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Severe winter storms in combination with precipitation extremes pose a serious threat to Europe. Located at the southeastern exit of the North Atlantic's storm track, European coastlines are directly exposed to impacts by high wind speeds, storm floods and coastal erosion. In this study we analyze potential changes in simulated winter storminess and extreme precipitation, which may occur under 1.5 or 2 degrees C warming scenarios. Here we focus on a first simulation suite of the atmospheric model CAM5 performed within the HAPPI project and evaluate how changes of the horizontal model resolution impact the results regarding atmospheric pressure, storm tracks, wind speed and precipitation extremes. The comparison of CAM5 simulations with different resolutions indicates that an increased horizontal resolution to 0.25 degrees not only refines regional-scale information but also improves large-scale atmospheric circulation features over the Euro-Atlantic region. The zonal bias in monthly pressure at mean sea level and wind fields, which is typically found in low-resolution models, is considerably reduced. This allows us to analyze potential changes in regional-to local-scale extreme wind speeds and precipitation in a more realistic way. Our analysis of the future response for the 2 degrees C warming scenario generally confirms previous model simulations suggesting a poleward shift and intensification of the meridional circulation in the Euro-Atlantic region. Additional analysis suggests that this shift occurs mainly after exceeding the 1.5 degrees C global warming level, when the midlatitude jet stream manifests a strengthening northeastward. At the same time, this northeastern shift of the storm tracks allows an intensification and northeastern expansion of the Azores high, leading to a tendency of less precipitation across the Bay of Biscay and North Sea. Regions impacted by the strengthening of the midlatitude jet, such as the northwestern coasts of the British Isles, Scandinavia and the Norwegian Sea, and over the North Atlantic east of Newfoundland, experience an increase in the mean as well as daily and sub-daily precipitation, wind extremes and storminess, suggesting an important influence of increasing storm activity in these regions in response to global warming.

Biomimetic systems and interfaces allow to understand and control cellular behavior in a well defined and reproducible manner. In this study three different strategies are developed to prepare such simplified, well-defined biomimetic materials. Firstly, a combination of click chemistry and gold thiol interactions allows the presentation of two distinct signaling molecules at controlled density and arrangement to investigate the cross-talk between two signaling molecules in cell culture. Secondly, the commonly used Ni2+-NTA interaction with His6- tagged proteins is substantially improved in its stability and inertness for protein immobilization on SAMs by replacing the Ni2+ ions with Co3+ in the complex. Thirdly, His6-tagged proteins are stably tethered on TiO2 nanoparticles for targeted delivery. To produce dual functionalized gold nanostructured interfaces, first the presentation of a ligand of interest with azide functionality on glass substrates at controlled density is established. For this pirpose, alkyne terminated poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) is covalently bound to glass through a silanization reaction and subsequently modified through copper catalyzed azide alkyne cycloaddition (CuAAC). The functionalization density can be statistically tuned through the coimmobilization of a methoxy-terminated PEG. The surface coating and its modification with the CuAAC is analyzed using fluorescence microscopy, XPS, an enzymatic digestion assay for the determination of the ligand density, QCM-D and in cell adhesion studies. This PEG coating is used in combination with the established gold nanostructured surfaces to generate orthogonally dual functionalized biomimetic interfaces where one of the ligands is attached to the PEG coating between the gold nanoparticles using the CuAAC and the second ligand is attached to the gold nanoparticles using the gold thiol interaction. These interfaces, which present two distinct ligands at controlled density and arrangement, are suitable to investigate the mutual influence of two signaling molecules on cell behavior. Exemplarily, the combined effect of the adhesion peptide cRGD and the synergy site PHSRN on REF fibroblast adhesion is investigated. While on neither of the monofunctionalized substrates the cells can attach, the cells adhere on the dual functionalized cRGD and PHSRN presenting interfaces. The second part of this study deals with the stable immobilization of His-tagged proteins on NTA presenting surfaces using the cobalt(III) mediated interaction. The cobalt(III) complex is generated by first preforming the well established cobalt(II) complex between NTA and His6-tagged proteins and the subsequent chemical oxidation of Co2+ to Co3+ with hydrogen peroxide. A comparison of the Ni(II) and Co(III) mediated interaction between NTA moieties and His6-GFP reveals the lability of the Ni(II) and stability of the Co(III) complexes against high concentrations of competing ligands and washing off overtime. Further, also the resistance of the Co(III) mediated interaction against reducing agents is demonstrated. The oxidation step in this immobilization strategy can potentially harm the protein’s activity and this has to be investigated case by case. To illustrate that this method can be used to immobilize functional protein, the His6-tagged protein A is immobilized through the Co(III) mediated interaction and it is shown that the oxidation step dosen’t influence the immunoglobulin binding activity. In the third part the Co(III) mediated stable immobilization of His-tagged proteins is used to biofunctionalize TiO2 nanoparticles. Here, the photocatalytic activity of TiO2 is taken advantage of to perform the oxidation of Co(II) complexes between the chelating TETT surface coating on the TiO2 nanoparticles and a His-tagged protein. The Co2+ ion loading capacity of the nanoparticles and their photocatalytic activity is characterized with a colorimetric assay, fluorescence studies using terephtahlic acid as radical detection reagent, absorbance measurements, DLS and zeta potential measurements proving the photo-mediated oxidation of coordinated Co2+ ions to Co3+. Exemplarily, the stable immobilization of the model protein His6-GFP and of the glycoprotein transferrin-His6 is studied.

