaries, demonstrating that this intrusion drives the estuarine water exchange thus affecting the net estuarine outflow and salinity values.

The regional and global ocean models cannot resolve the estuarine dynamics and they parameterize the river release in an oversimplified way, with climatological runoff and zero or constant salinity values.

A new study just published on Ocean Modelling tried to solve this problem while providing a more realistic representation of the estuarine water inputs and developing proper interfaces between mesoscale eddy-resolving models and estuaries in order to simulate the ROFI (i.e. Regions Of Freshwater Influence) dynamics. The study, led by scientist Giorgia Verri, ocean modeler at the CMCC Ocean Predictions and Applications Division, and co-authored by CMCC scientists Nadia Pinardi, Giovanni Coppini and Emanuela Clementi, tested and compared three different approaches (the three following models: the Knudsen's relation, the UCONN-NCAR Estuary Box Model and the CMCC Estuary Box Model, called CMCC-EBM, developed by researcher G. Verri) to represent the river volume transport and salinity values at the outlets and reconstruct the estuarine dynamics.

"The study", explains Giorgia Verri, "is placed in the framework of developing a conceptual and numerical modelling approach to simulate the effects of river release on the coastal to open sea circulation and dynamics. The few km resolution of mesoscale ocean models cannot explicitly resolve the estuary dynamics; thus, the idea of an "estuary box model" that gives reasonable values of water volume flux and salinity at the river mouth, which in turn affects the ocean dynamics.

Therefore, CMCC EBM has been conceived to represent the estuarine processes coupled to an eddy resolving regional ocean model (based on NEMO code).

To show the impact of the EBM volume flux and salinity values on the quality of an ocean simulation, researchers applied the results of the EBMs to a regional ocean model in the central Mediterranean Sea and in particular to two estuaries in this area: the highly-stratified estuary of the Ofanto river, which flows through Apulia in southern Italy and ends in the Southern Adriatic Sea, and the partially mixed delta of the Po river, one of the main rivers in Europe which discharges into the northern Adriatic Sea.

The study highlighted that the coupled systems are capable to reconstruct well defined river plumes and outperform the climatological approach which neglects the estuarine water exchange while improving the performance of ocean models. Moreover, the coupling of the eddy resolving ocean model to the CMCC EBM is found to outperform the one with the UCONN-NCAR EBM in the region of freshwater influence on the shelf areas.

"The research is not only interesting from an academic point of view", highlights Prof. Nadia Pinardi, oceanographer at the CMCC Foundation, "but also for its practical application: introducing an information on river release into ocean models, from regional to global scale, can improve their performance and produce more realistic operational forecasts or climate scenarios. The EBM-CMCC model will be first coupled to the models currently used to produce operational forecasts in the Mediterranean or in the Black Sea, that is to the Copernicus Mediterranean and Black Sea Forecasting Systems (CMEMS Med MFC and CMEMS BS MFC), to improve their outputs".

"The Copernicus Marine Service (CMEMS) has been designed to respond to issues emerging in the environmental, business and scientific sectors. Using information from both satellite and in situ observations, it provides state-of-the-art analyses and forecasts daily, which offer an unprecedented capability to observe, understand and anticipate marine environment events. This study adds a key piece of information to oceanographic models used by this service", comments Giovanni Coppini, Director of the CMCC Ocean and Predictions Applications Division. "The CMCC estuarine model adds in fact increased realism to the ocean models while providing more accurate simulations and forecasts."

CMCC researchers are already working to upgrade the model. The further development of the model will support the understanding of another key issue: the study of salt water intrusion and salinization processes in coastal areas. "The upgraded version of our model", Verri adds, "will be used to assess the level of salt wedge intrusion in the Po river delta in the framework of OPERANDUM, a project aiming at reducing hydro-meteorological risks in Europe through the design and development of innovative Nature Based Solutions. Modelling the level of salt water intrusion will support in particular a study for the design and development of Natural based solutions to improve the environmental resilience of the area. The scenarios produced will help in particular the activities of the project aimed at introducing herbaceous perennial deep rooting plants as coverage of earth embankments for the mitigation of flood risk and salt wedge intrusion in the Po delta".

[Background]

A point set registration problem is a task using two shapes, each consisting of a set of points, to estimate the relationship of individual points between the two shapes. Here, a "shape" is like a human body or face, which is similar to another body or face but exhibits morphological diversity. Taking the face as an example: the center position of the pupil of an eye varies depending on individuals but can be thought to have a correspondence with that of another person. Such a correspondence can be estimated by gradually deforming one shape to be superimposable on the other. Estimation of the correspondence of a point on one shape to a point on another is the point set registration problem. Since the number of points of one shape could be millions, estimation of correspondence is calculated by a computer. Nonetheless, up to now, even when the fastest conventional method was used, it took a lot of time for calculation for registration of ca. 100,000 points. Thus, algorithms that could find a solution far faster without affecting accuracy have been sought. Furthermore, preliminary registration before automated estimation was a prerequisite for the conventional calculation method, so algorithms that do not need preliminary registration are desirable.

