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A significant fraction of atmospheric aerosol particles, which affect both the Earth's climate and human health, can be attributed to organic compounds and especially to secondary organic aerosol (SOA). To better understand the sources and processes generating organic aerosol particles, detailed chemical characterization is necessary, and particles are often collected onto filters and subsequently analyzed by liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (LC–MS). A downside of such offline analysis techniques is the uncertainty regarding artifactual changes in composition occurring during sample collection, storage, extraction and analysis. The goal of this work was to characterize how storage conditions and storage time can affect the chemical composition of SOA generated from β-pinene and naphthalene, as well as from urban atmospheric aerosol samples. SOA samples were produced in the laboratory using an aerosol flow tube and were collected onto PTFE filters, whereas ambient samples were collected onto quartz filters with a high-volume air sampler. To characterize temporal changes in SOA composition, all samples were extracted and analyzed immediately after collection but were also stored as aqueous extracts or as filters for 24 h and up to 4 weeks at three different temperatures of +20, −20 or −80 ∘C in order to assess whether a lower storage temperature would be favorable. Analysis was conducted using ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography–high-resolution mass spectrometry (UHPLC–HRMS). Both principal component analysis (PCA) and time series of selected compounds were analyzed to identify the compositional changes over time. We show that the chemical composition of organic aerosols remained stable during low-temperature storage conditions, while storage at room temperature led to significant changes over time, even at short storage times of only 1 d. This indicates that it is necessary to freeze samples immediately after collection, and this requirement is especially important when automated ambient sampling devices are used where filters might be stored in the device for several days before being transferred to a laboratory.

Purpose Recreational sports are commonly recommended for their health-enhancing effects. But broadening the perspective on planetary health raises the question of how they impact the environment. While there is a body of evidence on the impacts of professional sports on planetary health, there is currently a lack of studies investigating the sustainability of grassroots level sports, in particular team sports in recreational leagues. This study set out to explore travel patterns in different recreational leagues in the sports of football and handball in Germany. Methods We derived data including club location and game schedules for amateur football and handball teams in the region of Erlangen, Germany, from official websites of sport federations. Using google maps, we calculated the travel distances for every match-up in season 2022/23 and highlighted the distribution of teams in divisions by mapping. Results Even on a low recreational level, significant travel distances are accrued by teams over a season. In general, playing in a more competitive league results in longer travel distances for football teams. On average, women teams cover longer travel distances compared to men’s teams. Playing handball results in more travel compared to playing football. The current set-up of divisions can be improved to limit travel distances. Conclusions Despite some limitations (e.g., number of included divisions or difficulty translating the distances into CO2 emissions), this investigation sheds light on the environmental impact of recreational league play. The sheer number of sports teams suggests the importance of investigating recreational league play and supporting sport federations to optimize game schedules to limit travel emissions. Funding Source The study was not funded.

Background Humanity faces dual existential crises of biodiversity loss and global warming. Acknowledging the environmental impact of sports, the United Nations is calling on the sports sector to take the lead in fighting climate change and adopting climate-neutral practices. Research on the greenhouse gas emissions of amateur league play is evolving but to date there are few studies that have described the travel patterns for large samples of teams and explored ways to reduce travel. Methods Travel distances for the 2022/23 season were calculated for 339 amateur football and handball teams playing in different leagues in Bavaria. The program Gurobi was utilised to optimise the grouping of teams in order to reduce travel by car. Results The study showed that playing in a higher amateur league most often resulted in longer travel distances for both women's and men's sports. Some amateur teams had to travel up to 2,958 kilometres for one season of play. All 339 teams combined travelled a total of 474,231 km (1398.9 per team in average) for away matches in the 2022/23 season of play. Optimising the groups in which teams play can reduce total travel distances by up to 19.7% while keeping the number of games played constant. Conclusions Our findings indicate that travel distances in amateur football and handball, despite being shorter than those of professional teams, contribute significantly to carbon emissions. Due to the greater number of amateur teams and the necessity to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, it is crucial to explore ways of reducing travel in amateur sports. This touches on ethical issues regarding how much travel that causes greenhouse gas emissions is justified in amateur play. Algorithm based optimisation of which teams play against each other appears to be a straightforward, cost-effective, and scalable method for reducing travel emissions in amateur sports.

