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Plastik und Mikroplastik werden in praktisch allen Gewässern gefunden, auch an entlegenen Orten. Über Flüsse wird ein maßgeblicher Teil des Plastiks in die Meere transportiert. Es gibt Hinweise, dass Talsperren und Stauhaltungen außer Sedimenten auch Mikroplastik zurückhalten. Gezielte Untersuchungen dazu gibt es aber kaum. Im Rahmen des Projektverbundes MikroPlaTaS wurden drei Gewässer mit Staubereichen in NRW untersucht. In allen wurden mehrere Kunststoffsorten in Form von Mikroplastik nachgewiesen.

Die Verbreitung von Mikroplastik in Flüssen verdeutlicht, dass sich Plastik nicht nur im Meer, sondern auch in Binnengewässern nachweisen lässt. Wichtige und bisher wenig untersuchte Kompartimente des Gewässersystems sind Talsperren und Stauhaltungen, deren Funktion im Projekt MikroPlaTaS untersucht wurde. Da sich Mikroplastik auf dem Gewässergrund ablagern kann, stellen Talsperren und Staubereiche mögliche Senken für Mikroplastik dar. Das Verbundprojekt analysierte zum einen das Verhalten und Vorkommen von Mikroplastik in diesen strömungsberuhigten Fließgewässerbereichen. Besonders interessant war dabei die Frage, warum Mikroplastik gerade dort absinkt. So sollte das Projekt dazu beitragen, diese Gewässerbereiche als Senke für Plastik zu bewerten. In diesem Zusammenhang wurde weiterhin untersucht, wie sich Biofilme auf Plastik bilden und warum sich diese bewachsenen Partikel am Boden ablagern. Dies schloss auch die Bewertung der Nahrungsqualität von Plastik-assoziierten Biofilmen ein. Schließlich wurden auch die Auswirkungen auf verschiedene wirbellose Wasserlebewesen untersucht. Dies diente dazu, ein besseres Verständnis der physikalischen Wechselwirkungen zwischen Mikroplastik, mikrobieller Besiedlung, Meio- und Makrofauna im Plankton und Benthos dieser Gewässer zu erreichen.

With an ever-increasing amount of plastic pollution in the various aquatic ecosystems around the world, the effects on organisms are still not fully understood. Most studies focus on direct effects posed by plastic intake or entanglement, but plastic debris can also affect primary production of biofilms and have an indirect impact on its consumers. This study investigates the primary production on three common plastic types in freshwater and its food quality for a benthic grazer. We hypothesized that different polymer types affect biofilm composition as well as the life parameters of its consumers. We incubated polyethylene (PE), polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and polystyrene (PS) as well as glass (control) in a productive freshwater creek for natural biofilm establishment. To account for changes in the environmental conditions, the experiment was conducted twice during winter and late spring, respectively. These biofilms were offered to the freshwater gastropod Physa fontinalis as sole food source. Growth and reproduction of the snails were measured to monitor sublethal effects. Additionally, biofilm composition was observed using confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM). In winter, snails feeding off PET and PE showed a significantly lower egg production and lower growth rates were observed on PET. No such effects occurred in spring. CLSM data revealed, that algal growth was significantly lower on PE and PET during the winter treatment compared to PS and glass. Since we could only find these effects during the colder and darker months (January–March), the microbial colonization on PE and PET was inhibited by the substrate under less favorable conditions of temperature and light. Hence, benign conditions may mask the adverse effects of microplastic on food webs. Our findings show that future studies on the plastisphere will need to consider such variations to further understand the influence of plastic pollution on primary production and higher trophic levels.

Contains fulltext : 218194.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access), Equipping health systems with suitable incentives for efficient resource allocation remains a major health policy challenge. This study examines the impacts of 2015 regulatory changes in Danish dental care which aimed at effectuating a transition from six-to-twelve-monthly dental recall intervals, for every patient, towards a model where patients with higher need receive dental recalls systematically more frequently than patients with lower need. Exploiting administrative data from the years 2012-2016 from the Danish National Health Insurance database containing 72,155,539 treatment claims for 3,759,721 unique patients, we estimated a series of interrupted time-series regression models with patient-level fixed-effects. In comparison to the pre-reform period, the proportion of patients with recall intervals of up to 6 months was by 1.2%-points larger post-implementation; that of patients with 6-12-monthly recalls increased by 0.7%-points; that of patients with more than 12-monthly dental recalls decreased by 1.9%-points. The composition of care shifted more substantially: the proportion of treatment sessions including preventive care increased by 31.5%-points (95%-CI: 31.4;31.6); that of sessions including scaling increased by 24.1%-points (24.0;24.2); that of sessions including diagnostics decreased by 34.5%-points (34.4;34.6). These findings suggest that dental care providers may have responded differently to regulatory changes than intended by the health policy.