[Results]

Prof. Osamu Hirose, a young scientist at Kanazawa University, has been working on this problem. In his study, a completely new approach has been taken; a point set registration problem is defined as maximization of posterior probability*1) in Bayesian statistics*2) and the smoothness of a displacement field*3) is defined as a prior probability*4). As a result, a new algorithm has been discovered that can find a solution of a typical point set registration problem even without sufficient preliminary registration. In addition, by replacing some calculations of this algorithm with approximation, point set registration problems can be solved drastically faster than conventional methods. For example, for two point sets consisting of ca. 100,000 points each (leftmost in Figure 1), application of the present method was successful in completing highly accurate registration within 2 min, while the fastest method that was publicly available took about three hours. Also, as shown in Figure 2, the proposed method successfully registered the "dragon" dataset, where both point sets were composed of 437,645 points each. The computing time was roughly 20 min. Although the present high-speed calculation uses approximations, the accuracy of registration is not reduced to a discernible extent, as demonstrated by numerical experiments.

By using the algorithm, new CG characters can be automatically created, and thereby, it can be a labor-saving technique for CG designers. Figure 3 shows an example application of the algorithm. Source shape (a) and target shape (b) were obtained from a public database and used as input of the algorithm. Shape (c) is the result of the first registration, showing that the source shape became similar to the target shape with characteristics of the source shape retained. Shape (d) is the result of the second registration, showing the source shape to be deformed closer to the target shape. The video summary of this research is available at the following website: [https://youtu.be/cET6gKAvjw0].

[Future prospects]

The importance of point set registration problems is due to their wide range of applications in the fields of computer graphics (CG) and computer vision. Personal authentication by face recognition used on smartphones can be interpreted as an application of point set registration. Further, blending the 3-dimensional shape of certain two persons, called "morphing," can be performed through point set registration. In addition, there is a well-known study that enabled restoration of a 3-dimensional face model of the late Audrey Hepburn from a single picture, which used a technique that can be interpreted as point set registration. Therefore, since point set registrations having a wide variety of applications can now be performed at a very high speed with high accuracy, it is expected that the method established in this study will be used as a core technology in this research field.

On the other hand, the method could be further improved. Although it is remarkably faster than the conventional method, calculation speed may become a problem when the number of points in a point set reaches millions. Prof. Hirose is further developing methods to enable calculation of such a large point set registration problem within several minutes. Preliminary results show great promise for successful further developments.

Cyanobacteria - colloquially also called blue-green algae - can produce oil from water and carbon dioxide with the help of light. This is shown by a recent study by the University of Bonn. The result is unexpected: Until now, it was believed that this ability was reserved for plants. It is possible that blue-green algae will now also become interesting as suppliers of feed or fuel, especially since they do not require arable land. The results have now been published in the journal PNAS.

What do rapeseed, avocado and olive tree have in common? They are all used by humans as producers of oil or fat. However, the ability to produce oil from water and carbon dioxide with the help of light is something that is essentially common to all plants, from unicellular algae to the giant sequoia trees. "We have now shown for the first time that cyanobacteria can do the same," explains biologist Prof. Dr. Peter Dörmann from the Institute of Molecular Physiology and Biotechnology of Plants (IMBIO) at the University of Bonn. "This was a complete surprise, not only to us."

Until now, experts had assumed that cyanobacteria lack this property. After all, they are actually bacteria, even if their trivial name "blue-green algae" suggests otherwise. They therefore differ considerably from plants in many respects: Cyanobacteria are closer related to the intestinal bacterium E. coli than to an olive tree. "There are indeed ancient reports in the literature that cyanobacteria can contain oil," says Dörmann. "But these have never been verified."

The scientist has been working at IMBIO for many years on an enzyme that catalyzes one of the steps in oil synthesis in plants. The enzyme is active in the chloroplasts, the green-colored cell components that are responsible for photosynthesis. It is thanks to these that plants can produce energy-rich chemical compounds with the help of sunlight.

Many scientists suspect that chloroplasts originally come from cyanobacteria. This is because they, unlike all other groups of bacteria, also master the photosynthesis typical of plants, with the release of oxygen. According to this theory, more than a billion years ago, a primordial plant cell "swallowed" a cyanobacterium. The bacterium then lived on in the cell and supplied it with photosynthesis products. "If this endosymbiont hypothesis is correct, then the oil synthesis enzyme of the chloroplasts might originally come from cyanobacteria," explains Dörmann.

Oil synthesis enzyme similar to that of plants

He pursued this possibility together with his doctoral student Mohammed Aizouq. The scientists searched the genomes of various cyanobacteria for a gene that is similar to the genetic make-up of the enzyme involved in plant oil synthesis. With success: They found a gene for a so-called acyltransferase in the blue-green algae; the plant enzyme also belongs to this group. Further tests showed that cyanobacteria do actually produce oil with this enzyme, even if only in small quantities.

The result is on the one hand interesting from an evolutionary-biological point of view: It shows that a certain part of the oil synthesis machinery in the chloroplasts of the plants probably originates from cyanobacteria. However, plants today mainly use other metabolic pathways to produce oil. Furthermore, the result may open up new possibilities for producing animal feed or biofuels. This is because, unlike oil plants such as rapeseed, cyanobacteria do not need arable land to grow - a container with culture medium and sufficient light and heat is enough for them.

