University Of Erlangen-Nuremberg Research Articles

Support after return to alcohol use: a mixed-methods study on how abstinence motivation and app use change after return to alcohol use in an app-based aftercare intervention for individuals with alcohol use disorder

BackgroundAs the return to alcohol use in individuals with alcohol use disorder (AUD) is common during treatment and recovery, it is important that abstinence motivation is maintained after such critical incidences. Our study aims to explore how individuals with AUD participating in an app-based intervention with telephone coaching after inpatient treatment perceived their abstinence motivation after the return to alcohol use, whether their app use behavior was affected and to identify helpful factors to maintain abstinence motivation.MethodsUsing a mixed-methods approach, ten participants from the intervention group of the randomized controlled trial SmartAssistEntz who returned to alcohol use and recorded this in the app Appstinence, a smartphone application with telephone coaching designed for individuals with AUD, were interviewed about their experiences. The interviews were recorded, transcribed and coded using qualitative content analysis. App use behavior was additionally examined by using log data.ResultsOf the ten interviewees, seven reported their abstinence motivation increased after the return to alcohol use. Reasons included the reminder of negative consequences of drinking, the desire to regain control of their situation as well as the perceived support provided by the app. App data showed that app use remained stable after the return to alcohol use with an average of 58.70 days of active app use (SD = 25.96, Mdn = 58.50, range = 24–96, IQR = 44.25) after the return to alcohol use which was also indicated by the participants’ reported use behavior.ConclusionsThe findings of the study tentatively suggest that the app can provide support to individuals after the return to alcohol use to maintain and increase motivation after the incidence. Future research should (1) focus on specifically enhancing identification of high risk situations and reach during such critical incidences, (2) actively integrate the experience of the return to alcohol use into app-based interventions to better support individuals in achieving their personal AUD behavior change goals, and (3) investigate what type of support individuals might need who drop out of the study and intervention and discontinue app use altogether.Trial registrationThe primary evaluation study is registered in the German Clinical Trials Register (DRKS, registration number DRKS00017700) and received approval of the ethical committee of the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg (193_19 B).

PLANNING AND DEVELOPING AN ONLINE ENGLISH WRITING COURSE FOR COMPUTER SCIENCE: A PRACTICAL GUIDE

An online English course for computer science students at the B2 level was conceptualized for the E-learning institution Virtuelle Hochschule Bayern between Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg and the Technische Hochschule Nuremberg Georg Simon Ohm. The course consists of four separate modules that cumulatively target writing and language skills relevant to computer science students. Individual assessments at the end of each module serve as a review. Further, students write keystone pieces throughout the course that constitute a writing portfolio. The students’ written pieces are targeted assignments that encapsulate both the writing and the language skills addressed in each module. For instructors, these provide insight into how well students acquired the requisite skills. The writing skills cover online writing tools (COCA, AntConc, OneLook, Quillbot), software documentation, expository text based on pseudocode, and finally, summarizing/paraphrasing tools. These are reinforced through language skills that either have greater prominence in the computer science field or are frequently used for the respective writing skills. Comma and hyphen rules, maintaining objectivity in writing, describing data in figures, and embedded clauses in English are some of the language skills covered. For materials development, a combination of corpus and AI writing tools were implemented to analyse and modify authentic scientific literature. Examples, keywords, and patterns of writing taken from authentic texts were modified to create exercises relevant to topics presented in the modules. The course provides strong didactic support for instructors whose aim is to facilitate a more natural set of writing tasks and students' ability to apply the learned skills beyond the classroom.

Releasing secrets bound to ancient remains with modern DNA extraction techniques: an interview with Elena Essel.

Elena Essel (Msc) spoke to Ebony Torrington, Managing Editor of BioTechniques. Essel is a molecular biologist in Matthias Meyer's Advanced DNA Sequencing Techniques group at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig (Germany). Essel studied biology at University of Erlangen-Nuremberg (Erlangen, Germany) for her bachelor's and in Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg (Halle an der Saale, Germany) for her master's. Essel worked in Meyer's group on DNA extraction of very degraded material for her master's thesis. Meyer is an expert in developing new cutting-edge methods for researching ancient DNA, with a focus on skeletal remains, and more recently on sediment remains. Essel now focusses on DNA sampling and extraction aspects of the pipeline at Meyer's lab for the ancient DNA workflow.