We present an electrical mobility classifier for mass–mobility measurements of atmospheric ions. Size segregation coupled with mass spectrometric detection of naturally occurring ions in the atmosphere is challenging due to the low ion concentration. Conventional electrical mobility classifying devices were not yet coupled with mass spectrometry to resolve natural ion composition. This is due to either the insufficient transmission efficiency or design concepts being incompatible with this application, e.g. using high electric fields close to the inlets to push ions from high to low electric potential. Here, we introduce an axial ion mobility classifier, termed AMC, with the aim to achieve higher transmission efficiencies to segregate natural ions at reasonable sizing resolution. Similar to the recently introduced principle of the high-pass electrical mobility filter (HP-EMF) presented by Bezantakos et al. (2015) and Surawski et al. (2017), ions are classified via an electric field that is opposed to the gas flow direction carrying the ions. Compared to the HP-EMF concept, we make use of sheath flows to improve the size resolution in the sub-3 nm range. With our new design we achieve a sizing resolution of 7 Z/ΔZ with a transmission efficiency of about 70 %.

Transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation (tVNS) is a promising therapeutic option for major depressive disorder (MDD) in adults. Alternative third-line treatments for MDD in adolescents are scarce. Here we aimed to assess the effects of acute tVNS on emotion recognition in adolescents with MDD. Adolescents (14-17 years) with MDD (n = 33) and non-depressed controls (n = 30) received tVNS or sham-stimulation in a cross-sectional, case-control, within-subject cross-randomized controlled trial, while performing different tasks assessing emotion recognition. Correct responses, response times, and errors of omission and commission on three different computerized emotion recognition tasks were assessed as main outcomes. Simultaneous recordings of electrocardiography and electro dermal activity, as well as sampling of saliva for the determination of α-amylase, were used to quantify the effects on autonomic nervous system function. tVNS had no effect on the recognition of gradually or static expressed emotions but altered response inhibition on the emotional Go/NoGo-task. Specifically, tVNS increased the likelihood of omitting a response toward sad target-stimuli in adolescents with MDD, while decreasing errors (independent of the target emotion) in controls. Effects of acute tVNS on autonomic nervous system function were found in non-depressed controls only. Acute tVNS alters the recognition of briefly presented facial expressions of negative valence in adolescents with MDD while generally increasing emotion recognition in controls. tVNS seems to specifically alter early visual processing of stimuli of negative emotional valence in MDD. These findings suggest a potential therapeutic benefit of tVNS in adolescent MDD that requires further evaluation within clinical trials.

Non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) is a considerable health problem among adolescents. Affect regulation by means of self-injury may promote the maintenance of NSSI. However, existing findings have limited ecological validity. The present study aimed to assess emotional and interpersonal states preceding and following incidents of NSSI in female adolescents. Adolescents with NSSI-disorder completed ecological momentary assessments of affective and interpersonal states on an hourly basis for multiple days. Multilevel mixed-effect regression analyses were conducted to assess antecedences and consequences of acts of self-injury. Data from n = 73 female adolescents covering a total of 52 acts of self-injury were available for analyses. The urge to self-injure on the between subject-level and negative affect on the within-level were best predictors of self-injury. Surprisingly, self-injury increased negative affect and decreased feelings of attachment (mother only) in the following hour. In line with findings in adults, results illustrate the important association between negative affect and self-injury in female adolescents. However, the occurrence of NSSI itself was related to concurrent increases in negative affect, and even prospectively predicted a consecutive increase in negative affect. Therefore, improvements of negative affect following (or during) self-injury, as previously reported, are at best short-lived (< 1 h).

Background Externalizing behavior problems are related to social maladjustment. Evidence indicates associations between prenatal stress and child behavioral outcomes. It remains unclear how psychological distress vs. biological correlates of stress (cortisol) differentially predict externalizing behavior, and how their effects might differ as a function of child sex. Method 108 pregnant women from the community collected salivary cortisol and reported their perceived stress during each trimester of pregnancy. At child age 9 years ( M  = 9.01, SD  = 0.55), 70 mothers and children reported on child behavior. Structural equation modelling was used to analyze how cortisol levels and perceived stress during pregnancy predicted current child externalizing behavior, considering the moderating effect of child sex. Results Perceived stress predicted higher externalizing behavior in boys ( β  = 0.42, p  = 0.009) and lower externalizing behavior in girls ( β  = − 0.56, p  = 0.014). Cortisol predicted lower externalizing behavior in boys ( β  = − 0.81, p  < .001) and was not related to girls’ externalizing behavior ( β  = 0.37, p  = 0.200). Discussion/Conclusion Prenatal stress affected externalizing behavior differently in girls vs. boys. These response patters in turn differed for indicators of psychological vs. biological maternal stress, encouraging an integrated approach. Findings indicate that perceived stress and cortisol may affect child development via different trajectories.

Nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) is associated with reduced pain sensitivity and alterations in top–down processing of nociceptive information. The experience of acute pain is characterized by reactivity of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) and hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis, which to our knowledge has not been systematically investigated in the context of NSSI. Adolescents fulfilling DSM-5 diagnostic criteria for NSSI and matched healthy controls received cold pain stimulation. We obtained self-reports on psychological distress and measured blood pressure, heart rate variability (HRV) and saliva cortisol. Regression analyses were used to investigate group differences on observed difference scores, adjusting for confounding variables. We included 30 adolescents engaging in NSSI and 30 controls in our study. Adolescents in the NSSI group showed a greater pain threshold. Groups significantly differed in their psychological response to pain. In patients with NSSI, mood and body awareness increased after painful stimulation; in controls it decreased. Tension increased in controls only. The HPA axis response to painful stimulation was increased in the NSSI compared with the control group. Analysis of ultra-short-term recordings of HRV revealed significant group differences during the anticipation of pain and recovery. Future studies should incorporate multiple measures of saliva cortisol and replicate the present findings in a naturalistic setting. Compared with controls, individuals engaging in NSSI show psychological benefits in response to pain. Biological findings highlight decreased physiologic arousal before and prolonged arousal (ANS and HPA axis response) after painful stimulation in adolescents engaging in NSSI. Greater pain-inflicted autonomic arousal and cortisol secretion may counteract dissociative states, reduce negative affect and increase body awareness in adolescents engaging in NSSI, lending support for a neurobiological pathomechanism underlying the intraindividual and antisuicide functions of NSSI.

Cities are the hot spots for global dengue transmission. The increasing availability of human movement data obtained from mobile devices presents a substantial opportunity to address this prevailing public health challenge. Leveraging mobile phone data to guide vector control can be relevant for numerous mosquito-borne diseases, where the influence of human commuting patterns impacts not only the dissemination of pathogens but also the daytime exposure to vectors. This study utilizes hourly mobile phone records of approximately 3 million urban residents and daily dengue case counts at the address level, spanning 8 years (2015–2022), to evaluate the importance of modeling human-mosquito interactions at an hourly resolution in elucidating sub-neighborhood dengue occurrence in the municipality of Rio de Janeiro. The findings of this urban study demonstrate that integrating knowledge of Aedes biting behavior with human movement patterns can significantly improve inferences on urban dengue occurrence. The inclusion of spatial eigenvectors and vulnerability indicators such as healthcare access, urban centrality measures, and estimates for immunity as predictors, allowed a further fine-tuning of the spatial model. The proposed concept enabled the explanation of 77% of the deviance in sub-neighborhood DENV infections. The transfer of these results to optimize vector control in urban settings bears significant epidemiological implications, presumably leading to lower infection rates of Aedes -borne diseases in the future. It highlights how increasingly collected human movement patterns can be utilized to locate zones of potential DENV transmission, identified not only by mosquito abundance but also connectivity to high incidence areas considering Aedes peak biting hours. These findings hold particular significance given the ongoing projection of global dengue incidence and urban sprawl.

Background Diagnostic standards do not acknowledge developmental specifics and differences in the clinical presentation of adolescents with borderline personality disorder (BPD). BPD is associated with severe impairments in health related quality of life (HRQoL) and increased psychopathological distress. Previously no study addressed differences in HRQoL and psychopathology in adolescents with subthreshold and full-syndrome BPD as well as adolescents at-risk for the development but no current BPD. Methods Drawing on data from a consecutive sample of N  = 264 adolescents (12–17 years) presenting with risk-taking and self-harming behavior at a specialized outpatient clinic, we investigated differences in HRQoL (KIDSCREEN-52) and psychopathological distress (SCL-90-R) comparing adolescents with no BPD (less than 3 criteria fulfilled), to those with subthreshold (3–4 BPD criteria) and full-syndrome BPD (5 or more BPD criteria). Group differences were analyzed using one-way analysis of variance with Sidak corrected contrasts or Chi-Square test for categorical variables. Results Adolescents with subthreshold and full-syndrome BPD presented one year later at our clinic and were more likely female. Adolescents with subthreshold and full-syndrome BPD showed greater Axis-I and Axis-II comorbidity compared to adolescents with no BPD, and reported greater risk-taking behaviour, self-injury and suicidality. Compared to those without BPD, adolescents with subthreshold and full-syndrome BPD reported significantly reduced HRQoL. Adolescents with sub-threshold BPD and those with full-syndrome BPD did not differ on any HRQoL dimension, with the exception of Self-Perception . Similar, groups with sub-threshold and full-syndrome BPD showed no significant differences on any dimension of self-reported psychopathological distress, with the exception of Hostility . Conclusions Findings highlight that subthreshold BPD in adolescents is associated with impairments in HRQoL and psychopathological distress comparable to full-syndrome BPD. Findings raise awareness on the importance of early detection and question the diagnostic validity and clinical utility of existing cut-offs. Findings support a lower diagnostic cut-off for adolescent BPD, to identify those at-risk at an early stage.