This may make them suitable for deserts, for example, where they can be used to produce oils for car engines without competing with food crops. Especially since combustion would only release the carbon dioxide that the cyanobacteria had previously extracted from the air during oil production. The microorganisms would thus make a contribution to climate protection. In any case, the cyanobacteria living in the world's oceans bind considerable quantities of the greenhouse gas. It is estimated that without their contribution, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would be twice as high.

"Similar experiments are already underway with green algae," explains Dörmann. "However, these are more difficult to maintain; moreover, they cannot be easily biotechnologically optimized to achieve the highest possible oil production rate." This could be different with cyanobacteria. The species studied at the University of Bonn produces only very small amounts of oil. "It is nevertheless quite possible that other species are considerably more productive," says the biologist. Furthermore, blue-green algae can be genetically modified relatively easily, similar to other bacteria. "It is therefore certainly possible that the oil yield could be significantly increased again with biotechnological means."

Additional certification and training courses can not only affect an employee's pay grade and career, but their sense of control over their life. Employees who have 'upgraded' their professional knowledge and skills find it easier to manage problems both in their personal lives and in the workplace. However, the trend does not hold equally for men and women. A study by researchers from the HSE University shows that men reap more benefits than women. The results were published at the International Journal of Lifelong Education.

Job-Related Training: Necessary but not Always Effective

Continuing education is becoming commonplace. It contributes to professional success by opening up new career prospects for employees and helping them qualify for pay increases. Conversely, Natalia Karmaeva and Andrey Zakharov note, a lack of additional training is associated with lower wages for older employees.

It is assumed that additional job-related training or certification--at the workplace, at a corporate university, or in special courses--helps increase human capital, i.e., knowledge and skills. It can increase the productivity of individual workers and the effectiveness of the company as a whole. However, the HSE researchers found that this is not always the case.

The relationship between additional training and labour productivity is 'mediated by a social and gender hierarchy,' the researchers write.

The positions in which workers find themselves vary (often even if the employees have equal credentials and levels of experience). Some workers are able to enter the primary labour market, where prestigious professions with decent wages and long-term employment dominate. Others, however, find themselves in a secondary market, characterized by precarious work, low salaries, and low employee qualifications.

'Who gets what position is explained by gender, class, and race,' the authors explain. 'Jobs in the secondary labour market are less attractive than those in the primary labour market in terms of pay, the type of contract, career opportunities, and retraining.' The economic return on additional training is also lower in the secondary labour market.

In addition, gender appears to influence how professional skills are perceived. 'Women's' skills, from diligence to communication skills, are less valued. Employers' and colleagues' perception of 'male' skills (leadership, physical endurance), on the other hand, is coloured by their attitudes of the holder of these skills.

The Main 'Controllers' Are Men

A low sense of control, According to previous studies on Russia, correlates with traditional ideas of women about the distribution of roles in the family (i.e., the man is the breadwinner and a protector; the woman, as mother and wife, is in charge of domestic life). 'In traditional culture, a sense of control is more likely a "male" trait,' say Natalia Karmaeva and Andrey Zakharov.

The researchers used data from three waves (2009-2011) of the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey - HSE (RLMS-HSE), which measures economic wellbeing and health among the Russian population. The survey results reveal the effects of completing job-related training (JRT). The JRT effect was examined with regard to employees of both genders, aged 20-60. The researchers also considered employees' professional affiliation, sector of employment (public or private), level of experience, the number of employees at their place of employment, and other factors.

Researchers were interested in one of the non-economic effects of JRT: subjective control, or an individual's perceived ability to influence his or her professional or private life.

Until now, this non-economic implication of on-the-job training has remained poorly understood. It was only known that in Russia, reported subjective control for women is on average about 30% lower than for men. In other words, women believe that they are less able to influence circumstances in their lives.

Karmaeva and Zakharov's study showed that additional training indeed increases individuals' sense of subjective control. But this effect did not equalize the playing field between men and women: to the contrary, the effect is stronger for men than it is for women.

Life Management Upgrade

Subjective control is one of the personal resources that people rely on in difficult situations. It gives one a sense of confidence in one's ability to manage challenges.

Subjective control helps one respond to and deal with events more effectively. For example, it helps one mobilize and come up with a solution rather than enter into conflict.

Self-confident employees usually work better and get along with people.

Researchers analysed the effects of employer-funded short-term courses, which aim to improve employees' expertise and skills on the job. 'This kind of training involves the acquisition of both specialized professional expertise and general skills,' the researchers explain. General skills include, for example, self-control, the ability to work with information, and communication skills.

Both professional expertise and general skills (i.e., soft skills) can enhance one's sense of control over one's life. Moreover, through the 'expansion of social support networks (friends, colleagues, relatives, etc.),' it can also lead, both directly and indirectly, to 'salary increases and more career opportunities,' the authors explain.