Angiogenesis and flap-related research: A bibliometric analysis.

Adequate blood supply, a prerequisite for flap survival after grafting, makes angiogenesis of the flap the biggest problem to be solved. Researches have been conducted around vascularisation in correlation with flap grafting. However, bibliometric analyses systematically examining this research field are lacking. As such, we herein sought to conduct comprehensive comparative analyses of the contributions of different researchers, institutions, and countries to this research space in an effort to identify trends and hotspots in angiogenesis and vascularisation in the context of flap grafting. Publications pertaining to angiogenesis and vascularisation in the context of flap grafting were retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection. References were then analysed and plotted using Microsoft Excel 2019, VOSviewer, and CiteSpace V. In total, 2234 papers that were cited 40 048 times (17.63 citations/paper) were included in this analysis. The greatest number of studies were from the United States, with these studies exhibiting both the highest number of citations (13 577) and the greatest overall H-index (60). For The institutions that published the greatest number of studies were WENZHOU MEDICAL UNIVERSITY (681), while UNIVERSITY OF ERLANGEN NUREMBERG has the highest number of citations (1458), and SHANGHAI JIAO TONG UNIVERSITY holds the greatest overall H-index (20). The greatest number of studies in this research space were published by Gao WY, while Horch RE was the most commonly cited researcher in the field. The VOS viewer software clustered relevant keywords into three clusters, with clusters 1, 2, 3, and 4 corresponding to studies in which the keywords 'anatomy', 'survival', 'transplantation', 'therapy' most frequently appeared. The most promising research hotspot-related terms in this field included 'autophagy', 'oxidative stress', 'ischemia/reperfusion injury', which exhibited a most recent average appearing year (AAY) of 2017 and after. Generally speaking, the results of this analysis indicate that the number of articles exploring angiogenesis and flap-related research has risen steadily, with the United States and China being the two countries publishing the greatest proportion of studies in this field. The overall focus of these studies has shifted away from 'infratest and tissue engineering' towards 'mechanisms'. In the future, particular attention should be paid to emerging research hotspots, which include 'ischemia/reperfusion injury' and treatments for promoting vascularization, such as 'platelet-rich plasma'. In light of these findings, funding agencies should continue increasing their investment in the exploration of the concrete mechanisms and interventional therapeutic relevance of angiogenesis during flap transplantation.

Disconnected Cardiac Autonomic Nerves in Genetic Ganglionic Acetylcholine Receptor Alpha-3 Subunit Deficiency.

