2020, Bekeschus, Sander, Clemen, Ramona, Nießner, Felix, Sagwal, Sanjeev Kumar, Freund, Eric, Schmidt, Anke

Medical technologies from physics are imperative in the diagnosis and therapy of many types of diseases. In 2013, a novel cold physical plasma treatment concept was accredited for clinical therapy. This gas plasma jet technology generates large amounts of different reactive oxygen and nitrogen species (ROS). Using a melanoma model, gas plasma technology is tested as a novel anticancer agent. Plasma technology derived ROS diminish tumor growth in vitro and in vivo. Varying the feed gas mixture modifies the composition of ROS. Conditions rich in atomic oxygen correlate with killing activity and elevate intratumoral immune-infiltrates of CD8+ cytotoxic T-cells and dendritic cells. T-cells from secondary lymphoid organs of these mice stimulated with B16 melanoma cells ex vivo show higher activation levels as well. This correlates with immunogenic cancer cell death and higher calreticulin and heat-shock protein 90 expressions induced by gas plasma treatment in melanoma cells. To test the immunogenicity of gas plasma treated melanoma cells, 50% of mice vaccinated with these cells are protected from tumor growth compared to 1/6 and 5/6 mice negative control (mitomycin C) and positive control (mitoxantrone), respectively. Gas plasma jet technology is concluded to provide immunoprotection against malignant melanoma both in vitro and in vivo.

2020, Chepkoech, Winifred, Mungai, Nancy W., Stöber, Silke, Lotze-Campen, Hermann

Understanding the adaptive capacity (AC) of farmers is crucial to planning effective adaptation. Action to promote farmers’ AC is required because climate change (CC) is resulting in unpredictable alterations in weather patterns. Based on the sustainable livelihoods framework (SLF), this study explored how access to natural, physical, financial, social and human capitals enhances the AC. Quantitative data from 269 African indigenous vegetable (AIV) farmers in three selected agro-climatic zones in Kenya were analysed. Four indicators in each capital were selected based on previous studies and judgments collected from an expert online ranking survey (n = 35). The Kruskal-Wallis H test and an independent sample t-test were used to test the independence of AC scores and access to the different resources. The findings showed that the majority of farmers (53%) had a moderate AC, while fewer (32%) and (15%) had low or high AC levels respectively. Disparities in adaptive capacity scores were recorded between respondents in terms of their age, marital status and location. Farmers had high access to social capital but low access to financial, natural and human capitals. Female farmers showed lower capacities in the areas of financial, human and natural resources, while their male counterparts had low access to some human and social capitals. Resilient interventions that target individuals with low adaptive capacities are required. © 2020 The Authors

2020, Posch, Patrick, Lunghammer, Sarah, Berendts, Stefan, Ganschow, Steffen, Redhammer, Günther J., Wilkening, Alexandra, Lerch, Martin, Gadermaier, Bernhard, Rettenwander, Daniel, Wilkening, H. Martin R.

Li7La3Zr2O12 (LLZO) garnet-type ceramics are considered as very promising candidates for solid electrolytes and have been extensively studied in the past few years. Several studies report on an increase in ionic conductivity by doping with ions, such as Al3+ and Ga3+, to stabilize the cubic modification of LLZO. Unfortunately, so far ion dynamics have mainly been studied using powdered samples. Such studies may suffer from chemical heterogeneities concerning Al distribution. Here, we took advantage of Al-stabilized LLZO single crystals to throw light on the elementary steps of ion hopping. We used 7Li nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spin-lattice relaxation measurements and conductivity spectroscopy to probe dynamic parameters from both a microscopic and macroscopic point of view. At 293 K the total conductivity turned out to be 0.082 mS cm−1, which is remarkably good for LLZO exhibiting an Al-content of only 0.37 wt%. Most importantly, 7Li NMR spin-lock transients revealed two overlapping diffusion-induced processes. Overall, activation energies from spin-lock NMR excellently agree with that from conductivity measurements; both techniques yield values around 0.36 eV. The corresponding diffusion coefficients deduced from NMR and conductivity measurements almost coincide. The magnetic spin fluctuations sensed by NMR provide an in-depth look at the elementary jump processes, which can barely be revealed by macroscopic impedance spectroscopy providing average values. In particular, we were able to precisely measure the local hopping barrier (0.20 eV) characterizing forward-backward jumps between the sites 24d and 96h. © 2019 The Author(s)

2020, Adamseged, Muluken E., Frija, Aymen, Thiel, Andreas

The authors regret for not properly acknowledging the contribution of the Consortium Research Program (CRP) on Livestock, led by ILRI with contribution of ICARDA. Funding from the CGIAR Research Program on Livestock (flagship 5 on “Livestock livelihoods and agri-food systems flagship”) is acknowledged for their support of staff time of Dr. Aymen Frija. The authors thank all donors and organizations who globally support the work of the CGIAR Research Program on Livestock through their contributions to the CGIAR system. The authors would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused. © 2020 The Author(s)