В статье рассматриваются дискурсы ментального картографирования в России второй половины XIX в. В фокусе внимания находятся сообщения российских железнодорожных пассажиров, которые записали свои впечатления от преодоленных территории в соответствующих текстах. Конкретное исследование основано на дорожных записках о железнодорожных путешествиях в восточную часть империи по Транссибирской железной дороге. В статье тщательно исследуется широкое распространение предположение, что строительство и использование железных дорог в XIX в. внесло значительный вклад в интеграцию национальных государств и империй в смысле их «территориализации» (Чарльз Майер). На примере Российской империи в ней констатируется, что строительство и использование новых транспортных средств имело как интегрирующие, так и дезинтегрирующие эффекты для репрезентации имперского пространства на ментальных картах российских путешественников. Пространственное опыт использования целостной транспортной системы вызвал, с одной стороны, представление о России как о большом, неделимом целом. В то же время железная дорога создана совершенно новые возможности для того, чтобы лично ощутить культурные границы в рамках мультиэтнической империи. Это порождало не только гордость за территориальное величие Российской империи, но и тенденции к отчуждению и опасениям в отношении «Чужого» в своей собственной стране. The paper deals with discourses of mental mapping in Russia in the second half of the 19th century. The focus is on reports of Russian railway passengers who wrote down their impressions of the travelled territory in corresponding texts. The case study is based on travelogues documenting train journeys to the Eastern part of the Empire on the Transiberian railroad. The article scrutinizes the wide spread assumption that the construction and use of railroads in the 19th century contributed significantly to the integration of nation-states and empires in the sense of their “territorialisation” (Charles Maier). Using the example of the Russian Empire, it argues that the construction and use of the new means of transportation had both integrative and dis-intergrative effects in terms of the representation of the imperial space on the mental maps of Russian travellers. The spatial experience of an integrated transportation system evoked on the one side notions of Russia as a large, indivisible whole. At the same time the railroad created completely new opportunities to personally experience the cultural frontiers within the multi-ethnic Empire. This promoted both the pride felt in the size of the Russian Empire but also tendencies of estrangement and fears about the “Other” in one’s own country. Шенк Фритьеф Беньямин, профессор восточно-европейской истории, Базельский университет, автор более 70 публикаций об истории памяти и концепциях коллективной идентичности в Центральной и Восточной Европе, истории пространства и коммуникаций, истории инфраструктуры, ментальном картографировании и исторических регионах Европы, сравнительной истории империй, истории политического насилия. E-mail: benjamin.schenk-at-unibas.ch. F. B. Schenk, Universitaet Basel, Confoederatio Helvetica, benjaminschenk-at-unibas.ch

