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Mass spectrometry is a widely used technology to identify and quantify biomolecules such as lipids, metabolites and proteins necessary for biomedical research. In this study, we catalogued freely available software tools, libraries, databases, repositories and resources that support lipidomics data analysis and determined the scope of currently used analytical technologies. Because of the tremendous importance of data interoperability, we assessed the support of standardized data formats in mass spectrometric (MS)-based lipidomics workflows. We included tools in our comparison that support targeted as well as untargeted analysis using direct infusion/shotgun (DI-MS), liquid chromatography−mass spectrometry, ion mobility or MS imaging approaches on MS1 and potentially higher MS levels. As a result, we determined that the Human Proteome Organization-Proteomics Standards Initiative standard data formats, mzML and mzTab-M, are already supported by a substantial number of recent software tools. We further discuss how mzTab-M can serve as a bridge between data acquisition and lipid bioinformatics tools for interpretation, capturing their output and transmitting rich annotated data for downstream processing. However, we identified several challenges of currently available tools and standards. Potential areas for improvement were: adaptation of common nomenclature and standardized reporting to enable high throughput lipidomics and improve its data handling. Finally, we suggest specific areas where tools and repositories need to improve to become FAIRer.

This paper presents some results of a qualitative interview study with contemporary magicians that was carried out in two phases in German-speaking countries. The greater part of the data was collected in 2004-2005 and covered a broad range of topics. The topics presented here include (1) paranormal experiences of magicians, (2) evaluation of magical practice, and (3) magic in the laboratory. To deepen these aspects, material from the first phase of 11 interviews was supplemented with extended interview data from four additional interviews in 2023. The experienced phenomena can be categorized as 'situation influencing,' 'weather influencing,' 'psychokinesis and RSPK,' 'ESP,' and 'synchronistic events.' The evaluation of magic is a central problem. Similar to parapsychology, displacement effects or trickster effects are observed. Furthermore, the possibilities of evaluation largely depend on the goals of the magicians, making it difficult to assess the success of magical operations. The preconditions for successful magic are (1) motivation, (2) an empathic relationship with the goal, (3) no doubts about the effectiveness, and (4) not wanting or suffering too much. Dedicated magicians could interest parapsychologists because they are trained to focus their minds--which could be advantageous when searching for gifted participants. However, motivation could be a problem. In any case, magicians could provide valuable advice on the conditions for producing paranormal effects, working with altered states of consciousness, and having the 'right mindset' to perform successfully in parapsychological experiments.

Methods: In my previously conducted study among magick practitioners in German-speaking countries between 2004 and 2005, a larger part of the now presented data were already gathered, but the results have only been published as part of a German-language monograph. The questions addressed in this presentation about the evaluation of magical practice as well as extraordinary experiences in this context represented only one aspect of data collection. The interview guide for the recent interviews was based on the corresponding parts of the thematically structured guide from the first data collection.