Expired Bonuses

The benefits of continued education are often unevenly distributed between different groups of workers. The researchers analysed how the completion of job-related training 'exacerbates or mitigates gender disparities in subjective control'.

The analysis showed that professional training enhances perceived control among both men and women.

This can occur both directly and indirectly, with the development of the ability to effectively solve problems at work and in life.

This can contribute to empowerment in the long run, salary increases, and career advancement.

At the same time, discrepancies in the effects of JRT were found between genders.

'Our analysis proves the significant impact of continuing education on subjective control, mainly for men,' the researchers say. 'The positive effect of JRT for men was 0.42 standard deviations.' For women, however, the positive effect amounted to only half of that of men, with a total of 0.26.

These results correspond with those of foreign studies, in which women generally have less control over their life circumstances, despite the fact that many of them work, are financially independent, and, on average, have higher levels of education than their male counterparts.

In other words, though women receive the additional JRT bonuses of enhanced expertise and control skills, they are often unable to put them into practice.

Glass Ceiling

Researchers explain this situation by the persistence of gender stereotypes and gender discrimination as well as masculine culture in the workplace and in society.

The market as a whole is segregated by gender. Women often have less prestigious professions and lower positions than men (despite having the same level of education). In addition, women with children are often forced to abandon their career ambitions and choose a job that is convenient for the family. As a result, education and qualifications often do not bring them dividends in the form of promotion and income growth. All of this affects women's perceived control.

Women have fewer opportunities for professional development due to the already noted gender segregation of the labour market, as well as a 'double workload' that includes both family and work responsibilities. As a result, female employees avoid working overtime, do not work on projects for entire days, and do not participate in professional parties and gatherings that are important for their careers. Instead, they often rush home.

If a man and a woman do the same job, the latter is often paid less for it. 'As a result, a woman's position in the labour market can reduce the positive impact of JRT on her sense of control,' the researchers explain.

Institutionalized Discrimination

Women often do not see a return on improved expertise due to three factors:

1. In transitional economies, 'the labour market becomes more unstable, and specific skills acquired through training are less important for individual success than in developed economies,' the authors say. This results from the fact that, while specific human capital may be in demand at one enterprise, other enterprises may not show an interest in it. An unstable economic situation forces people to change jobs, and companies and firms to close. 'Enterprises are not interested in developing specific human capital, and for employees, this human capital depreciates when they change jobs,' Karmaeva and Zakharov say.

2. More powerful groups can control the distribution of economic benefits from additional training, such as the prevailing status quo of men in areas like STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) fields, for example. 'Although the Soviet Union managed to encourage women to enrol in STEM disciplines, the percentage of women among STEM graduates in Russia today is not very high,' the researchers note. In 2017, for every 100 male graduates in physics and mathematics, there were only 60 female graduates. In information science and energy, these numbers were even lower: for every 100 male graduates, there were about 25 and 20 female graduates, respectively.

According to some researchers, women were unable to pursue education in STEM fields because of the glass ceiling. The ceiling manifested itself in insufficient grant or scholarship support for women in these areas from the state as well as family and societal views of 'female' and 'male' professions.

3. The role of 'patriarchal' attitudes of Russian women themselves cannot be discounted either. Russian women often place less importance on professional success than other areas of their lives. This also reduces the positive effects of job-related training.

But it is possible that the problem simply lies in the quality of training.

The authors of the study suggest that the content or design of supplemental professional training courses do not allow women to develop their sense of subjective control to the same extent as men. Alternatively, it also could be that opportunities in labour market are so skewed in favour of men that job-related training simply does not enhance women's success.

Drone pilots may become superfluous in the future. New research from Aarhus University has allowed artificial intelligence to take over control of drones scanning and measuring terrain.

A research project at Aarhus University (AU) in collaboration with the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) aims to make measuring and documenting gravel and limestone quarries much faster, cheaper and easier in the future.

The project has allowed artificial intelligence to take over the human-controlled drones currently being used for the task.

"We've made the entire process completely automatic. We tell the drone where to start, and the width of the wall or rock face we want to photograph, and then it flies zig-zag all the way along and lands automatically," says Associate Professor Erdal Kayacan, an expert in artificial intelligence and drones at the Department of Engineering at Aarhus University.

Measuring and documenting gravel and limestone quarries, cliff faces and similar natural and man-made formations is often done using drones that photograph the area. The recordings are then uploaded to a computer that automatically converts everything into a 3D terrain model.

However, drone pilots are costly, and the measurements are time-consuming because the drone has to be controlled manually to hold the same constant distance to the wall of an excavation, while simultaneously keeping the drone camera perpendicular to the wall.

Furthermore, there must be a specific overlap in the images taken, so that the computer can then "sew together" the images into a large 3D figure.

Researchers from the Department of Engineering at Aarhus University have now automated this process using artificial intelligence.

"Our algorithm ensures that the drone always keeps the same distance to the wall and that the camera constantly repositions itself perpendicular to the wall. At the same time, our algorithm predicts the wind forces acting on the drone body," says Erdal Kayacan.

This means that the researchers have been able to compensate for one of the major challenges associated with autonomous drone flight: the wind.