HomeHypertensionAhead of PrintDisconnected Cardiac Autonomic Nerves in Genetic Ganglionic Acetylcholine Receptor Alpha-3 Subunit Deficiency No AccessResearch ArticleRequest AccessAboutView PDFSections ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload citationsTrack citationsPermissions ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InMendeleyReddit Jump toNo AccessResearch ArticleRequest AccessDisconnected Cardiac Autonomic Nerves in Genetic Ganglionic Acetylcholine Receptor Alpha-3 Subunit Deficiency Karsten Heusser, Florian Erger, Ulrich Ebner, Barbara Namer, Graeme Eisenhofer, Carl-Albrecht Haensch, Henning Weis, Matthias Schmidt, Alexander Drzezga, Jens Tank, Christian Netzer and Jens Jordan Karsten HeusserKarsten Heusser https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2571-5585 Institute of Aerospace Medicine, German Aerospace Center (DLR), Cologne, Germany (K.H., H.W., J.T., J.J.). *K. Heusser and F. Erger contributed equally. Search for more papers by this author , Florian ErgerFlorian Erger https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2768-1702 Institute of Human Genetics, Medical Faculty, University of Cologne, Germany (F.E., C.N.). *K. Heusser and F. Erger contributed equally. Search for more papers by this author , Ulrich EbnerUlrich Ebner https://orcid.org/0009-0002-4648-8497 Internal Medicine Practice, Regensburg, Germany (U.E.). Search for more papers by this author , Barbara NamerBarbara Namer https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7500-2842 Institute of Physiology and Pathophysiology, Friedrich Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany (B.N.). Research Group Neuroscience, Interdisciplinary Centre for Clinical Research within the Faculty of Medicine at the RWTH Aachen University, Germany (B.N.). Department for Physiology, Faculty of Medicine at the RWTH Aachen University, Germany (B.N.). Search for more papers by this author , Graeme EisenhoferGraeme Eisenhofer Institute of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus, Medical Faculty, Technical University Dresden, Germany. (G.E.) University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus, Medical Faculty Carl Gustav Carus and Department of Medicine III, University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus, Medical Faculty, Technical University Dresden, Germany. (G.E.) Search for more papers by this author , Carl-Albrecht HaenschCarl-Albrecht Haensch https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6479-0265 Kliniken Maria Hilf Mönchengladbach, Autonomic Laboratory, Department of Neurology, Faculty of Health, University of Witten/Herdecke, Mönchengladbach, Germany (C.-A.H.). Search for more papers by this author , Henning WeisHenning Weis https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8638-3281 Institute of Aerospace Medicine, German Aerospace Center (DLR), Cologne, Germany (K.H., H.W., J.T., J.J.). Department of Nuclear Medicine, Faculty of Medicine and University Hospital Cologne, University of Cologne, Germany (H.W., M.S., A.D.). Search for more papers by this author , Matthias SchmidtMatthias Schmidt https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7519-8897 Department of Nuclear Medicine, Faculty of Medicine and University Hospital Cologne, University of Cologne, Germany (H.W., M.S., A.D.). Search for more papers by this author , Alexander DrzezgaAlexander Drzezga Department of Nuclear Medicine, Faculty of Medicine and University Hospital Cologne, University of Cologne, Germany (H.W., M.S., A.D.). Search for more papers by this author , Jens TankJens Tank https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5672-1187 Institute of Aerospace Medicine, German Aerospace Center (DLR), Cologne, Germany (K.H., H.W., J.T., J.J.). Search for more papers by this author , Christian NetzerChristian Netzer Institute of Human Genetics, Medical Faculty, University of Cologne, Germany (F.E., C.N.). †C. Netzer and J. Jordan contributed equally. Search for more papers by this author and Jens JordanJens Jordan Correspondence to: Jens Jordan, Institute for Aerospace Medicine, Linder Hoehe, 51147 Cologne, Germany. Email E-mail Address: [email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4518-0706 Institute of Aerospace Medicine, German Aerospace Center (DLR), Cologne, Germany (K.H., H.W., J.T., J.J.). †C. Netzer and J. Jordan contributed equally. Search for more papers by this author Originally published10 May 2023https://doi.org/10.1161/HYPERTENSIONAHA.123.21172Hypertension. 2023;0Footnotes*K. Heusser and F. Erger contributed equally.†C. Netzer and J. Jordan contributed equally.For Sources of Funding and Disclosures, see page XXX.Correspondence to: Jens Jordan, Institute for Aerospace Medicine, Linder Hoehe, 51147 Cologne, Germany. Email jens.[email protected]de Previous Back to top Next FiguresReferencesRelatedDetails Advertisement Article InformationMetrics © 2023 American Heart Association, Inc.https://doi.org/10.1161/HYPERTENSIONAHA.123.21172PMID: 37161764 Originally publishedMay 10, 2023 KeywordsCHRNA3autonomic failureganglionic acetylcholine receptorsympathetic nervous systemPDF download Advertisement SubjectsAutonomic Nervous SystemGeneticsMechanismsNuclear Cardiology and PETPathophysiology

Editorial Introductions.

