TY - JOUR A1 - Röthenbacher, Annika A1 - Cesari, Matteo A1 - Doppler, Christopher E.J. A1 - Okkels, Niels A1 - Willemsen, Nele A1 - Sembowski, Nora A1 - Seger, Aline A1 - Lindner, Marie A1 - Brune, Corinna A1 - Stefani, Ambra A1 - Högl, Birgit A1 - Bialonski, Stephan A1 - Borghammer, Per A1 - Fink, Gereon R. A1 - Schober, Martin A1 - Sommerauer, Michael T1 - RBDtector: an open-source software to detect REM sleep without atonia according to visual scoring criteria JF - Scientific Reports N2 - REM sleep without atonia (RSWA) is a key feature for the diagnosis of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep behaviour disorder (RBD). We introduce RBDtector, a novel open-source software to score RSWA according to established SINBAR visual scoring criteria. We assessed muscle activity of the mentalis, flexor digitorum superficialis (FDS), and anterior tibialis (AT) muscles. RSWA was scored manually as tonic, phasic, and any activity by human scorers as well as using RBDtector in 20 subjects. Subsequently, 174 subjects (72 without RBD and 102 with RBD) were analysed with RBDtector to show the algorithm’s applicability. We additionally compared RBDtector estimates to a previously published dataset. RBDtector showed robust conformity with human scorings. The highest congruency was achieved for phasic and any activity of the FDS. Combining mentalis any and FDS any, RBDtector identified RBD subjects with 100% specificity and 96% sensitivity applying a cut-off of 20.6%. Comparable performance was obtained without manual artefact removal. RBD subjects also showed muscle bouts of higher amplitude and longer duration. RBDtector provides estimates of tonic, phasic, and any activity comparable to human scorings. RBDtector, which is freely available, can help identify RBD subjects and provides reliable RSWA metrics. Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-25163-9 SN - 2045-2322 VL - 12 IS - Article number: 20886 SP - 1 EP - 14 PB - Springer Nature CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Rübbelke, Dirk A1 - Vögele, Stefan A1 - Grajewski, Matthias A1 - Zobel, Luzy T1 - Hydrogen-based steel production and global climate protection: An empirical analysis of the potential role of a European cross border adjustment mechanism JF - Journal of Cleaner Production N2 - The European Union's aim to become climate neutral by 2050 necessitates ambitious efforts to reduce carbon emissions. Large reductions can be attained particularly in energy intensive sectors like iron and steel. In order to prevent the relocation of such industries outside the EU in the course of tightening environmental regulations, the establishment of a climate club jointly with other large emitters and alternatively the unilateral implementation of an international cross-border carbon tax mechanism are proposed. This article focuses on the latter option choosing the steel sector as an example. In particular, we investigate the financial conditions under which a European cross border mechanism is capable to protect hydrogen-based steel production routes employed in Europe against more polluting competition from abroad. By using a floor price model, we assess the competitiveness of different steel production routes in selected countries. We evaluate the climate friendliness of steel production on the basis of specific GHG emissions. In addition, we utilize an input-output price model. It enables us to assess impacts of rising cost of steel production on commodities using steel as intermediates. Our results raise concerns that a cross-border tax mechanism will not suffice to bring about competitiveness of hydrogen-based steel production in Europe because the cost tends to remain higher than the cost of steel production in e.g. China. Steel is a classic example for a good used mainly as intermediate for other products. Therefore, a cross-border tax mechanism for steel will increase the price of products produced in the EU that require steel as an input. This can in turn adversely affect competitiveness of these sectors. Hence, the effects of higher steel costs on European exports should be borne in mind and could require the cross-border adjustment mechanism to also subsidize exports. Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2022.135040 SN - 0959-6526 VL - 380 IS - Part 2, Art. Nr.:135040 PB - Elsevier ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Molinnus, Denise A1 - Janus, Kevin Alexander A1 - Fang, Anyelina C. A1 - Drinic, Aleksander A1 - Achtsnicht, Stefan A1 - Köpf, Marius A1 - Keusgen, Michael A1 - Schöning, Michael Josef T1 - Thick-film carbon electrode deposited onto a biodegradable fibroin substrate for biosensing applications JF - Physica status solidi (a) N2 - This study addresses a proof-of-concept experiment with a biocompatible screen-printed carbon electrode deposited onto a biocompatible and biodegradable substrate, which is made of fibroin, a protein derived from silk of the Bombyx mori silkworm. To demonstrate the sensor performance, the carbon electrode is functionalized as a glucose biosensor with the enzyme glucose oxidase and encapsulated with a silicone rubber to ensure biocompatibility of the contact wires. The carbon electrode is fabricated by means of thick-film technology including a curing step to solidify the carbon paste. The influence of the curing temperature and curing time on the electrode morphology is analyzed via scanning electron microscopy. The electrochemical characterization of the glucose biosensor is performed by amperometric/voltammetric measurements of different glucose concentrations in phosphate buffer. Herein, systematic studies at applied potentials from 500 to 1200 mV to the carbon working electrode (vs the Ag/AgCl reference electrode) allow to determine the optimal working potential. Additionally, the influence of the curing parameters on the glucose sensitivity is examined over a time period of up to 361 days. The sensor shows a negligible cross-sensitivity toward ascorbic acid, noradrenaline, and adrenaline. The developed biocompatible biosensor is highly promising for future in vivo and epidermal applications. KW - biocompatible materials KW - biodegradable electronic devices KW - biosensors KW - carbon electrodes KW - glucose Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/pssa.202200100 SN - 1862-6319 N1 - Corresponding author: Michael J. Schöning VL - 219 IS - 23 SP - 1 EP - 9 PB - Wiley-VCH CY - Weinheim ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kotliar, Konstantin A1 - Ortner, Marion A1 - Conradi, Anna A1 - Hacker, Patricia A1 - Hauser, Christine A1 - Günthner, Roman A1 - Moser, Michaela A1 - Muggenthaler, Claudia A1 - Diehl-Schmid, Janine A1 - Priller, Josef A1 - Schmaderer, Christoph A1 - Grimmer, Timo T1 - Altered retinal cerebral vessel oscillation frequencies in Alzheimer's disease compatible with impaired amyloid clearance JF - Neurobiology of Aging N2 - Retinal vessels are similar to cerebral vessels in their structure and function. Moderately low oscillation frequencies of around 0.1 Hz have been reported as the driving force for paravascular drainage in gray matter in mice and are known as the frequencies of lymphatic vessels in humans. We aimed to elucidate whether retinal vessel oscillations are altered in Alzheimer's disease (AD) at the stage of dementia or mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Seventeen patients with mild-to-moderate dementia due to AD (ADD); 23 patients with MCI due to AD, and 18 cognitively healthy controls (HC) were examined using Dynamic Retinal Vessel Analyzer. Oscillatory temporal changes of retinal vessel diameters were evaluated using mathematical signal analysis. Especially at moderately low frequencies around 0.1 Hz, arterial oscillations in ADD and MCI significantly prevailed over HC oscillations and correlated with disease severity. The pronounced retinal arterial vasomotion at moderately low frequencies in the ADD and MCI groups would be compatible with the view of a compensatory upregulation of paravascular drainage in AD and strengthen the amyloid clearance hypothesis. KW - Alzheimer's disease KW - Retinal vessel analysis KW - Vasomotions KW - Pulsations KW - Mild cognitive impairment Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neurobiolaging.2022.08.012 SN - 0197-4580 VL - 120 SP - 117 EP - 127 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Colombo, Daniele A1 - Drira, Slah A1 - Frotscher, Ralf A1 - Staat, Manfred T1 - An element-based formulation for ES-FEM and FS-FEM models for implementation in standard solid mechanics finite element codes for 2D and 3D static analysis JF - International Journal for Numerical Methods in Engineering N2 - Edge-based and face-based smoothed finite element methods (ES-FEM and FS-FEM, respectively) are modified versions of the finite element method allowing to achieve more accurate results and to reduce sensitivity to mesh distortion, at least for linear elements. These properties make the two methods very attractive. However, their implementation in a standard finite element code is nontrivial because it requires heavy and extensive modifications to the code architecture. In this article, we present an element-based formulation of ES-FEM and FS-FEM methods allowing to implement the two methods in a standard finite element code with no modifications to its architecture. Moreover, the element-based formulation permits to easily manage any type of element, especially in 3D models where, to the best of the authors' knowledge, only tetrahedral elements are used in FS-FEM applications found in the literature. Shape functions for non-simplex 