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Sarcopenia, defined as age-associated loss of skeletal muscle function and muscle mass, is a negative prognostic marker for survival in several tumor entities. However, data evaluating the impact of sarcopenia and fat distribution on penile cancer are rarely described. We performed a retrospective study including 38 patients who were diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma of the penis. By measuring skeletal muscle mass and fat distribution at axial abdominal computed tomography images at the third lumbar vertebra several body composition parameters including skeletal muscle index (SMI), psoas muscle index (PMI), visceral obesity and visceral-to-subcutaneous fat ratio were determined. Among 38 patients, 26% ( n  = 10) of the patients with penile cancer were identified as sarcopenic. SMI, age, lymph node metastases, distant metastases and penile cancer of the shaft were identified as significant risk factors for overall survival. PMI and distant metastases were significantly associated with cancer specific survival. None of the analysed adipose tissue parameters could be identified as risk factors for survival in this study. We showed that sarcopenia occurs in a relevant part of patients with penile cancer and is a significant risk factor for overall survival ( p  = 0.032) and cancer specific survival ( p =  0.034) for patients with penile cancer. Regarding fat distribution further studies are needed to evaluate its impact on sarcopenia and survival.

This book draws a colorful and widespread picture of global affine hypersurface theory up to the most recent state. Moreover, the recent development revealed that affine differential geometry – as differential geometry in general – has an exciting intersection area with other fields of interest, like partial differential equations, global analysis, convex geometry and Riemann surfaces. The second edition of this monograph leads the reader from introductory concepts to recent research. Since the publication of the first edition in 1993 there appeared important new contributions, like the solutions of two different affine Bernstein conjectures, due to Chern and Calabi, respectively. Moreover, a large subclass of hyperbolic affine spheres were classified in recent years, namely the locally strongly convex Blaschke hypersurfaces that have parallel cubic form with respect to the Levi-Civita connection of the Blaschke metric. The authors of this book present such results and new methods of proof.

Purpose The higher detection efficacy of PSMA PET for oligometastatic recurrence of prostate cancer has promoted new loco-regional treatment options. PSMA-targeted radioguided surgery (PSMA-RGS) was introduced to facilitate salvage surgery of small tumor deposits. The objectives of this retrospective analysis are to describe an independent single-center consecutive cohort of patients undergoing PSMA-RGS and to evaluate its clinical and oncological outcomes. Method Between 2018 and 2022, 53 patients were treated with PSMA-RGS and 50 patients were available for final analyses. All patients were initially treated with radical prostatectomy (RP) and presented with biochemical recurrence (BCR) with at least one positive lesion on PSMA-PET imaging. After preparation of 99mTc-PSMA-I&S and intravenous injection, surgery was performed by using a gamma-probe intraoperatively. Results Median age was 70 years (IQR 65–73) and the median PSA at salvage surgery was 1.2 ng/mL (IQR 0.6-3.0). In all patients pathologically positive lesions could be removed during PSMA-RGS. 29 (58%) patients had one pathologically positive lesion, 14 (28%) had two and 7 (14%) had three or more, respectively. The overall complication rate was 26% with 4 (8%), 1 (2%), and 8 (16%) having Clavien-Dindo (CD) type I, II, and IIIb complications, respectively. During the follow-up period 31 (62%) patients experienced BCR and 29 (58%) received further therapy. Conclusions PSMA-RGS is a promising treatment option to enhance salvage surgery in early biochemical recurrence. However, only 42% of the patients treated with PSMA RGS remain without a biochemical recurrence. Further research is mandatory to identify patients, who profit from PSMA-RGS.

Although conflict is a normal aspect of human life, mass media technologies are changing the dynamics of conflict and shaping strategies for deploying rituals. Rituals can provoke or escalate conflict; they can also mediate it. Media representations have long been instrumental in establishing, maintaining, and challenging political and economic power, as well as in determining the nature of religious practice. This collection of chapters emerged from a two-year project based on collaboration between the Faculty of Religious Studies at Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands and the Ritual Dynamics Collaborative Research Center at the University of Heidelberg in Germany. Here, chapters locate, describe, and explore cases in which media-driven rituals or ritually saturated media instigate, disseminate, or escalate conflict. Each chapter, built around global and local examples of ritualized, mediatized conflict, is multiauthored. The book’s central question is: when ritual and media interact (either by the mediatizing of ritual or by the ritualizing of media), how do the patterns of conflict change?

In this monograph, the interplay between geometry and partial differential equations (PDEs) is of particular interest. It gives a selfcontained introduction to research in the last decade concerning global problems in the theory of submanifolds, leading to some types of Monge-Ampère equations. From the methodical point of view, it introduces the solution of certain Monge-Ampère equations via geometric modeling techniques. Here geometric modeling means the appropriate choice of a normalization and its induced geometry on a hypersurface defined by a local strongly convex global graph. For a better understanding of the modeling techniques, the authors give a selfcontained summary of relative hypersurface theory, they derive important PDEs (e.g. affine spheres, affine maximal surfaces, and the affine constant mean curvature equation). Concerning modeling techniques, emphasis is on carefully structured proofs and exemplary comparisons between different modelings.

We consider affine-complete Blaschke hypersurfaces with constant negative affine mean curvature; for a subclass we assume appropriate bounds for the affine shape operator and for the affine support function; we investigate whether in this subclass of hypersurfaces there exist examples that are not hyperbolic affine spheres. Examples of Calabi type compositions, given by Dillen and Vrancken, admit to test the assumptions of our Main Theorem on this subclass. The study of Blaschke hypersurfaces with negative affine mean curvature finally leads to investigations of the scalar curvature: we treat the scalar curvature of affine spheres in the last section.

We define natural operators of Laplace type for a Weyl manifold which transform conformally. We use the asymptotics of the heat equation for these operators to construct global invariants in Weyl geometry.

In this monograph, the interplay between geometry and partial differential equations (PDEs) is of particular interest. It gives a selfcontained introduction to research in the last decade concerning global problems in the theory of submanifolds, leading to some types of Monge-Ampère equations.

Being associated with Islamic ritual practices, purity is a notion Muslims are usually quite familiar with. This holds true even for those Muslims whose interest in religion is rather limited as purity is a part of their cultural heritage. In this essay, I first outline the central aspects of ritual purity in Islam and its related issues. In the second part, focussing on the situation in Germany, I shall be looking at some modern sources that are relevant in the process of transferring those concepts of purity to the West. Finally, I shall discuss the role of thematic corridors based on the recognition of a central idea as a point of reference for Muslims in the diaspora. Classical and modern scripts show a remarkable persistence. They form a 'corridor of rules' that can serve as a resource for personal decision making and allow the believer a degree of agency and flexibility that impacts on ritual dynamics.