"The designed Gaussian process model also predicts the wind to be encountered in the near future. This implies that the drone can get ready and take the corrective actions beforehand," says Mohit Mehndiratta, a visiting Ph.D. student in the Department of Engineering at Aarhus University.

Today, it takes little more than a light breeze to blow a drone off course, but with the help of Gaussian processes, the team has taken into account gusts and the overall wind speed.

"The drone doesn't actually measure the wind, it estimates the wind on the basis of input it receives as it moves. This means that the drone responds to the force of the wind, just like when we human beings correct our movements when we are exposed to a strong wind," says Erdal Kayacan.

Tularemia is a rare but often lethal disease. It is caused by one of the most aggressive pathogens on earth, the bacterium Francisella tularensis. The microbe, transported by a variety of animals and insects, is able to enter and attack the body through a range of pathways, resulting in different constellations of symptoms and degrees of severity.

Tularemia remains poorly understood and no safe and effective vaccine exists for the disease. The extreme lethality of F. tularensis and its potential to be aerosolized have also made it a bioweapon candidate, increasing the urgency of understanding the disease and developing effective treatments.

In a new study, researchers at the Biodesign Center for Applied Structural Discovery examine a key membrane protein responsible for the bacterium's prodigious ability to infect the body and cause illness. This virulence factor, known as Flpp3, is examined in unprecedented detail with the aid of an X-ray free electron laser or XFEL, a massive and powerful X-ray accelerator located at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Stanford.

XFEL technology uses brilliant and extremely short flashes of X-rays to probe crystalized samples of Flpp3, revealing the protein's detailed structure as never before. By comparing the structural information gathered by XFEL experiments with previous structural analysis using NMR, researchers have developed a more complete model of Flpp3's elaborate form. (Previous studies have shown that when a gene coding for Flpp3 is disabled, the effects of the F. tularensis pathogen are significantly diminished.)

Scientists hope to eventually use this information to develop targeted drugs capable of disabling the protein's virulence properties and protecting against tularemia. The advances in understanding could also help scientists develop an effective vaccine against the illness in the future. Currently, only live attenuated vaccines exist for tularemia, and risks of infection and insufficient immunity associated with this approach have precluded use of such vaccines in the US.

Biodesign researcher Dr. James Zook together with Professors Petra Fromme and Abhishek Singharoy at the Biodesign Center for Applied Structural Discovery led the new study. He is joined by international colleagues, including researchers from DESY, SLAC, AstraZeneca, the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Grenoble, France, among others.

Petra Fromme, director of the Center for Applied Structural Discovery explains the Importance of the results: "This study combines, for the first time, state of the art XFEL techniques with NMR and molecular modelling to unravel the large conformational space of Flpp3. The study unravels different conformations of this important protein for the virulence of the bacterium in the XFEL and NMR structure thereby showing the highly dynamic nature of Flpp3. This study is so exciting as it shows that very different conformations coexist and are converted into each other under physiological conditions."

Visualizing virulence

Using detailed structural data from NMR and new XFEL analysis of the tularemia virulence factor, the researchers identified a potential inhibitor of Flpp3. This information was obtained from available virtual libraries containing structures of drug fragments. Next, a physics-based modeling method, known as molecular dynamics (MD), provided detailed information on the fluctuations and conformational changes of atoms and molecules in the virulence-linked protein, helping researchers get a more precise read on Flpp3's structure and behavior.

"This work provides several atomic-resolution structures of an important virulence factor from the bacterium that causes tularemia," according to Biodesign researcher Dr.Debra Hansen, a co-author of the new study. The protein configurations identified will help researchers pursue structure-based design of drugs that could be effective against the elusive disease, through the targeting and inhibition of Flpp3.

As co-author and Biodesign researcher Dr. Abhishek Singharoy explains, the study is noteworthy for being among the first investigations of protein conformational flexibility discovered with serial femtosecond X-ray crystallography and NMR and confirmed using molecular dynamics (MD) simulations.

The group's findings appear in the current issue of the Cell Press journal Structure.

Persistent threat

Tularemia, also known as rabbit fever, is a rare infectious disease, typically attacking the eyes, skin, lymph nodes and lungs following infection by the bacterium F. tularensis. The disease is endemic in North America as well as in many parts of Europe and Asia, though cases of tularemia are uncommon and full-blown outbreaks tend to be restricted to regions with poor sanitation and inaccessibility to modern healthcare.

Tularemia primarily affects mammals, particularly rodents, rabbits and hares, although it sometimes also infects birds, sheep, and domestic animals, including dogs, cats and hamsters.

The disease can be spread to humans through insect bites and direct exposure to an infected animal. The disease is extremely contagious. Just 10 bacterial cells can be fatal and a single bacterium may be sufficient to cause infection. The organism can live for weeks in soil, water and dead animals.

Tularemia can be effectively treated if detected early, though the treatment regime can be lengthy and complex. Most infected with F. tularensis display symptoms within three to five days, though it can take as long as two weeks.

The disease exists in a variety of forms with differing symptoms, depending on how and where the bacteria enter the body. These include ulceroglandular tularemia, the most common form, which produces ulcers of the skin at the site of infection, swollen and painful lymph glands, fever, chills, headache and exhaustion.