Introduction: The so-called Bélmez faces attracted considerable attention in the public and the media as well as in the mostly European parapsychological community in the early 1970s. In 1971, phenomena of supposedly paranormal origin occurred in the Spanish village Bélmez de la Moraleda. Discolorations appeared on the concrete floor of a house's kitchen which were interpreted as images of faces of paranormal origin. The events allegedly were strongly connected to the physical presence of the then 52 years old María Gómez Cámara. One characteristic was the dynamics of the formations: they manifested themselves at different speeds, on some occasions directly under the eyes of witnesses, and sometimes disappeared again, or changed their appearance. From the beginning, however, there was suspicion that the faces could have been created by fraud. First investigations were conducted by the police-María mentioned the \"scientific police from Madrid\" that visited the house for eight days with their technical devices, examined the faces, and removed samples of concrete for analysis. In the following years, further materials analyses were carried out, which played a central role in the assessment of the nature of the phenomena, whether they were real paranormal phenomena or caused by fraud. Outside of Spain, the spectacular case was rather forgotten, probably partly because of misrepresentations, but the interest of the Spaniards themselves remained lively. Still in 2014 a materials analysis was carried out on behalf of a television station. With this paper, an overview of the materials analyses carried out with the faces should be given. For this purpose, partly unpublished investigation reports and other archival documents were used in addition to the facts mentioned in published texts. Unfortunately, there is no report from the materials analysis from the first investigation available. Thus, we can only refer to four analyses: one carried out by J.J. Alonso in the year 1975; two others by the Grupo Hepta in 1991 and 1994; and a final one analysis by two scientists, José J. Gracenea and Luis Alamancos, on behalf of the television station Cuarto Milenio in 2014. The purpose of all these investigations was to clarify the question whether the faces were produced by human hands or were occurred in an inexplicable (paranormal) way. The following two conventional explanatory hypotheses were at stake: (1) light-sensitive silver salts or other chemicals were applied, which led to the corresponding discoloration of the cement floor, or (2) the faces were produced by applying paint. In summary, despite the sometimes somewhat meager details of the accessible reports, the picture is quite uniform. The two mentioned conventional explanations for the formation of the pictures, namely the application of a solution of silver salts to the cement floor, which then causes corresponding blackening of the surface, as when developing a photo print under the influence of UV light, or the application of paint and general external manipulations of the floor surface, are not supported by the analyses. Of course, the fact that the last analyses of 2014 as well as those of Grupo Hepta in the 1990s were commissioned by supporters of the paranormal hypothesis must be viewed critically. However, the materials analyses coincide in the decisive findings with those from Alonso's early analysis. Although Alonso's client could not be identified, his report shows that he remained skeptical about the paranormal hypothesis, as he offered a conventional, albeit extremely implausible, explanation for the origin of the face he examined. Together with all the interview data containing statements from directly and indirectly involved persons, a plausible conventional explanation for the emergence of these faces during the first phase of the appearance in the early 1970s is still missing. It is as if the dark (melanocratic) particles in the cement had arranged themselves in a hitherto inexplicable way to the facial forms. Since relatively large amounts of moisture were detected, especially in connection with the early sealing and covering experiments of Bender and Argumosa, this could play a significant role in formation of the faces, in connection with the hygroscopic properties of the soil material. However, the anomalistic aspect remains unaffected by such speculation.

We investigated sleep paralysis (SP) with an online questionnaire and used a selected sample of subjects who had had at least one SP experience, with a total of 380 subjects. On average, the participants experienced 10-20 SP episodes. We created our own questionnaire on SP experiences by taking items from two already existing questionnaires, the Waterloo Sleep Experience Survey (WSES; Cheyne & Rueffer, 1999) and the Unusual Sleep Experiences Questionnaire (USEQ; Paradis et al., 2009) and adding some items of our own given our emphasis on interpretation, coping strategies, and paranormal aspects of SP In addition, we have applied three further questionnaires, the Fragebogen zur Phänomenologie außergewöhnlicher Erfahrungen (PAGE-R-II, in press; see Fach et al., 2013, for the first, longer version) to measure extraordinary experiences; a German translation of the Belief in the Supernatural Scale (BitSS; Schofield et al., 2018); and a German translation (Ritz et al., 1993) of the Tellegen Absorption Scale (TAS; Tellegen & Atkinson, 1974) to measure the personality trait absorption. We presented first descriptive results of quantitative data with a poster at the 2019 PA convention in Paris (cf. Mayer & Fuhrmann, 2021). One of our research questions concerned the connection between the frequency of SP experiences and extraordinary experiences in general, and belief in the supernatural. The often bizarre and disturbing quality of the experience, the lack of familiar cultural patterns of interpretation in our society, and the accompanying somatic and mental circumstances link SP experiences to the realm of extraordinary experiences (ExEs) and altered states of consciousness (ASC). SP is usually experienced as very unpleasant and anxiety-provoking. In addition of being unable to move, many of the concerned have auditive, visual, or tactile perceptions such as hearing voices, seeing strange objects or entities of various kinds, feeling pressure or weight on the chest, being choked, feelings of floating or falling, out-of-body experiences, etc. From the point of view of sleep medicine, the specific quality of such experiences is considered hallucinatory and harmless, and therefore does not require greater attention. However, Belz and Fach (2012, 2015) took a different approach. They included SP as a specific ExE in their model of fundamental categories of exceptional phenomena. They theoretically derived four classes of ExEs, assigned to the four quadrants formed by the dimensions \"external-internal\" and \"coincidence-dissociation.\" In their model, SP is placed in the quadrant built by the external and the dissociation poles, i.e., experienced as external and disconnected from normal body function. We used their questionnaire, the PAGE-R-II, to assess the extent to which people with SP have had other extraordinary experiences. We expected positive correlations between the frequency of SP and the experience of \"External Phenomena\" and \"Dissociation Phenomena.\" This hypothesis was confirmed regarding the \"dissociation\" pole but not regarding the \"external-internal\" dimension. Together with some other findings, this led to the assumption that there are two main types of experiencing SP: a \"classic\" one associated with anxiety and an external attentional focus, and another one with more inward focus, more often associated with positive feelings. We explored this thesis by conducting two factor analyses. With the first, we reduced the 10 items on the list of feelings and emotions experienced during SP to the three emotion factors: a \"happiness-curiosity\" factor, a \"fear-pain\" factor, and an \"other fears-feelings\" factor. In a second step, we computed a factor analysis on the so-called hallucination factors found by Cheyne et al. (1999): the emotion factors, the four subscales of the PAGE, and the TAS. The 3-component-solution suggests two general types of SP experiences as suggested above. However, this hypothesis requires further investigations. Many Western scientists consider SP experiences to be one of the sources and causes of human belief in ghosts due to the specific perceptions mentioned above. Based on previous research, we expected a positive correlation between belief in the paranormal and frequency of SP, using a German translation of the BitSS. This hypothesis was not confirmed. The absence of significant correlations between supernatural beliefs and frequency of SP in our study tend not to support the assumption that SP is a major source of human belief in ghosts - at least this is true for our sample coming from a secular Western society.