Current Opinion in Oncology was launched in 1989. It is one of a successful series of review journals whose unique format is designed to provide a systematic and critical assessment of the literature as presented in the many primary journals. The field of psychiatry is divided into 15 sections that are reviewed once a year. Each section is assigned a Section Editor, a leading authority in the area, who identifies the most important topics at that time. Here we are pleased to introduce the Journal's Section Editors for this issue. SECTION EDITORS Gil AwadaGil AwadaGil Awada (1990) studied medicine at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Brussels, Belgium), graduating in 2015, and subsequently started his training in Internal Medicine. In June 2021, he successfully defended his PhD thesis entitled ‘Expanding the application of targeted therapies and immune checkpoint inhibitors in advanced melanoma and recurrent glioblastoma’, under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Bart Neyns. He is currently finishing his residency in Medical Oncology at the Jules Bordet Institute, Belgium. Gil Awada performs clinical and translational research in the field of melanoma, investigating new applications of targeted agents, combination therapies and the use of novel clinical biomarkers (such as circulating tumor DNA and imaging). His work has been presented at national and international congresses and has been published in peer-reviewed journals. Oliver BechterOliver BechterOliver Bechter earned his MD at the University of Innsbruck, Medical School in Austria in 1998. During his residency he did a postdoctoral fellowship at the Department of Cell Biology, UTSouthwestern in Dallas, TX, USA. He earned his PhD in 2005 and is a board-certified Medical Oncologist and Hematologist since 2007. Since 2012 he is working at the University Hospital in Leuven Belgium and is a professor for Oncology at the Department of Oncology from the KU Leuven. His research focus is telomere biology in human malignancies and melanoma biology. His clinical focus is on malignant melanoma and skin cancers and he is principal investigator of several clinical trials with a focus on drug development of new immune-oncology drugs in melanoma. Jana JeschkeJana JeschkeJana Jeschke studied molecular medicine at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany, and performed her PhD research at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, USA, in the groups of Prof. Nita Ahuja and Prof. Jim Herman and in collaboration with Prof. Baylin. During this time, she made several important discoveries in the field, including the identification and functional characterization of aberrantly DNA methylated genes in breast cancer and their assessment as novel biomarkers. In 2013, Dr Jeschke moved to Belgium to start a postdoctoral training in the Laboratory of Cancer Epigenetics at Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) in Brussels. Under the supervision of her lead mentor Prof. Fuks and his long-time collaborator Prof. Sotiriou, a breast cancer expert from the Jules Bordet Institute in Brussels, she explored changes of various epigenetic modifications on DNA and RNA in breast and other cancers and the clinical relevance of these aberrations for cancer diagnosis and therapy. Her most notable works include the development of an epigenetic immune signature that predicts survival and response to chemotherapy in breast cancer (JCI 2017) and the discovery of m6A mRNA methylation changes in breast cancer and their impact on pathways driving cancer progression and therapy resistance (Nature Cancer 2021). For her research, Dr Jeschke was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship from the Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research (FNRS) in 2014. In 2022, she obtained the mandate of Chercheuse Qualifiée (Associate Professor) from the FNRS to start her own research group at ULB focusing on precision cancer epigenetics. Dr Jeschke is a member of the Belgian Association for Cancer Research (BACR), European Association for Cancer Research (EACR), American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) and Cancer Epigenetics Society (CES) and a consultant for the “Belgian Superior Health Council”. She is an associate editor for the journal of Current Opinion in Oncology and regularly reviews for other journals publishing studies related to cancer and epigenetics.

Editorial introductions.

Editorial introductions.

Open for All at ChemElectroChem

Open for All at <i>ChemElectroChem</i>

Endophthalmitis: Epidemiology, Causing Agents, Therapy and Visual Outcome with Special Focus on Glaucoma Patients.

Endophthalmitis is one of the most serious emergencies in ophthalmology. In order to reduce its prevalence, it is important to have a proper understanding of potential risk. Surgical therapy with targeted, pathogen-specific medication and an intact immune system are fundamental for preserving visual acuity. As it is unclear whether an unfavourable course is more likely in the presence of underlying ocular disease, a comparison was made between glaucoma patients (G) and non-glaucoma patients (NG) in terms of causative factors, pathogens, treatment and visual acuity. Since a potential alteration of the local immune system in glaucoma has been described, it is of interest to determine whether the clinical course of endophthalmitis in glaucoma patients differ from that of non-glaucoma patients. A retrospective analysis of 75 eyes (13 G, 62 NG) who underwent treatment and surgery following a diagnosis of endophthalmitis in the Department of Ophthalmology, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg has been evaluated over a period of 5 years. Clinical characteristics, surgical treatment, microbial spectrum and visual acuity in glaucoma and non-glaucoma eyes were investigated. Severe visual impairment (44%) with inflammation of the anterior chamber (62.7%), hypopyon (52%) and reduced (40%) or absent view (26.7%) of the fundus were predominantly present at first diagnosis in all patients. Previous eye surgery was observed in a total of 53%, primarily cataract surgery. Gram-positive cocci were seen as the most common causative agent in both groups, (G: 23.1%; NG: 38.7%), whereas other rare pathogens were present only in glaucomatous eyes. Pars plana vitrectomy was performed in 76% and enucleations in 20% of all patients, with the latter significantly more common in glaucomatous eyes (p = 0.01). A significant postoperative improvement in visual acuity was achieved in non-glaucoma patients (p < 0.001); visual acuity was worse in glaucomatous eyes. Although rare, early diagnosis and treatment of endophthalmitis is crucial in terms of prognosis. In the present cohort, worse visual acuity outcomes were obtained in glaucoma patients in comparison to non-glaucoma patients.