Other forms include glandular, oculoglandular, oropharyngeal, pneumonic, and typhoidal tularemia. If left untreated, a variety of severe complications from the disease may ensue, including meningitis, inflammation of the lungs, irritation around the heart and infection of bone.

Crystal method

In the current study, a technique known as serial femtosecond X-ray crystallography is used to probe the structure of the Flpp3 protein. Here, brief and brilliant X-ray bursts, roughly a billion times brighter than conventional X-rays, strike a jet of crystals "flying" through the X-ray beam. The intense X-ray blast destroys the crystals but before doing so, creates a diffraction pattern on a screen. The X-ray pulses are ultrashort, lasting just 40 femtoseconds, that they outrun X-ray damage, allowing for data to be collected at room temperature under near physiological conditions. (1 fs = 10-15 seconds or one quadrillionth of a second.)

Assembling many of these X-ray shots with the aid of computers permits the assembly of a detailed, 3D structure of the protein under study. This so-called diffraction before destruction method was first pioneered by Henry Chapman at the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY) with the team at ASU under the lead of John Spence and Petra Fromme and their collaborators.

The researchers combined the new XFEL structural data with their previous NMR studies of Flpp3, observing two distinct states of the protein. The MD simulations revealed an internal cavity structure that is transient, suggesting that Flpp3 undergoes a subtle conformational change.

The approach opens the door to targeted drug development aimed at reducing the lethality of tularemia and displays the power of combined technologies for unlocking the details of protein structure and dynamics.

Together with scientists from Paris and Munich, a team of researchers working under Prof. Dr. Johannes Hegemann and Dr. Katja Moelleken has published these findings in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS).

There are two types of Chlamydia that infect humans: Chlamydia trachomatis and Chlamydia pneumoniae (Cpn). The former trigger sexual diseases, while Cpn lead to acute infections of the upper and lower respiratory tract. Cpn are also linked to various chronic diseases such as bronchitis and asthma as well as to lung cancer, Alzheimer's disease and atherosclerosis. The majority of the German population will be infected with these bacteria over the course of their lives.

In order to invade the human cell, the Chlamydia must first penetrate the human cell's membrane, known as the 'plasma membrane' (PM). The membrane comprises a lipid bilayer with proteins stored inside. By indenting parts of the PM, the cell can absorb fluid and particles from its environment into the cell interior, a process referred to as 'endocytosis'.

Pathogens such as Chlamydia, which also need to get inside the cell, hijack the endocytosis mechanism for their own ends. Prof. Dr. Johannes Hegemann's working group at the HHU Institute of Functional Microbial Genomics has now identified a chlamydial protein that plays the decisive role in penetration of Cpn into the human cell. The protein is named SemC, and it was discovered by Dr. Gido Murra from Prof. Hegemann's working group.

In a first step, the Chlamydium succeeds in secreting SemC into the host cell. The fellow researchers from the Pasteur Institute in Paris were able to demonstrate that SemC is transported directly by the bacterium into the cell interior using a mechanism employed by many pathogenic bacteria that resembles a 'protein needle'. Once inside the cell, the protein binds to the inner side of the PM and changes its structure locally. This changes the design of the membrane, bending it more than normal. Dr. Katja Moelleken has this to say: "With SemC, we have discovered the very first protein of an infectious agent that is able to change the PM in this way."

The more pronounced membrane curvature triggered by SemC then causes the body's own protein SNX9 to bind to this site, where it binds both to the curved membrane and to the SemC waiting there, thus amplifying the curvature even more. The SNX9 protein is essential for the endocytosis processes in human cells, as it builds up the actin cytoskeleton at the indented PM. The binding of SNX9 to the PM, caused by SemC, then allows the Chlamydium to penetrate the cell from the outside through a process of endocytosis at the curved part of the PM and to continue to multiply inside the cell. "The structure of the PM of the host cell is therefore an important factor in facilitating the infection of a cell by the pathogen," emphasises Dr. Sebastian Haensch. And Dominik Spona adds: "In this way, the bacterium basically creates its own door into the cell."

The research group has found further important evidence of the interaction between SNX9 and SemC induced by Cpn. The scientists at the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases in Munich created human cells in which the quantity of SNX9 protein had been heavily reduced. Dominik Spona explains: "In these cells, it was much more difficult for Cpn to use endocytosis to penetrate the plasma membrane and to infect the cell."

The discovery opens up new possibilities for treating chlamydial infections and for developing targeted vaccines to fight off the bacteria at an early stage. Head of the working group, Prof. Hegemann, says: "Once the precise mechanism has been decoded, potential points of attack can be identified for blocking this mechanism, for example by inhibiting the binding of SemC to the PM or to the body's own SNX9 protein."

Several coronaviruses circulate worldwide and constantly infect humans, which normally caused only mild respiratory disease. Currently, however, we are witnessing a worldwide spread of a new coronavirus with more than 90,000 confirmed cases and over 3,000 deaths. The new virus has been named SARS coronavirus-2 and has been transmitted from animals to humans. It causes a respiratory disease called COVID-19 that may take a severe course. The SARS coronavirus-2 has been spreading since December 2019 and is closely related to the SARS coronavirus that caused the SARS pandemic in 2002/2003. No vaccines or drugs are currently available to combat these viruses.

