University of Zurich

Is there a limit to limitations? A proposal for structured limitations reporting in scientific manuscripts

Reporting studies limitations is essential for transparent interpretation. While reporting guidelines such as CONSORT, STROBE, PRISMA mandate disclosure of limitations, no widely adopted framework standardizes how these are reported in a structured and comparable format. In pract...

Cancer in systemic sclerosis: clinical associations and prognostic impact from the EUSTAR registry

BACKGROUND: Cancer represents a major cause of mortality in systemic sclerosis (SSc). Established risk factors are limited to specific subsets, particularly early diffuse anti-RNA polymerase III (POLR3)-positive disease, needing further exploration. METHODS: We performed a nested...

Defying Distance? The Provision of Medical Services in the Digital Age

Digital platforms reduce geographic frictions, enabling better matching between service providers and users. I quantify reallocation gains in Swedish online health care, using nationwide time-conditional random assignment between patients and physicians. Matching high-risk patien...

A Peter–Weyl theorem for compact group bundles and the geometric representation of relatively ergodic compact extensions

We show that a relatively ergodic extension of measure-preserving dynamical systems has relative discrete spectrum if and only if it can be represented as a skew-product by a bundle of compact homogeneous spaces. Our result holds without restrictions on the acting group or the un...

Globalization of Perturbative Chern–Simons Theory on the Moduli Space of Flat Connections in the BV Formalism

Abstract We study the perturbative path integral of Chern–Simons theory (the effective BV action on zero-modes) in Lorenz gauge, expanded around a (possibly non-acyclic) flat connection, as a family over the smooth irreducible stratum $${\mathcal {M}}'\subset {\mathcal {M}}$$ M ′...

Synchronous human-dolphin foraging increases fishing success despite prey unpredictability

Abstract Foraging theory predicts that individuals adjust their behaviour in response to environmental conditions and prey availability. One solution to finding and capturing unpredictable prey is social foraging, yet it remains unclear whether its benefits arise from behavioural...

Position-Dependent Stability of an Unconstrained Total Talar Replacement and Its Suture Reinforcement: A Human Cadaveric Weight-Bearing Computed Tomography Study

Total talar replacement (TTR) is a joint-preserving alternative to arthrodesis in end-stage talar collapse. However, excising the talus detaches its anchoring ligaments and capsule, and unconstrained prosthesis constructs are prone to malalignment and dislocation. Moreover, it re...

The 2024 cascading glacial lake outburst flood in the Thame Valley of Everest region, Nepal: process, impacts and implications

Abstract. On the afternoon of 16 August 2024, a catastrophic flood devastated Thame Village in the Everest region of Nepal. This event resulted from a cascading glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF), where the outburst of an upstream glacial lake triggered the failure of a downstrea...

Deep learning aging marker from retinal images unveils sex-specific clinical and genetic signatures

Abstract Retinal fundus images offer a non-invasive window into systemic aging. Here, we fine-tune a foundation model (RETFound) to predict chronological age from color fundus images in 71,343 participants from the UK Biobank, achieving a mean absolute error of 2.85 years. The re...

Soil health assessment using buried cotton underpants with the help of 1000 citizen scientists

Societal Impact Statement Soil is a vital resource for life on Earth. Although many soils are degraded, societal awareness of soil‐related issues is limited. To highlight soil as a key resource and fascinating study system, we initiated a citizen science project together with 100...

Object manipulation scaffolds the development of tool use in children

Our species’ extensive reliance on tool use is a key aspect of what makes us human, yet naturalistic data on the social and environmental drivers of tool use development in children remain scarce. We examined the drivers of tool use in naturalistic observations of 31 children in...

Transposon end recognition and excision mechanisms of type I-F CRISPR-associated transposases

Abstract CRISPR-associated transposons (CASTs) are Tn7-like elements that have co-opted RNA-guided CRISPR effectors for targeted DNA insertion. CASTs have been adapted as genome editing tools for programmable, site-specific integration. Among them, the type I-F system from Ps e u...

Beyond benchmarking: an expert-guided consensus approach to spatially aware clustering

Spatial omics technologies have revolutionized the study of tissue architecture and cellular heterogeneity by integrating molecular profiles with spatial localization. In spatially resolved transcriptomics, delineating higher-order anatomical structures is critical for understand...

An ‘inverse’ experimental framework to estimate market efficiency

Abstract Digital marketplaces processing billions of dollars annually represent critical infrastructure in sociotechnical ecosystems, yet their performance optimization lacks principled measurement frameworks that can inform algorithmic governance decisions regarding market effic...

A retrospective analysis of bacterial pathogens in wounds in an equine hospital (2017–2022)

Summary Background Bacterial infections are a major cause of morbidity in horses, particularly in soft tissue wounds (STW) and surgical site infections (SSI). Rising antimicrobial resistance poses challenges for timely treatment. Knowledge of common pathogens and their resistance...

Intraoperative monitoring and anaesthetic complications in horses: A secondary analysis of the CEPEF4 multicentre cohort

Abstract Background CEPEF4 provides the most comprehensive contemporary dataset on perianaesthetic risk in horses. Intraoperative complications, monitoring and American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA)‐stratified associations with death remain incompletely described. Objectives...

Clinical Behaviour and Outcome of Pelvic Osteosarcoma in Dogs: A Retrospective Multicentre Analysis of 74 Cases (2007–2025)

Although osteosarcoma is the most common primary bone tumour in dogs, involvement of the pelvic bones is rare. The aim of the present study was to describe clinical presentation, identify possible prognostic factors, and evaluate outcomes in dogs diagnosed with pelvic osteosarcom...

Compositional neurosymbolic representations enable efficient active exploration

Abstract Autonomous systems that learn and explore over long horizons face a problem. Standard methods scale poorly in the number of observations, n , precluding sustained operation on bounded hardware. We show that compositional, high-dimensional vector representations inspired...

The clinical and molecular spectrum of AGO2-associated Lessel-Kreienkamp neurodevelopmental syndrome

Abstract Background Pathogenic variants in AGO2 ,encoding a central component of the RNA-induced silencing complex (RISC), cause the neurodevelopmental disorder Lessel-Kreienkamp syndrome (LESKRES). The variant spectrum and associated molecular mechanisms underlying phenotypic va...

Tracheal tuft cell-released leukotrienes promote antibacterial immune responses

SUMMARY Tuft cells act as crucial sentinels in the airways that detect bacterial metabolites. In response, tuft cells release signaling molecules that trigger immune responses essential for clearing the infection. The molecular mechanisms driving immune cell activation following...