Transplant Ureteral Stenosis after Renal Transplantation: Risk Factor Analysis

Introduction: The results of kidney transplants have improved dramatically in recent years, leading to reduced morbidity and mortality. Despite continuous improvements, urological complications occur at a rate of 2.6%–15%. Ureteral stenosis of graft ureters is the most common complication, with a probability of 0.5%–6.3%. This study aimed to determine the incidence of ureteral stenosis after kidney transplantation and identify risk factors that distinguish transplant patients with and without ureteral stenosis. Methods: This study retrospectively analyzed patients who had undergone kidney transplantation at the Department of Urology of the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg between 2001 and 2015. Forty-seven patients developed ureteral stenosis during the operation. Most of the ureteral stenosis cases occurred in the first 4 months after transplantation. Kaplan-Meier analysis and the log-rank test were used to calculate the cumulative risk, and the Mann-Whitney U test was used nonparametrically. The significance level was set at p < 0.05. Results: Statistical analysis showed that residual diuresis (p = 0.008), cold ischemia time (CIT) (p = 0.040), the body mass index (p = 0.027), and donor serum creatinine value (p = 0.039) showed a significantly different distribution between recipients with or without ureteral stenosis after kidney transplantation. In multivariate Cox’s regression modeling, residual diuresis and the donor serum creatinine level were identified as the only independent predictors of patients’ stenosis-free survival. Conclusion: Urological complications not diagnosed and treated in time endanger the success of kidney transplantation. After evaluating the kidney transplantation data of the patients at the Transplant Center Erlangen-Nuremberg from 2001 to 2015, residual diuresis, CIT, the body mass index, and donor serum creatinine value were found to influence the development of ureteral stenosis.