Stopping virus spread

A team of scientists led by infection biologists from the German Primate Centre and including researchers from Charité, the University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover Foundation, the BG-Unfallklinik Murnau, the LMU Munich, the Robert Koch Institute and the German Center for Infection Research, wanted to find out how the new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 enters host cells and how this process can be blocked. The researchers identified a cellular protein that is important for the entry of SARS-CoV-2 into lung cells. "Our results show that SARS-CoV-2 requires the protease TMPRSS2, which is present in the human body, to enter cells," says Stefan Pöhlmann, head of the Infection Biology Unit at the German Primate Center. "This protease is a potential target for therapeutic intervention."

Promising drug

Since it is known that the drug camostat mesilate inhibits the protease TMPRSS2, the researchers have investigated whether it can also prevent infection with SARS-CoV-2. "We have tested SARS-CoV-2 isolated from a patient and found that camostat mesilate blocks entry of the virus into lung cells," says Markus Hoffmann, the lead author of the study. Camostat mesilate is a drug approved in Japan for use in pancreatic inflammation. "Our results suggest that camostat mesilate might also protect against COVID-19," says Markus Hoffmann. "This should be investigated in clinical trials."

Schistosomiasis is a severe infectious disease caused by parasitic worms. As an intermediate host, freshwater snails play a central role in the life cycle of the parasite. In a recent study published in the journal Scientific Reports, researchers from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) in cooperation with the Kenya-based International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (icipe) succeeded in proving that snail populations in waterbodies contaminated with pesticides were significantly larger than in uncontaminated waterbodies. The pesticides used in agriculture may well be an outright driver for the risk of infection with schistosomiasis, the researchers warn.

According to WHO estimates, there are around 200 to 300 million people infected with schistosomiasis (also known as bilharzia) worldwide; around 200,000 die each year of the consequences. The disease also has far-reaching socio-economic effects in the tropical regions concerned: infected individuals are often unable to work and children are too weak to be able to go to school. It is transmitted through the skin following exposure to infected water. The pathogen is a parasitic trematode worm of the genus Schistosoma - the "blood fluke". To date, five different kinds of Schistosoma that can infest humans have been identified. Around two centimetres in length, the worms become lodged in the intestinal wall, the bladder or the liver. The consequences include inflammation and severe organ damage that can lead to death. Schistosomiasis can be treated with an anti-worm medication. But treatment does not protect against reinfection. "Contaminated waterbodies are the problem," says Professor Matthias Liess, Head of the Department of System Ecotoxicology at the UFZ. "Before schistosomiasis can be contained, something has to be done to prevent the proliferation of the pathogens in bodies of water."

Matthias Liess and his team at the UFZ are carrying out research into how pesticides affect biological communities in bodies of running water. "Sensitive insect species disappear whereas the populations of more resistant species such as freshwater snails proliferate - and this starts happening even at extremely small concentrations of pesticides that are deemed harmless in the pertinent risk assessment," Liess explains. "In tropical waterbodies - and even in Corsica since 2011 - freshwater snails play a central role as an intermediate host in the life cycle of the parasitic trematode worm. If its eggs enter a waterbody through the excreta of infected persons, miracidia (larvae) hatch in the water and then reproduce asexually in freshwater snails. One larva can produce several thousand cercariae, the next larval stage, which then pass into the water. If they reach a human host, they penetrate through the skin into the body, where they develop into adult worms.

In their recent study sponsored by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation), the researchers participated in field studies to examine 48 bodies of running water in the environs of Kenya's Lake Victoria for pesticide contamination, composition of biological communities and occurrence of snails. "It became apparent that in those places where there was no pesticide contamination and the biological community of the waterbody was in a natural balance there were only few snails," says Liess. "If it was possible to detect pesticides in the waterbody, the communities were dominated by snail populations." Laboratory tests further revealed that the species of snails that act as an intermediate host in the life cycle of the trematode worm Schistosoma were extremely tolerant of high concentrations of pesticides. Using model studies, the researchers looked for additional factors that favour snails in ecosystems contaminated with pesticides. It was revealed that the snail populations grow predominantly due to the lack of food competitors. "Insect larvae living in the water that graze the algae cover of rocks, just like the snails, are severely decimated by pesticide contamination or disappear completely. This results in optimum food conditions for the snails, which allows them to proliferate," Liess explains. "And the large number of potential intermediate hosts is, in turn, ideal for the trematode worm Schistosoma to spread."

