A high level of text comprehension can be achieved by engaging learners in processes of organization and integration while reading a cohesive text. In the present study, we investigated the impact of an innovative generative technique on learning with scientific texts. The cohesion generation was implemented by means of explicit cohesion gaps. High school students (n = 199) were randomly assigned to either receive a fully cohesive scientific text (control condition) or a scientific text that required the selection ...

During the last decades, Mongolian river oases were subjected to an expansion of farmland. Such intensification triggers substantial gaseous carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) losses that may aggravate disequilibria in the soil surface balances of agricultural plots. This study aims to quantify such losses, and assess the implications of these emissions against the background of calculated partial C and N balances. To this end, CO2, NH3, and N2O soil emissions from carrot, hay, and rye plots were measured by a portable ...

Studying consumers’ implicit emotions has been always described as a difficult and a complicated mission due to the emotions being of a non-cognitive nature. This research aims to develop a new method based on emotion-color association (ECA) to detect consumer’s implicit food-elicited emotions using an eye-tracker tool. The study was accomplished in two experiments. The first experiment intended to build a new color scale based on the emotion-color association using the eye-tracking method and a self-reported ...

The high-strength aluminum alloys offer great potential for realizing lightweight constructions in car body construction. However, the use of aluminum alloys increases the overall thickness of the material, which poses new challenges for potential joining processes. This paper examines a process combination of friction stir spot welding (FSSW) and bonding for 4 mm EN AW 6082-T6 sheets. For the investigations, adhesive or glass beads were applied between the joining components and then the sheets were welded using ...

The aim of the study is to develop a real-time eyeblink detection algorithm that can detect eyeblinks during the closing phase for a virtual reality headset (VR headset) and accordingly classify the eye’s current state (open or closed). The proposed method utilises analysis of a motion vector for detecting eyelid closure, and a Haar cascade classifier (HCC) for localising the eye in the captured frame. When the downward motion vector (DMV) is detected, a cross-correlation between the current region of interest (eye ...

Angler (RVA) and Red-and-White dual-purpose (RDN) cattle were in the past decades crossed with influential Red Holstein (RH) sires. However, genome-wide diversity studies in these breeds are lacking. The objective of the present study was to elucidate the genome-wide diversity and population structure of the three German cattle breeds. Using 40,851 single nucleotide polymorphism markers scored in 337 individuals, runs of homozygosity (ROH) were analysed in each breed. Clustering and a high-resolution network visualisation ...

Background : NK genes are a group of homeobox transcription factors that are involved in various molecular pathways across bilaterians. They are typically divided into two subgroups, the NK cluster (NKC) and NK-linked genes (NKL). While the NKC genes have been studied in various bilaterians, corresponding data of many NKL genes are missing to date. To further investigate the ancestral roles of NK family genes, we analyzed the expression patterns of NKL genes in the onychophoran Euperipatoides rowelli. Results: The ...

Background: Tardigrades (water bears) are microscopic invertebrates of which the anatomy has been well studied using traditional techniques, but a comprehensive three-dimensional reconstruction has never been performed. In order to close this gap, we employed X-ray computed tomography (CT), a technique that is becoming increasingly popular in zoology for producing high-resolution, three-dimensional (3D) scans of whole specimens. While CT has long been used to scan larger samples, its use in some microscopic animals ...

Early hydration of tricalcium silicate (C3S) has received great attention over the years due to the increased use of composite cement with a reduced number of clinker phases, especially the addition of what should be very reactive C3S to guarantee early strength. Although many mechanisms have been proposed, the dissolution of polygonal C3S at the material interface is not yet fully understood. Over the last decade, computational methods have been developed to describe the reaction in the cementitious system. This ...

The global economy is using growing amounts of natural resources such as raw materials, water, and land by making and using goods, services, and infrastructure. Aspirations on international, regional, and national levels e.g., the Sustainable Development Goals, the EU flagship initiative Roadmap to a Resource Efficient Europe or the German Program for Resource Efficiency are showing an urgent need to bring the global raw material use down to sustainable levels. An essential prerequisite to identify resource efficient ...