Plant-based, i.e. vegetarian (without meat and fish) or vegan (exclusively plant-based foods) diets are in trend also among children and adolescents, but data on food intake in this group are lacking. Here, we compare the consumption of food groups of vegetarian (n 145), vegan (n 110) and omnivore (n 135) children and adolescents (6–18 years) in Germany using data of the VeChi Youth Study. Each food item reported in 3 d weighed dietary records was assigned to one of eighteen food groups and individual mean intake per day (g/MJ) was calculated. Group differences were assessed using covariance analyses adjusted for age, sex and other covariates. For food groups with a high number of non-consumers, non-parametric Kruskal–Wallis tests were run. Pairwise comparison of vegetarian and vegan groups indicated significantly higher intakes of legumes, nuts, milk alternatives (all P = 0·0003) and meat alternatives (P = 0·0065) among vegan subjects. Intake of these food groups of omnivore participants was low (Q3:0·0 g/MJ for legumes, milk alternatives and meat alternatives, 0·5 g/MJ for nuts). Dairy intake of vegetarians (11·6 g/MJ) was significantly lower than of omnivore subjects (24·7 g/MJ) (P = 0·0003). Intake of fats/oils and sweet foods was lowest in vegan compared with vegetarian and omnivore participants (P< 0·05). Whole grain intake was higher in vegan participants (14·5 g/MJ) than of vegetarian (9·1 g/MJ) and omnivore (6·5 g/MJ) participants (P = 0·0003). Longitudinal studies are necessary to evaluate the long-term health consequences of vegetarian, vegan and omnivore food patterns, especially in childhood and adolescence.

The overall trend of rapid retreat of Alpine glaciers contains considerable variability of responses at the scale of individual glaciers. As a step towards a regional assessment of glacier state that allows a detailed differentiation of single glaciers, we explore the potential of a self-organizing maps (SOM) algorithm to identify and cluster recurring patterns of thickness change at glaciers in western Austria. Using digital elevation models and glacier inventories for three time periods, we compute the frequency distribution of surface elevation change over the area of each glacier in the data set, for each period. The results of the SOM clustering show a distinct pattern shift over time: From 1969 to 1997, surface elevation change occurred at relatively uniform rates across a given glacier. Since 1997, the distribution of surface elevation change at individual glaciers has been far less uniform, indicating accelerated processes of disintegration. Tracking the evolution of individual glaciers throughout the time periods via the clusters highlights both the broader regional trend as well as glaciers that deviate from this trend, e.g. some very small, high elevation glaciers that have reverted to reduced and more uniform volume loss patterns.

The 1717 Christmas flood is one of the most catastrophic storm surges the Frisian coast (Netherlands and Germany) has ever experienced. With more than 13,700 casualties it is the last severe storm surge with a death toll of this order. At the same time, little is known about the hydrodynamic conditions and the morphological effects associated with this storm surge.

In this study, 41 potential dyke failures in the Province of Groningen (Netherlands) associated with the 1717 Christmas flood were systematically reconstructed and mapped by using historical maps and literature and by analysing the recent topography in search of typical pothole structures and sediment fans. The dimensions of the sediment fans as derived from the topography show a good accordance with the dimensions documented by vibracore profiles, direct push tests and electrical resistivity tomography data taken at three fieldwork sites. Moreover, the fan dimensions closely agree with the dimensions as simulated using a process-based morphodynamic numerical model for one of the three sites, the village of Wierhuizen. Consequently, the recent topography is still indicative for the locations and dimensions of dyke failures and sediment fans associated with the 1717 Christmas flood. Considering the large number of detected dyke failures (41) and the large dimensions of the potholes and particularly of the sediment fans up to a few hundred metres wide and up to 0.7 m thick, this study proves significant morphological effects of the 1717 Christmas flood on the mainland of the Province of Groningen.

Based on the numerical simulation approach and the comparison with field data and field observations, a maximum seaward water level of 5 m NAP for the dyke failure at Wierhuizen during the Christmas flood can be derived. A similar maximum water level is indicated for the two other fieldwork sites Vierhuizen and Kohol, which is in good agreement with the maximum storm surge level of 4.62 m NAP historically documented for the city of Emden located almost 50 km to the east of Wierhuizen.

The results of the current study demonstrate that the reconstruction of historical dyke failures based on (i) historical sources, (ii) recent lidar/high-resolution topographical data, (iii) multi-proxy sedimentary field data and (iv) hydro- and morphodynamic numerical simulations is a highly promising approach to derive hydrodynamic conditions and the morphological onshore response of the 1717 Christmas flood in the Province of Groningen. This knowledge is essential to improve our understanding of extreme storm surge dynamics, their influence on the coastal landscape and the associated hazards for the coastal population.