One measure that would help reduce the level of schistosomiasis pathogen contamination of waterbodies in the affected regions is the construction of effective sewage plants, which would reduce the input of untreated, contaminated wastewater. But, on its own, this measure would not be sufficient in the researchers' opinion. "Even if only a few pathogens enter the water but meet with a huge snail population there, the problem is still unresolved," says Liess. "For this reason, it is important to make adjustments to both parameters and take measures to reduce pesticide contamination in order to effectively contain the risk of contracting schistosomiasis." For example, creating buffer strips adjacent to agricultural land or dispensing with the use of pesticides in the direct vicinity of waterbodies would promote significant shifts in the composition of species towards a natural biological community with only few snails, say the researchers. "With our study, we were able to clearly demonstrate that even low pesticide concentrations constitute a serious environmental risk and, in this respect, not only contribute to the decline in insect populations but also indirectly promote dangerous diseases in humans," says Liess. "We hope that our findings will contribute to reducing or avoiding the future use of pesticides near waterbodies in schistosomiasis hotspots and thus making it possible to lower the risk of infection."

Most humans feel bad about hurting others. This so called 'harm aversion' is key to normal moral development and is reduced in violent antisocial individuals. Unfortunately, little is known about what makes us harm averse and we lack effective pharmacological treatments for violence in psychopathic criminals characterized by a lack of harm aversion. In a new paper published in the leading journal Current Biology, a team of neuroscientists of the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience (NIN) shows that male and female rats show harm aversion. This phenomenon depends on the same brain region associated with empathy in humans. This indicates that harm aversion is deeply engrained in our biology, and paves the way to future work on how to increase harm aversion in psychiatric diseases.

Candy for me, pain for you

We tend to believe that only humans have moral sentiments. Animals are selfish. In the struggle for life, they should care about themselves and their children - not strangers. In this study the researchers investigated whether this is true. The scientists gave rats a choice between two levers they could press to receive candies (sucrose pellets). After the rats had developed a preference for one of the two levers, the scientists rewired the delivery system so that pressing the preferred lever also deliver an unpleasant electric stimulation to the floor of a neighboring rat. The shocked neighbor reacted by squeaking their protest. Rats stopped using their favorite lever as soon as obtaining the candy meant hurting their neighbor. This was true whether the neighbor was a rat they had shared their home cage with, or a total stranger. "Much like humans, rats thus actually find it aversive to cause harm to others" explains Dr. Julen Hernandez-Lallement, first author of the study and researcher at the NIN.

To explore whether there is similarity between harm aversion in rats and humans, the researchers went one step further. In humans, functional magnetic resonance imaging experiments show that the anterior cingulate cortex, a region between the two hemispheres of the brain, lights up when people empathize with the pain of a fellow human. The researchers had recently shown that the same region in the rat contains emotional mirror neurons - neurons that map the witnessed pain of another rat onto the witness' own pain neurons. In the present study, they reduced brain activity in the same region in the rat by injecting a local anesthetic and observed that rats then stopped avoiding to harm another rat for candy. "That humans and rats use the same brain region to prevent harm to others is striking. It shows that the moral motivation that keeps us from harming our fellow humans is evolutionary old, deeply engrained in the biology of our brain and shared with other animals", comments Dr. Valeria Gazzola, one of the senior authors of the study and group leader at the NIN.

Are rats altruistic?

Does that mean that rats care about the welfare of other rats? This question is difficult to answer. "Perhaps a rat stops pressing the harmful lever because it doesn't like to hear another rat squeak - just as we do not like to hear a crying baby on a transatlantic flight. Perhaps they do so because they really feel sorry for their neighbor. We don't know whether our rats had a selfish or altruistic motivation. But I would argue that we don't always know the motives behind the good deeds of humans either" adds Prof. Christian Keysers, group leader at the NIN. "Whatever the motive, that we share a mechanism that prevents antisocial behavior with rats is extremely exciting to me. We can now use all the powerful tools of brain science to explore how to increase harm aversion in antisocial patients".

Anxieties and behaviour problems may be common across dog breeds, according to a study published in Scientific Reports. The findings suggest that noise sensitivity is the most common anxiety trait, followed by fear.

Hannes Lohi and colleagues used an owner-reported survey to examine seven anxiety-like traits and problematic behaviours in 13,700 Finnish pet dogs and found that 72.5% showed problematic behaviours, including aggression and fearfulness. Noise sensitivity was the most common anxiety; 32% of dogs were fearful of at least one noise and 26% of dogs were afraid of fireworks, specifically. Fear was the second most common anxiety, found in 29% of dogs. This included fear of other dogs (17%), fear of strangers (15%) and fear of new situations (11%).

Noise sensitivity, and especially fear of thunder, increased with age, as did fear of heights and surfaces, such walking on metal grids or shiny floors. Younger dogs more often damaged or urinated on items when left alone, and were also more often inattentive, hyperactive or impulsive and chased their tails more than older dogs. Male dogs were more often aggressive and hyperactive/impulsive than female dogs, which were more often fearful.

The authors also found differences between breeds. Lagotto Romano, Wheaten Terrier and mixed breeds were the most noise sensitive while Spanish Water Dogs, Shetland Dogs and mixed breeds were the most fearful. 10.6% of Miniature Schnauzers were aggressive towards strangers, compared to 0.4% of Labrador Retrievers.

The findings suggest that canine anxieties and behaviour problems may be common across breeds. Efforts should be made to decrease the prevalence of these conditions, for instance through breeding policies and changes to the living environment, according to the authors.