Contains fulltext : 218781.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access)

After a long phase of marine-dominated microplastic research and public awareness, freshwater habitats have become a focus with respect to plastic pollution and associated ecological effects (Wagner et al. 2014). While the final analytical procedures to identify plastic polymers are similar for marine and freshwater samples, the distribution of plastic in freshwaters and consequently the sampling pose some additional challenges. Freshwaters comprise highly diverse waterbodies regarding their size, depth, and biogeochemical quality. They include complex hydrological systems with manmade infrastructures like dams and wastewater treatment plants and with strong seasonal variations probably leading to significant differences in plastic concentrations on small scales. Due to their proximity to human settlements, there is a variety of plastic sources and possibly also sinks along the way to the oceans. All this needs to be considered when designing sampling campaigns in order to produce representative and interoperable data. resentative and interoperable data. Freshwater biota can be affected by plastic pollution from the basis of food webs to top predators. This has long been neglected at least in public, as there are fewer single iconic species known from freshwaters, and fewer freshwater invertebrates are used for human consumption compared to marine species. However, recent laboratory studies show that freshwater organisms may be affected by plastic (e.g. Oliveira et al. 2018; Vosshage et al. 2018), and there is increasing evidence that freshwater organisms are exposed to microplastics in situ (Su et al. 2018; Windsor et al. 2019). In this regard, it is important to distinguish if microplastics are taken up, if this causes toxic effects, and if so, whether these are related to the plastic particles themselves or to associated chemicals. Moreover, to improve our understanding of microplastic-associated ecological effects, it is extremely important to publish also studi

Contains fulltext : 215387.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access), BACKGROUND: The evidence that large pay-for-performance schemes improve the health of populations is mixed-evidence regarding locally implemented schemes is limited. OBJECTIVE: This study evaluates the effects in Stoke-on-Trent of a local, multifaceted Quality Improvement Framework including pay for performance in general practice introduced in 2009 in the context of the national Quality and Outcomes Framework that operated from 2004. METHODS: We compared age-standardized mortality data from all 326 local authorities in England with the rates in Stoke-on-Trent using Difference-in-Differences, estimating a fixed-effects linear regression model with an interaction effect. RESULTS: In addition to the existing downward trend in cardiovascular deaths, we find an additional annual reduction of 36 deaths compared with the national mean for coronary heart disease and 13 deaths per 100000 from stroke in Stoke-on-Trent. Compared with the national mean, there was an additional reduction of 9 deaths per 100000 people per annum for coronary heart disease and 14 deaths per 100000 people per annum for stroke following the introduction of the 2009 Stoke-on-Trent Quality Improvement Framework. CONCLUSION: There are concerns about the unintended consequences of large pay-for-performance schemes in health care, but in a population with a high prevalence of disease, they may at least initially be beneficial. This study also provides evidence that a local, additional scheme may further improve the health of populations. Such schemes, whether national or local, require periodic review to evaluate the balance of their benefits and risks.

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Item does not contain fulltext, Using claims data for research is well established. However, most claims data analyses are focused on single countries. Multi-national approaches are scarce. The application of different anonymization techniques before data are shared for research as well as differences in the reimbursement systems hamper the use of claims data from multiple countries. This paper analyses data conflicts that occur when international claims data sets are used for research and develops a generic process to detect and resolve these conflicts. The approach was successfully applied in the EU-funded ADVOCATE (Added Value for Oral Care) project that acquired data from health insurance providers, health funds or health authorities in six European countries.