Data Reporting Checklists to Maximize your Impact

Dear Reader, The pace of scientific discovery and the publication of those discoveries is continuously accelerating. This makes it increasingly challenging to keep abreast of the latest developments and to be sure that reported results are based on data that has been recorded according to best practices in the field. The reliability of reported data is a well-known problem, in large part due to a lack of agreed-upon reporting standards. There are many papers published on the subject; while they offer sage advice from recognized authorities, they aren't necessarily themselves solutions.[1-4] As a service to our authors, reviewers and readers, we introduced the Emerging PV Reports (Figure 1), a collaboration with the Helmholtz Institute Erlangen-Nuremberg for Renewable Energy, Germany. This initiative aims to accelerate the development of emerging PV materials towards market readiness and to improve the reproducibility and quality of the associated data.[5] Following this great initiative, we are now introducing Data Reporting Checklists that are intended to capture key parameters of the described material/device according to best practices in one place. We will ask authors to submit their checklist along with the manuscript. In the initial pilot phase of the project, these checklists will be available to reviewers, but not published. The editorial team expect that phase two of the project will be rolled out in early 2022, and thereafter the checklists will be published alongside the relevant manuscripts. This project is a joint effort among Wiley's Materials Science & Physics and Chemistry journals, and our first checklists are for original Research Articles covering energy storage and efficiency and/or stability-related investigations of photovoltaic devices. For this reason, Advanced Energy Materials will be the first of our journals to roll out the Data Reporting Checklists, with the other journals following in due course – watch this space! These checklists were developed together with recognized experts in their fields, and we are extremely grateful for the constructive discussion, in particular with Volker Presser (INM Saarbrücken), Qiang Zhang (Tsinghua University), and Patrik Johansson (Chalmers University) for the battery checklist; and with Christoph Brabec and Osbel Almora (both University of Erlangen Nuremberg) as well as Nikos Kopidakis (NREL) for the solar cell checklist. Apart from making it easier for you as author to know what our minimal data requirements are prior to manuscript submission, and for you as reviewer to see at a glance whether all the essential measurements have been made, the Data Reporting Checklists will also have other benefits. With the advent of the Open Research and specifically the Open Data movement, we are convinced that ensuring completeness of datasets for newly developed materials and devices not only facilitates comparability and reproducibility of results, but can also help readers to quickly discover and appreciate the impact of your work. In other words: these Data Reporting Checklists can add significant value to your study after publication as well! Especially in very active research fields that move at unparalleled pace, such as energy research in general, or solid-state batteries in particular, the rate of scientific progress is intertwined with the availability of complete datasets, which enable better reproducibility of results. Please be assured that we would like this additional part of the submission process to be as seamless as possible. Completing these Data Reporting Checklists takes a few minutes only on average and we will continue to optimize the integration of these checklists into our submission workflows as our manuscript submission systems evolve. Advanced Energy Materials will be spearheading this approach and our sister journals, in particular Advanced Energy and Sustainability Research, Batteries & Supercaps, Solar RRL, ChemSusChem, and more, will join soon! As shown, these checklists have been created in collaboration with researchers who are experts in their fields and with your best interests in mind. However, because research is intrinsically dynamic and new areas will develop, the lists will change over time. So, please use these checklists and share your feedback with us, as author and as reviewer, so we can develop them further. Best regards, Till von Graberg on behalf of the Editorial Team of Advanced Energy Materials

Zeroing in on magnesium

Like most of the elements in the periodic table’s second column, magnesium eagerly gives away a couple of electrons to achieve a full outer shell and a +2 oxidation state. For the first time, chemists have maneuvered magnesium into a stable complex (shown) where it possesses all its electrons ( Nature 2021, DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-03401-w ). Sjoerd Harder and colleagues at Friedrich Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg accomplished this feat with the help of bulky β-diketiminate ligands. To make the Mg(0) complex, the chemists reduced ligand-bound Mg 2+ with fine sodium metal. As a result, the complex contains the first observed Mg–Na bonds. Although the complex is moderately stable at room temperature, it is highly reactive, readily reducing Na ions to Na metal and breaking H 2 as well as a C–F bond. When dissolved in benzene, the Mg(0) complex slowly decomposes to form a structure with a linear Mg 3 core. The

Interfaces and Applications

Interfaces and Applications

The Discovery of a Possible ‘Meat Cache’. Recent Excavations at the Upper Palaeolithic Open-air Site in Kammern-Grubgraben 2015–2020

The Lower Austrian site of Kammern-Grubgraben is one of the few stratigraphically recorded sites from the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) that allows detailed insights into the life of glacial hunter-gatherer societies. Extensive and planned archaeological excavations took place for the first time between 1985 and 1994 under the direction of Friedrich Brandtner in cooperation with Anta Montet-White (1985–1990) and Bohuslav Klíma (1993–1994), following earlier smaller, isolated findings and unqualified, largely undocumented excavations. After Brandtner’s death in 2000, the exceptionally rich find material remained largely unprocessed and barely published. It was not until 2011 to 2015 that the Institute for Oriental and European Archaeology (OREA, now: the Austrian Archaeological Institute – OeAI) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (OeAW) succeeded in completely recording and inventorying the material in the course of a cooperation project with the Institutes for Prehistory and Early History of the University of Cologne and the Friedrich Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, funded by the legal owner of the finds, the State of Lower Austria. Field research was resumed in 2015, when it became known that land consolidation and the relocation of an access road had begun in the area of the site without prior notification of the authorities. After initial prospections (profiles and percussion cores) by the Quaternary Archaeology research group (OREA/OeAI, OeAW) initiated and funded by the Federal Office for the Protection of Monuments (BDA), regular research activities subsidised by the State of Lower Austria were started in the form of annual one- to two-month excavation campaigns. Once again, an exceptionally extensive inventory of finds including bones, knapped lithics and jewellery was documented and recovered, as well as stone finds unique for this period. This article presents the latest excavations and discusses the finding of a possible meat cache.