Along the value chain (exploration, mining, processing, recycling) generally solid samples of complex matrix and non-stoichiometric composition need to be analysed. Besides spatially-resolved analytics applied to technology development, bulk analytics is mainly used for characterisation of value components. In the search of the best-suited method, there are important questions to answer at first: 1. What is already known about the sample (matrix, stability, solubility, interferences)? 2. What data are needed (quantitative, semi-quantitative or qualitative)? 3. Are the concentrations of the elements of interest at a major, minor or trace level? 4. How urgently are the data needed and what are the financial restraints? Here, two different projects are selected to demonstrate a typical search for fit-for-purpose analytics spanning from commonly available Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS) to more rarely applied Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis (INAA). These are two examples of primary and secondary raw materials (intermediate goods and waste), which would open possibilities for side products of critical metals, e.g. REE, PGE, Re, Ga. The first project deals with a natural mineral sample of molybdenite (MoS2) taken from an open pit mine in Kačaran (Armenia) in use for Mo and by-product Re mining. Rhenium is important for catalytic and petrochemical industry, metallurgy, and aviation, e.g. it is used for steel reinforcement in turbine blades for aircrafts [1,2]. The second project focus on secondary raw materials from the non-bauxitic production of aluminium and alumina in Siberia. The analysed materials were taken from different stages of the production process: The final product alumina (Al2O3), waste products like red mud (mainly calcium carbonate and SiO2), sodium salts (e.g. Na2SO4) and anode slag (carbon, Cu-Al alloy, Al) and by-products like wollastonite ceramics (CaSiO3) and soda-potash (K2CO3/Na2CO3). Of course, there are pros and cons of every analytical method (Total Reflection X-ray Fluorescence (TXRF), ICP-MS, INAA) for different samples yielding to clear conclusions about the best-suited method for future analytical tasks. For example in the case of Re, INAA is identified as method of choice for such kind of analysis due to high sample throughput, an easy and quick sample preparation and a low detection limit (0.26 μg/g). References: [1] A. Brumby, M. Verhelst, D. Cheret, Catalysis today. 2005, 106, 166-169. [2] C. Zhan-Fang, Z. Hong, Q. Zhao-hui, Hydrometallurgy. 2009, 97, 153-157.

The debate about Free Will has been in the human mind for centuries, but has become even more intense with the recent scientific findings adding new lights on the problem. This interdisciplinary explosion of interest for the topic has brought many insightful knowledge, but also a great deal of epistemological problems. We think that those epistemological problems are deeply related to the very definition of Free Will and how this definition interacts with the interpretations of experimental results. We will thus outline a few of these problems and then propose a definition of Free Will which takes into account those epistemological pitfalls.

The detection of potential long-term changes in historical storm statistics and storm surges plays a vitally important role for protecting coastal communities. In the absence of long homogeneous wind records, we present a novel, independent and homogeneous storm surge record based on water level observations in the North Sea since AD 1843. Storm surges are characterized by considerable inter-annual to decadal variability linked to large-scale atmospheric circulation patterns. Time periods of increased storm surge levels prevailed in the late 19th and 20th centuries without any evidence for significant long-term trends. This contradicts with recent findings based on reanalysis data, which suggest increasing storminess in the region since the late 19th century. We compare the wind and pressure fields from the 20th century reanalysis (20CRv2) with the storm surge record by applying state of the art empirical wind surge formulas. The comparison reveals that the reanalysis is a valuable tool which leads to good results over the past 100 years; previously the statistical relationship fails, leaving significantly lower values in the upper percentiles of the predicted surge time series. These low values lead to significant upward trends over the entire investigation period, which are in turn neither supported by the storm surge record nor by an independent circulation index based on homogeneous pressure readings. We therefore suggest that these differences are related to higher uncertainties in the earlier years of the 20CRv2 over the North Sea region.

The presence or absence of melanoma cells in human peripheral blood has recently been shown to be associated with disease prognosis, including overall survival. The detection of tyrosinase mRNA-positive circulating melanoma cells by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) has been limited to disseminated tumours expressing measurable amounts of this melanocyte-specific enzyme. To biologically classify both melanotic and amelanotic melanomas and to evaluate the clinical and prognostic relevance of tumour cell microcontamination, we examined autologous peripheral blood stem cell (PBSC) harvests from patients with advanced malignant melanoma prior to dose-escalated chemotherapy. To assay heterogeneous melanoma cell antigen expression, we developed a highly sensitive RT-PCR using four melanoma- and one tumour-associated antigen as molecular markers. Expression of the melanocyte-associated transcripts of tyrosinase, MART1/Melan-A, tyrosinase-related protein-1 (TRP-1) and tyrosinase-related protein-2 (TRP-2) as well as the tumour-specific transcript of MAGE-3 was analysed by RT-PCR in PBSC harvests from 31 patients. Seven of the 31 PBSC harvests tested positive for one or more molecular markers: two patients for tyrosinase only, and one patient for MAGE-3 only, one patient for tyrosinase and MAGE-3, one for tyrosinase and MART1/Melan-A, and two patients for tyrosinase, MART1/Melan-A, TRP-2 and MAGE-3. mRNA-positive patients exhibited a significantly impaired overall survival (P = 0.0032), with a median survival of 3 months as opposed to 10 months in PBSC mRNA-negative patients. In conclusion, the use of this multiple-marker microcontamination assay allowed for molecular and prognostic classification of advanced malignant melanoma.