3D elements are proposed in order to apply FS-FEM to any standard finite element. KW - distorted element KW - ES-FEM KW - FS-FEM KW - non-simplex S-FEM elements KW - S-FEM Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/nme.7126 SN - 1097-0207 VL - 124 IS - 2 SP - 402 EP - 433 PB - Wiley CY - Chichester ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Bhattarai, Aroj A1 - May, Charlotte Anabell A1 - Staat, Manfred A1 - Kowalczyk, Wojciech A1 - Tran, Thanh Ngoc T1 - Layer-specific damage modeling of porcine large intestine under biaxial tension JF - Bioengineering N2 - The mechanical behavior of the large intestine beyond the ultimate stress has never been investigated. Stretching beyond the ultimate stress may drastically impair the tissue microstructure, which consequently weakens its healthy state functions of absorption, temporary storage, and transportation for defecation. Due to closely similar microstructure and function with humans, biaxial tensile experiments on the porcine large intestine have been performed in this study. In this paper, we report hyperelastic characterization of the large intestine based on experiments in 102 specimens. We also report the theoretical analysis of the experimental results, including an exponential damage evolution function. The fracture energies and the threshold stresses are set as damage material parameters for the longitudinal muscular, the circumferential muscular and the submucosal collagenous layers. A biaxial tensile simulation of a linear brick element has been performed to validate the applicability of the estimated material parameters. The model successfully simulates the biomechanical response of the large intestine under physiological and non-physiological loads. KW - biaxial tensile experiment KW - anisotropy KW - hyperelastic KW - constitutive modeling KW - damage Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering9100528 SN - 2306-5354 N1 - Der Artikel gehört zum Sonderheft "Computational Biomechanics" VL - 9 IS - 10, Early Access SP - 1 EP - 17 PB - MDPI CY - Basel ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Philipp, Mohr A1 - Efthimiou, Nikos A1 - Pagano, Fiammetta A1 - Kratochwil, Nicolaus A1 - Pizzichemi, Marco A1 - Tsoumpas, Charalampos A1 - Auffray, Etiennette A1 - Ziemons, Karl T1 - Image reconstruction analysis for positron emission tomography with heterostructured scintillators JF - IEEE Transactions on Radiation and Plasma Medical Sciences N2 - The concept of structure engineering has been proposed for exploring the next generation of radiation detectors with improved performance. A TOF-PET geometry with heterostructured scintillators with a pixel size of 3.0×3.1×15 mm3 was simulated using Monte Carlo. The heterostructures consisted of alternating layers of BGO as a dense material with high stopping power and plastic (EJ232) as a fast light emitter. The detector time resolution was calculated as a function of the deposited and shared energy in both materials on an event-by-event basis. While sensitivity was reduced to 32% for 100 μm thick plastic layers and 52% for 50 μm, the CTR distribution improved to 204±49 ps and 220±41 ps respectively, compared to 276 ps that we considered for bulk BGO. The complex distribution of timing resolutions was accounted for in the reconstruction. We divided the events into three groups based on their CTR and modeled them with different Gaussian TOF kernels. On a NEMA IQ phantom, the heterostructures had better contrast recovery in early iterations. On the other hand, BGO achieved a better contrast to noise ratio (CNR) after the 15th iteration due to the higher sensitivity. The developed simulation and reconstruction methods constitute new tools for evaluating different detector designs with complex time responses. KW - TOF PET KW - Heterostructure KW - Metascintillator KW - Multiple TOF kernels KW - Image Reconstruction Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/TRPMS.2022.3208615 SN - 2469-7311 SN - 2469-7303 VL - 7 IS - 1 SP - 41 EP - 51 PB - IEEE CY - New York, NY ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Engelmann, Ulrich M. A1 - Pourshahidi, Mohammad Ali A1 - Shalaby, Ahmed A1 - Krause, Hans-Joachim T1 - Probing particle size dependency of frequency mixing magnetic detection with dynamic relaxation simulation JF - Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials N2 - Biomedical applications of magnetic nanoparticles (MNP) fundamentally rely on the particles’ magnetic relaxation as a response to an alternating magnetic field. The magnetic relaxation complexly depends on the interplay of MNP magnetic and physical properties with the applied field parameters. It is commonly accepted that particle core size is a major contributor to signal generation in all the above applications, however, most MNP samples comprise broad distribution spanning nm and more. Therefore, precise knowledge of the exact contribution of individual core sizes to signal generation is desired for optimal MNP design generally for each application. Specifically, we present a magnetic relaxation simulation-driven analysis of experimental frequency mixing magnetic detection (FMMD) for biosensing to quantify the contributions of individual core size fractions towards signal generation. Applying our method to two different experimental MNP systems, we found the most dominant contributions from approx. 