The Diurnal Path to Persistent Convective Self-Aggregation.

Clustering of tropical thunderstorms constitutes an important climate feedback because it influences the radiative balance. Convective self-aggregation (CSA) is a profound modeling paradigm for explaining the clustering of tropical oceanic thunderstorms. However, CSA is hampered in the realistic limit of fine model resolution when cold pools-dense air masses beneath thunderstorm clouds-are well-resolved.

Circling in on Convective Self-Aggregation.

In radiative-convective equilibrium simulations, convective self-aggregation (CSA) is the spontaneous organization into segregated cloudy and cloud-free regions. Evidence exists for how CSA is stabilized, but how it arises favorably on large domains is not settled. Using large-eddy simulations, we link the spatial organization emerging from the interaction of cold pools (CPs) to CSA.

Mechanical Forcing of Convection by Cold Pools: Collisions and Energy Scaling.

Forced mechanical lifting through cold pool gust fronts can trigger new convection and, as previous work highlights, is enhanced when cold pools collide. However, as shown by conceptual models, the organization of the convective cloud field emerging from two versus three colliding cold pools differs strongly. In idealized dry large-eddy simulations we therefore compare collisions between two and three cold pools.

Don't Lose Your Brain at Work - The Role of Recurrent Novelty at Work in Cognitive and Brain Aging.

Cognitive and brain aging is strongly influenced by everyday settings such as work demands. Long-term exposure to low job complexity, for instance, has detrimental effects on cognitive functioning and regional gray matter (GM) volume. Brain and cognition, however, are also characterized by plasticity.

The Importance of Team Health Climate for Health-Related Outcomes of White-Collar Workers.

Occupational health researchers and practitioners have mainly focused on the individual and organizational levels, whereas the team level has been largely neglected. In this study, we define as employees' shared perceptions of the extent to which their team is concerned, cares, and communicates about health issues. Based on climate, signaling, and social exchange theories, we examined a multilevel model of team health climate and its relationships with five well-established health-related outcomes (i.

A Rolling Stone Gathers No Moss-The Long Way from Good Intentions to Physical Activity Mediated by Planning, Social Support, and Self-Regulation.

Background: Although many people know that an active lifestyle contributes to health they fail to translate their intentions into action. This has been explained by deficits in self-management and resources, such as enabling social support, planning, and self-regulation in the face of barriers. The present study examines the role of perceived social support, planning, and self-regulation in facilitating physical activity.

The Possible Antecedents and Consequences of Matching of Food Intake: Examining the Role of Trait Self-Esteem and Interpersonal Closeness.

Although there is evidence that people tend to match their intake to that of others, less is known about the motives underlying this effect. The current study, therefore, examined the relationship between self-esteem, a specific factor that has been related to the likelihood of social matching. Further, we examined the effects of food matching on interpersonal closeness among eating companions.

Emotion, rationality, and decision-making: how to link affective and social neuroscience with social theory.

In this paper, we argue for a stronger engagement between concepts in affective and social neuroscience on the one hand, and theories from the fields of anthropology, economics, political science, and sociology on the other. Affective and social neuroscience could provide an additional assessment of social theories. We argue that some of the most influential social theories of the last four decades-rational choice theory, behavioral economics, and post-structuralism-contain assumptions that are inconsistent with key findings in affective and social neuroscience.

Modelling of food intake in Brazil and Germany: Examining the effects of self-construals.

The current research focused on the influence of informational eating norms on people's food intake, and examined whether this influence was moderated by participants' self-construal levels. In two experiments, a two (intake norm manipulation: low vs. high) by two (self-construal manipulation: interdependent versus independent) between-participant factorial design was used.

Bacterial N2-fixation in mangrove ecosystems: insights from a diazotroph-mangrove interaction.

Mangrove forests are highly productive ecosystems but represent low nutrient environments. Nitrogen availability is one of the main factors limiting mangrove growth. Diazotrophs have been identified as key organisms that provide nitrogen to these environments.

Theoretical analysis of hydrogen spillover mechanism on carbon nanotubes.