The case, investigated by Hans Bender and an assistant, brings together many characteristic problems associated with the investigation of RSPK cases: (a) the involvement of various kinds of mass media with their specific interests; (b) the increasing competition between different actors (reporters, German Federal Post Office, criminal investigation department, justice); (c) contradictory indications and testimonies; (d) serious scientists as debunkers; and (e) an increasingly confusing mélange of motifs, confessions, explanations, and various psychical mechanisms. In addition to the epistemological interest in the phenomenology of the case and the therapeutic and medical obligation to help, the scientific investigators are confronted with further claims and demands of responsibility from other actors: the post office attempted to eliminate external or internal disturbances of the telecommunication system and restore proper functioning. [...]the extremely high level of public attention produced by the mass media caused an extremely strong and harsh reaction from the authorities in order to restore the disturbed \"order of reality.\"

ObjectiveColonoscopy is the accepted gold standard for detecting colorectal adenomas, but the miss rate, especially for small and flat lesions, remains unacceptably high. The aim of this study was to determine whether enhanced mucosal contrast using pancolonic chromoendoscopy (PCC) allows higher rates of adenoma detection.MethodsIn a prospective, randomised two-centre trial, PCC (with 0.4% indigo carmine spraying during continuous extubation) was compared with standard colonoscopy (control group) in consecutive patients attending for routine colonoscopy. The histopathology of the lesions detected was confirmed by evaluating the endoscopic resection or biopsy specimens.ResultsA total of 1008 patients were included (496 in the PCC group, 512 in the control group). The patients' demographic characteristics and indications for colonoscopy were similar in the two groups. The proportion of patients with at least one adenoma was significantly higher in the PCC group (46.2%) than in the control group (36.3%; p=0.002). Chromoendoscopy increased the overall detection rate for adenomas (0.95 vs 0.66 per patient), flat adenomas (0.56 vs 0.28 per patient) and serrated lesions (1.19 vs 0.49 per patient) (p<0.001). There was a non-significant trend towards increased detection of advanced adenomas (103 vs 81; p=0.067). Mean extubation times were slightly but significantly longer in the PCC group in comparison with the control group (11.6±3.36 min vs 10.1±2.03 min; p<0.001).ConclusionsPancolonic chromoendoscopy markedly enhances adenoma detection rates in an average-risk population and is practicable enough for routine application.