20 nm sized particles in the two independent MNP systems. Additional comparison between freely suspended and immobilized MNP also reveals insight in the MNP microstructure, allowing to use FMMD for MNP characterization, as well as to further fine-tune its applicability in biosensing. Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jmmm.2022.169965 SN - 0304-8853 VL - 563 IS - In progress, Art. No. 169965 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Pourshahidi, Ali Mohammad A1 - Engelmann, Ulrich M. A1 - Offenhäusser, Andreas A1 - Krause, Hans-Joachim T1 - Resolving ambiguities in core size determination of magnetic nanoparticles from magnetic frequency mixing data JF - Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials N2 - Frequency mixing magnetic detection (FMMD) has been widely utilized as a measurement technique in magnetic immunoassays. It can also be used for the characterization and distinction (also known as “colourization”) of different types of magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) based on their core sizes. In a previous work, it was shown that the large particles contribute most of the FMMD signal. This leads to ambiguities in core size determination from fitting since the contribution of the small-sized particles is almost undetectable among the strong responses from the large ones. In this work, we report on how this ambiguity can be overcome by modelling the signal intensity using the Langevin model in thermodynamic equilibrium including a lognormal core size distribution fL(dc,d0,σ) fitted to experimentally measured FMMD data of immobilized MNPs. For each given median diameter d0, an ambiguous amount of best-fitting pairs of parameters distribution width σ and number of particles Np with R2 > 0.99 are extracted. By determining the samples’ total iron mass, mFe, with inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES), we are then able to identify the one specific best-fitting pair (σ, Np) one uniquely. With this additional externally measured parameter, we resolved the ambiguity in core size distribution and determined the parameters (d0, σ, Np) directly from FMMD measurements, allowing precise MNPs sample characterization. Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jmmm.2022.169969 SN - 0304-8853 VL - 563 IS - In progress, Art. No. 169969 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Uysal, Karya A1 - Creutz, Till A1 - Firat, Ipek Seda A1 - Artmann, Gerhard A1 - Teusch, Nicole A1 - Temiz Artmann, Aysegül T1 - Bio-functionalized ultra-thin, large-area and waterproof silicone membranes for biomechanical cellular loading and compliance experiments JF - Polymers N2 - Biocompatibility, flexibility and durability make polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) membranes top candidates in biomedical applications. CellDrum technology uses large area, <10 µm thin membranes as mechanical stress sensors of thin cell layers. For this to be successful, the properties (thickness, temperature, dust, wrinkles, etc.) must be precisely controlled. The following parameters of membrane fabrication by means of the Floating-on-Water (FoW) method were investigated: (1) PDMS volume, (2) ambient temperature, (3) membrane deflection and (4) membrane mechanical compliance. Significant differences were found between all PDMS volumes and thicknesses tested (p < 0.01). They also differed from the calculated values. At room temperatures between 22 and 26 °C, significant differences in average thickness values were found, as well as a continuous decrease in thicknesses within a 4 °C temperature elevation. No correlation was found between the membrane thickness groups (between 3–4 µm) in terms of deflection and compliance. We successfully present a fabrication method for thin bio-functionalized membranes in conjunction with a four-step quality management system. The results highlight the importance of tight regulation of production parameters through quality control. The use of membranes described here could also become the basis for material testing on thin, viscous layers such as polymers, dyes and adhesives, which goes far beyond biological applications. Y1 - 2022 SN - 2073-4360 VL - 14 IS - 11 SP - 2213 PB - MDPI CY - Basel ER -