The spillover mechanism of molecular hydrogen on carbon nanotubes in the presence of catalytically active platinum clusters was critically and systematically investigated by using density-functional theory. Our simulation model includes a Pt4 cluster for the catalyst nanoparticle and curved and planar circumcoronene for two exemplary single-walled carbon nanotubes (CNT), the (10,10) CNT and one of large diameter, respectively. Our results show that the H2 molecule dissociates spontaneously on the Pt4 cluster.

The interplay of plasticity and adaptation in neural circuits: a generative model.

Multiple neural and synaptic phenomena take place in the brain. They operate over a broad range of timescales, and the consequences of their interplay are still unclear. In this work, I study a computational model of a recurrent neural network in which two dynamic processes take place: sensory adaptation and synaptic plasticity.

Enhanced expression of codon optimized Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis antigens in Lactobacillus salivarius.

It is well documented that open reading frames containing high GC content show poor expression in A+T rich hosts. Specifically, G+C-rich codon usage is a limiting factor in heterologous expression of Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis (MAP) proteins using Lactobacillus salivarius.

Not only cardiovascular, but also coordinative exercise increases hippocampal volume in older adults.

Cardiovascular activity has been shown to be positively associated with gray and white matter volume of, amongst others, frontal and temporal brain regions in older adults. This is particularly true for the hippocampus, a brain structure that plays an important role in learning and memory, and whose decline has been related to the development of Alzheimer's disease. In the current study, we were interested in whether not only cardiovascular activity but also other types of physical activity, i.

Social regulation of emotion: messy layers.

Emotions are evolved systems of intra- and interpersonal processes that are regulatory in nature, dealing mostly with issues of personal or social concern. They regulate social interaction and in extension, the social sphere. In turn, processes in the social sphere regulate emotions of individuals and groups.

A detailed physiologically based model to simulate the pharmacokinetics and hormonal pharmacodynamics of enalapril on the circulating endocrine Renin-Angiotensin-aldosterone system.

The renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system (RAAS) plays a key role in the pathogenesis of cardiovascular disorders including hypertension and is one of the most important targets for drugs. A whole body physiologically based pharmacokinetic (wb PBPK) model integrating this hormone circulation system and its inhibition can be used to explore the influence of drugs that interfere with this system, and thus to improve the understanding of interactions between drugs and the target system. In this study, we describe the development of a mechanistic RAAS model and exemplify drug action by a simulation of enalapril administration.

Building blocks of self-sustained activity in a simple deterministic model of excitable neural networks.

Understanding the interplay of topology and dynamics of excitable neural networks is one of the major challenges in computational neuroscience. Here we employ a simple deterministic excitable model to explore how network-wide activation patterns are shaped by network architecture. Our observables are co-activation patterns, together with the average activity of the network and the periodicities in the excitation density.

The 2N-ary Choice Tree Model for N-Alternative Preferential Choice.

The 2N-ary choice tree model accounts for response times and choice probabilities in multi-alternative preferential choice. It implements pairwise comparison of alternatives on weighted attributes into an information sampling process which, in turn, results in a preference process. The model provides expected choice probabilities and response time distributions in closed form for optional and fixed stopping times.

Cardiovascular and coordination training differentially improve cognitive performance and neural processing in older adults.

Recent studies revealed a positive influence of physical activity on cognitive functioning in older adults. Studies that investigate the behavioral and neurophysiological effects of type and long term duration of physical training, however, are missing. We performed a 12-month longitudinal study to investigate the effects of cardiovascular and coordination training (control group: relaxation and stretching) on cognitive functions (executive control and perceptual speed) in older adults.

Interplay between Topology and Dynamics in Excitation Patterns on Hierarchical Graphs.

In a recent publication (Müller-Linow et al., 2008) two types of correlations between network topology and dynamics have been observed: waves propagating from central nodes and module-based synchronization. Remarkably, the dynamic behavior of hierarchical modular networks can switch from one of these modes to the other as the level of spontaneous network activation changes.