Differences in and Prognostic Value of Quality of Life Data in Rectal Cancer Patients with and without Distant Metastases.

(1) Background: Individualization of treatment is a major challenge in oncology and requires a variety of predictive and prognostic parameters. In addition to tumor biology analyses, baseline health-related quality of life might be a valid tool to predict overall survival. This study was conducted to evaluate the prognostic relevance of baseline quality of life data in patients with rectal cancer. In this context, differences between patients with and without distant metastases were of particular interest. (2) Methods: Our cohort included 258 patients with rectal cancer treated in the radiotherapy department of the University Hospital Erlangen. Patients completed the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) core quality of life questionnaire (QLQ C30) and colorectal cancer questionnaire (CR38). Clinical and survival data were provided by the Gießener Tumor Documentation System (GTDS) of the Comprehensive Cancer Center Erlangen-EMN (CCC, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Erlangen, Germany). Statistical analyses were performed using Kaplan–Meier analyses and univariate and multivariate Cox regression. (3) Results: A cohort of 258 patients with rectal adenocarcinoma was analyzed including 50 patients (19.4%) with metastatic disease. No differences were observed between patients with and without distant metastases in most areas of quality of life studied, with the exception of physical function, loss of appetite, chemotherapy side effects and weight loss. Gender, baseline physical function, sexual function, diarrhea, and weight loss over time had a prognostic value in the entire cohort. Appetite loss was an additional prognostic parameter in patients with distant metastases. (4) Conclusions: The quality of life of patients with metastatic disease differed only slightly from non-metastatic patients. Health-related quality of life data provide prognostic information for patients with rectal cancer.

Editorial introductions

Editorial introductions

Between and Beyond. The Course of a Life in the Realms of History of Education, General Pedagogy and Comparative Studies. Interview with Edwin Keiner

Edwin Keiner held the chair for General Pedagogy and Social Pedagogy at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano until his retirement in October 2019. From 2014 to 2017 he also served as Vice Dean of the Faculty of Education at the same university. Prior to that, he worked as a professor for the History of Education and Socialisation at the University of Bochum and as a professor for General Pedagogy at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. He has studied the theory and the history of education as an academic discipline with special interest in a comparative perspective. His academic focus is on methodology, historical and comparative research on educational research, and historical, empirical and comparative as well as interdisciplinary approaches to and in educational research. For several years he took over the role as chairman of the Commission for Research on Educational Research and of the Section for General Pedagogy of the German Educational Research Association. In addition, Keiner was very active in the European Educational Research Association (EERA) for example as the first elected representative of all networks and member of the EERA Council. In 2018, Keiner succeeded in bringing the annual «European Conference on Educational Research» (ECER) with about 3,000 participants to the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy, South Tyrol. He was a member of the «International Research Community ‘Philosophy and History of The Discipline of Education’» (University Leuven, Belgium) for almost 20 years and member of the editorial boards of Paedagogica Historica, European Educational Research Journal and Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability. At present, Edwin Keiner works part-time as a senior professor at the Faculty of Education, University of Frankfurt/Main, Germany.

Letter by Kallmünzer et al Regarding Article, “Safety of Intravenous Thrombolysis Among Patients Taking Direct Oral Anticoagulants: a Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis”

