University of Mannheim

Job demands and resources of vocational education teachers: the role of resilience and social support in well-being, job satisfaction, and burnout

Abstract Background In their daily working lives, teachers are confronted with numerous job demands, including conflicts with individual colleagues or the school management, learners with high heterogeneity or a lack of motivation, and technical issues. Dealing with these job dem...

Globalising the access to advanced molecular diagnostics of CNS tumors: Experience of the Molecular Neuro-Pathology (MNP) Outreach Consortium

Central nervous system (CNS) tumors pose a major global health challenge, particularly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), where outcomes remain disproportionately poor. The global CONCORD-3 study (Lancet Oncology) highlighted stark disparities in five-year survival (201...

The relationship between EU fiscal transfers and the European policy profile of political parties

This research note examines how fiscal transfers within the European Union shape the programmatic strategies of domestic political parties. We argue that a country’s net-contributor or net-receiving status conditions the strategies how parties articulate their positions on Europe...

RINGSIDE Phase II Study of Varegacestat for Treatment of Desmoid Tumors: A Randomized Dose-Finding Clinical Trial

PURPOSE Desmoid tumors (DTs) are rare, often locally aggressive, connective tissue neoplasms with limited effective treatment options. We evaluated the safety and efficacy of varegacestat, an oral gamma-secretase inhibitor. METHODS RINGSIDE phase II was an open-label, randomized,...

Attractor dynamics underlie sequence working memory in data-constrained recurrent neural networks

Sequences of stimuli can be maintained in working memory by encoding each item, together with its position, as a distinct pattern of neural population activity. Competing hypotheses about the underlying dynamics have been proposed: patterns of activity might be supported either b...

How sociodemographic factors shape the link between personality and cognitive ability

This study systematically investigated how links between personality traits and cognitive ability vary across key sociodemographic strata. Numerous studies have supported a robust but modest association between cognitive ability and certain personality traits, notably Big Five Op...

The Future Ratio: A New Metric for Forward-Looking Fiscal Policy in Europe

Abstract This article introduces the “Future Ratio”, a novel indicator designed to assess the future orientation of public expenditure in European countries. While traditional investment ratios focus primarily on tangible capital formation, the Future Ratio encompasses a broader...

Psychotherapy remission prediction models show limited cross-clinic generalizability in routine outpatient care

Abstract Clinical prediction models for psychotherapy outcomes have the potential to assist therapists in planning a patient’s individual treatment, but their clinical utility depends on maintaining predictive performance across settings. We assessed prediction of post-treatment...

Assessment of Horizontal Semicircular Canal and Graviceptive Perception Before and After Cochlear Implantation

Background/Objectives: Cochlear implantation (CI) effectively treats severe-to-profound sensorineural hearing loss, but its vestibular effects remain under investigation. This retrospective study assessed perioperative changes in horizontal canal function (video head impulse test...

The impact of dimensionality on the stability of node embeddings

Abstract Previous work has shown that node embedding methods can produce different representations and downstream predictions across repeated training runs, even when trained on the same data with identical hyperparameters. However, the role of embedding dimensionality in this in...

Parvovirus B19 infections in paediatric sickle cell disease patients: Genotype and hydroxyurea treatment influence disease severity

Summary In patients with sickle cell disease (SCD), parvovirus B19 infection (B19V) leads to acute anaemia (aplastic crisis), but may also be associated with other serious complications. We retrospectively analysed clinical data from paediatric SCD patients with B19V infections b...

Context memory in younger and older adults: Insights from metacognition

Cognitive aging is characterized by a deterioration of episodic memory functions. Since episodic memory requires retrieval of context, it has been proposed that older adults suffer from a specific deficit in terms of remembering context associated with to-be-remembered informatio...

Employees at risk within the “absent presence” paradox: a longitudinal comparison from non-smart to smart-working reward system in the Italian private/public sector

Purpose This contribution explores the evolution of employee motivation as a strategic asset in organisations. The objective is to investigate how the value of reward systems (monetary vs non-monetary) is changing in the era of the Smart Working Model (SWM), the paradoxes of the...

Reproducible human reward imaging phenotypes exhibit differential sensitivity to dopamine D2 receptor antagonism

Abstract Human reward processing varies along cue-centric and outcome-centric axes, but a reproducible mechanistic account of individual variation in incentive salience attribution has been lacking. Using fMRI across five cohorts (N-total=1,251; N1=890; N2=245; N3=34; N4=48; N5=3...

Connections: A Smarter Way to Target Influencers

Jacob Goldenberg, Andreas Lanz, Florian Stahl, and Daniel Shapira show that managers and creators who build ties with nearby, low-status influencers outperform those who cultivate high-status influencers. This efficient means of expanding audiences uses the existing dynamics of s...

Gene Expression of TGF-β1 , Matrix Metalloproteinases, and Collagen in Keloid Patients and Their Growth Patterns in 2D and 3D Cell Cultures: An In Vitro Study

Background/Aim: Keloids result from abnormal wound healing and are characterized by excess fibroblast activity, extracellular matrix (ECM) accumulation, and elevated collagen types. The contemporary research often relies on 2D cell cultures, which do not fully replicate keloid pa...

Friends with drugs: The role of social networks in the opioid epidemic

The current opioid epidemic is the worst drug epidemic the U.S. has ever faced. We examine the role of social connections in its spatial spread. Having many friendship links to counties with high opioid exposure positively correlates with overdose death rates. To address identifi...

Accelerating Translation of NK Cell Therapies to the Clinic: A European Perspective

Adoptive immunotherapies have emerged as a promising strategy in the treatment of hematological malignancies. To date, seven chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T cell products have obtained market authorization in Europe for B-cell malignancies, where they have revolutionized treatm...