Contains fulltext : 190855.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)

High amounts of plastic debris enter and accumulate in freshwater systems across the globe. The plastic contamination of benthic habitats in lakes and running waters poses a potential threat to freshwater ecosystems. This study investigates the effects of plastic on two trophic levels of the aquatic food web: primary production, that is, epiplastic biofilm, and primary consumption, that is, a benthic invertebrate grazer. Two plastic types, polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) and polycarbonate (PC), and glass (control) were used as substrata for natural biofilm establishment. PMMA and PC are, for example, intensively used in the automobile, construction, and electronical industries and in cosmetics (PMMA), CDs, and DVDs (PC). These biofilms were fed to the freshwater gastropod Radix balthica (Linnaeus 1758) in a laboratory-grazing experiment. Biofilm structure and composition were observed using confocal laser scanning microscopy before the grazing experiment. Sublethal effects on R. balthica were observed measuring consumption of biofilm and growth rates. The biofilm composition on PMMA significantly differed compared to PC and glass. The grazing experiments showed limited biofilm consumption and lower growth rates of R. balthica in both plastic treatments. Concluding, plastic in freshwaters has a direct effect on the primary production and an indirect effect on higher trophic levels.

In 2012, preliminary guidelines were published addressing sample quality, data acquisition and reduction, presentation of scattering data and validation, and modelling for biomolecular small-angle scattering (SAS) experiments. Biomolecular SAS has since continued to grow and authors have increasingly adopted the preliminary guidelines. In parallel, integrative/hybrid determination of biomolecular structures is a rapidly growing field that is expanding the scope of structural biology. For SAS to contribute maximally to this field, it is essential to ensure open access to the information required for evaluation of the quality of SAS samples and data, as well as the validity of SAS-based structural models. To this end, the preliminary guidelines for data presentation in a publication are reviewed and updated, and the deposition of data and associated models in a public archive is recommended. These guidelines and recommendations have been prepared in consultation with the members of the International Union of Crystallography (IUCr) Small-Angle Scattering and Journals Commissions, the Worldwide Protein Data Bank (wwPDB) Small-Angle Scattering Validation Task Force and additional experts in the field.

Amphipols (APols) are short amphipathic polymers that can substitute for detergents to keep integral membrane proteins (MPs) water soluble. In this review, we discuss their structure and solution behavior; the way they associate with MPs; and the structure, dynamics, and solution properties of the resulting complexes. All MPs tested to date form water-soluble complexes with APols, and their biochemical stability is in general greatly improved compared with MPs in detergent solutions. The functionality and ligand-binding properties of APol-trapped MPs are reviewed, and the mechanisms by which APols stabilize MPs are discussed. Applications of APols include MP folding and cell-free synthesis, structural studies by NMR, electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction, APol-mediated immobilization of MPs onto solid supports, proteomics, delivery of MPs to preexisting membranes, and vaccine formulation.

An integrated picture of hydration shell dynamics and of its coupling to functional macromolecular motions is proposed from studies on a soluble protein, on a membrane protein in its natural lipid environment, and on the intracellular environment in bacteria and red blood cells. Water dynamics in multimolar salt solutions was also examined, in the context of the very slow water component previously discovered in the cytoplasm of extreme halophilic archaea. The data were obtained from neutron scattering by using deuterium labelling to focus on the dynamics of different parts of the complex systems examined.

Intracellular water dynamics in Haloarcula marismortui, an extremely halophilic organism originally isolated from the Dead Sea, was studied by neutron scattering. The water in centrifuged cell pellets was examined by means of two spectrometers, IN6 and IN16, sensitive to motions with time scales of 10 ps and 1 ns, respectively. From IN6 data, a translational diffusion constant of 1.3 10-5 cm2s-1 determined at 285 K. This value is close to that found previously for other cells and close to that for bulk water, as well as that of the water in the 3.5 M NaCl solution bathing the cells. A very slow water component was discovered from the IN16 data. At 285 K the waterprotons of this component displays a residence time of 411 ps (compared with a few ps in bulk water). At 300 K, the residence time dropped to 243 ps and was associated with a translational diffusion of 9.3110-8 cm2s-& or 250 times lower than that of bulk water. This slow water accounts for 76% of cell water in H. marismortui. No such water was found in Escherichia coli measured on BSS, a neutron spectrometer with properties similar to those of IN16. It is hypothesized that the slow mobility of a large part of H. marismortui cell water indicates a specific water structure responsible for the large amounts of K bound within these extremophile cells.