HomeStrokeVol. 51, No. 7Letter by Kallmünzer et al Regarding Article, “Safety of Intravenous Thrombolysis Among Patients Taking Direct Oral Anticoagulants: a Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis” Free AccessLetterPDF/EPUBAboutView PDFView EPUBSections ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload citationsTrack citationsPermissions ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InMendeleyRedditDiggEmail Jump toFree AccessLetterPDF/EPUBLetter by Kallmünzer et al Regarding Article, “Safety of Intravenous Thrombolysis Among Patients Taking Direct Oral Anticoagulants: a Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis” Bernd Kallmünzer, MD, Michael Pott, MD and Stefan Schwab, MD Bernd KallmünzerBernd Kallmünzer https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3552-6742 Department of Neurology, University Hospital Erlangen, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany (B.K., S.S.). Department of Neurology, Klinikum Bayreuth GmbH, Bayreuth, Germany. Search for more papers by this author , Michael PottMichael Pott Search for more papers by this author and Stefan SchwabStefan Schwab Department of Neurology, University Hospital Erlangen, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany (B.K., S.S.). Department of Neurology, Klinikum Bayreuth GmbH, Bayreuth, Germany. Search for more papers by this author Originally published16 Jun 2020https://doi.org/10.1161/STROKEAHA.120.029631Stroke. 2020;51:e130–e131To the Editor:With great interest we read the article “Safety of Intravenous Thrombolysis Among Patients Taking Direct Oral Anticoagulants” by Shahjouei et al.1 Before the use of rtPA in patients on oral anticoagulation, it seems reasonable to use antidots for anticoagulation reversal. Andexanet alfa, a recombinant form of the human factor Xa, rapidly reduces the anticoagulatory effect of factor Xa inhibitors2 and was recently approved for emergent reversal of oral anticoagulation in patients on treatment with apixaban or rivaroxaban.Recently, a 77-year-old woman presented to a German hospital with an acute ischemic stroke causing serious left-sided hemiparesis and dysarthria 2 hours after symptom onset. Computed tomography angiography confirmed an occlusion of the right medial cerebral artery at the proximal segment. The condition demanded an immediate treatment with alteplase followed by the transfer to a neurovascular center for mechanical thrombectomy. The patient suffered from permanent atrial fibrillation and used apixab (5 mg b.i.d.) for the prevention of thromboembolism. She had taken the last dose of apixaban 3 hours before admission. A chromogenic assay found the calibrated antifactor Xa activity being elevated to 188 ng/mL, which formally contradicted the use of recombinant tissue plasminogen activitor (r-tPA). Therefore, it was decided to reverse the effect of apixaban before intravenous thrombolysis: The patient received an intravenous bolus of 400 mg andexanet alfa at a target rate of 30 mg/minute. A continuous infusion of 480 mg followed for 2 hours, resulting in a total dose of 880 mg andexanet alfa. Treatment with alteplase was initiated as soon as the andexanet alfa bolus had been administered. r-tPA total dose was 90 mg (9 mg bolus followed by a 1-hour infusion of 81 mg) and the patient started immediate transfer to the thrombectomy center. On arrival, her neurological symptoms had markedly improved. The MCA occlusion showed complete recanalization before endovascular treatment. Ten hours after symptom onset, the anti-factor Xa activity had spontaneously increased to 277 ng/mL and remained elevated during the first days. No hemorrhagic complications occurred. The estimated glomerular filtration rate was 58 mL/minute.The use of alteplase in patients on treatment with direct oral anticoagulants has not been firmly established.1 For dabigatran, it seems feasible to reverse the anticoagulant by idarucizumab before the initiation of intravenous thrombolysis.3 Unlike idarucizumab, the characteristics of andexanet alfa result in an incomplete and only transient reduction of the antithrombotic activity.2,4 Consistently, a rebound even beyond the level on admission occurred in this patient at 10 hours after symptom onset. As the frequency of hemorrhagic complications raises with higher anticoagulant peak levels,5 this secondary increase will caution the clinician about an elevated risk of r-tPA associated bleeding, despite the use of Andexanet alfa.AcknowledgmentsWe thank Professor Erwin Strasser, Department for Hemostaseology and Transfusion Medicine, University Hospital Erlangen, for the measurements of the anti-Factor Xa Activitity.DisclosuresDr Kallmünzer reports speaker honoraria from BMS Pfizer, Daiichi Sankyo, Bayer AG and Medtronic, outside the submitted work. Dr Schwab reports speaker honoria and travel grants from Boehringer Ingelheim, Pfizer, Daiichi Sankyo. The other authors report no conflicts.FootnotesFor Disclosures, see page e130.

Editorial introductions

Editorial introductions

Referrals for uncomplicated lower back pain: a cluster parallel randomised trial of patient-centred communication to improve the management of acute back pain in primary care. A study protocol

IntroductionLow back pain (LBP) is one of the most frequent encounters in General Practice. Investigation and referral remain common despite the self-limiting character of episodes that are not largely attributable...