Governance in Afghanistan is a complex matter. Afghanistan today is not only the territory of Pashtuns, Tajiks, Northern Alliances, Taliban and Al Qaeda, all of whom are competing for power. Afghanistan is also a social field of other political actors like Germany, the UK, the US, the UN and of the “Six plus Two” group. Is it governance without government?

The thesis that, after September 11, 2001, there were categorical differences between Europe and the U.S. in their approaches to the dangers of terrorism, rests essentially on the claim that “Old Europe's” constitutional pacifism has failed. In this view, the global pax americana has a Hobbesian commitment to military power, and this is said to be the form adequate to realize the universal concept of peace. In principle, this is not an especially original notion. Robert Kagan, who nevertheless helped it gain a certain prominence, is merely the intellectual beneficiary of a series of classical theorists of realpolitik who agreed that conflicts could, “at the end of the day,” only be settled politically and not legally. Ironically, the prophets of this thesis were confessed Old Europeans. Carl Schmitt as well as Hans Morgenthau laid the cornerstone of these forms of cosmography, insisting that, on a global level, it is not law that rules but the free interplay of state-forces.

Focusing on orthography as a primary linguistic interface in every reading activity, the central research question we address here is how orthographic intelligibility can be measured and predicted between closely related languages. This paper presents methods and findings of modeling orthographic intelligibility in a reading intercomprehension scenario from the information-theoretic perspective. The focus of the study is on two Slavic language pairs: Czech–Polish (West Slavic, using the Latin script) and Bulgarian–Russian (South Slavic and East Slavic, respectively, using the Cyrillic script). In this article, we present computational methods for measuring orthographic distance and orthographic asymmetry by means of the Levenshtein algorithm, conditional entropy and adaptation surprisal method that are expected to predict the influence of orthography on mutual intelligibility in reading.

Surveys report that 25–57 % of cats are overweight or obese. The most evinced cause is neutering. Weight loss often fails; thus, new strategies are needed. Obesity has been associated with altered gut bacterial populations and increases in microbial dietary energy extraction, body weight and adiposity. This study aimed to determine whether alterations in intestinal bacteria were associated with obesity, energy restriction and neutering by characterising faecal microbiota using 16S rRNA gene sequencing in eight lean intact, eight lean neutered and eight obese neutered cats before and after 6 weeks of energy restriction. Lean neutered cats had a bacterial profile similar to obese rodents and humans, with a greater abundance (P<0·05) of Firmicutes and lower abundance (P<0·05) of Bacteroidetes compared with the other groups. The greater abundance of Firmicutes in lean neutered cats was due to a bloom in Peptostreptococcaceae. Obese cats had an 18 % reduction in fat mass after energy restriction (P<0·05). Energy reduction was concurrent with significant shifts in two low-abundance bacterial genera and trends in four additional genera. The greatest change was a reduction in the Firmicutes genus, Sarcina, from 4·54 to 0·65 % abundance after energy restriction. The short duration of energy restriction may explain why few bacterial changes were observed in the obese cats. Additional work is needed to understand how neutering, obesity and weight loss are related to changes in feline microbiota and how these microbial shifts affect host physiology.

We report serendipitous detections of line emission with ALMA in band 3, 6, and 7 in the central parsec of the Galactic center at an up to now highest resolution (<0.7″). Among the highlights are the very first and highly resolved images of sub-mm molecular emission of CS, H13CO+, HC3N, SiO, SO, C2H, and CH3OH in the immediate vicinity (~1″ in projection) of Sgr A* and in the circumnuclear disk (CND). The central association (CA) of molecular clouds shows three times higher CS/X (X: any other observed molecule) luminosity ratios than the CND suggesting a combination of higher excitation - by a temperature gradient and/or IR-pumping - and abundance enhancement due to UV- and/or X-ray emission. We conclude that the CA is closer to the center than the CND is and could be an infalling clump consisting of denser cloud cores embedded in diffuse gas. Moreover, we identified further regions in and outside the CND that are ideally suited for future studies in the scope of hot/cold core and extreme PDR/XDR chemistry and consequent star formation in the central few parsecs.

In 2014, the UN Human Rights Committee published its Concluding Observations on the United States’ fourth periodic report on the progress of the implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (UN Doc CCPR/C/SR/3061), in which also the US surveillance practices are criticised. The Committee’s insistence on the right to privacy and its exterritorial effect is an important first step, but it is not comprehensive, as by remaining within the individual rights framework the UN Human Rights Committee fails to sufficiently take into account the systemic challenges in play. Developing a constitution of the Internet would necessitate not only protecting individual fundamental rights against state interference, but protecting communicative spheres by guaranteeing institutional autonomies and subjecting all social spheres to democratic control; this also requires opening up spaces for a critical public, including whistleblowers, and establishing a right to cryptography – a crucial refraction in the polycentric panoptic schema.