Witten/Herdecke University

Simone de Beauvoir’s embodied ambiguity in sport: yoga as a feminist case study

According to Beauvoir, the body is a ‘situation’ in which social meanings and facticity are intertwined. Consequently, the concept of embodiment cannot be reduced to a mere instrument of optimisation or an object of regulation. Drawing on Beauvoir’s existential ethics of ambiguit...

Molecularly Imprinted Polymers as an Indirect Sensing Approach for Bacillus cereus Detection

Abstract Bacterial endospores are a major challenge in food safety due to their high resistance and potential to cause spoilage and foodborne illness. Current detection methods can be labor-intensive and require specialized instrumentation. A low-cost, label-free thermal sensing...

Pre-ECMO characteristics, organ dysfunction and exploratory mortality prediction in COVID-19 versus non-COVID-19 ARDS treated with veno-venous ECMO: a retrospective cohort study

Abstract Objective The transferability of pre-ECMO characteristics and established mortality prediction tools across COVID-19 (C-19) and non-COVID-19 (nC-19) acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) remains uncertain. We compared clinical characteristics, organ dysfunction, res...

Adoption of, attitudes towards, and perceived challenges of digital health in hospice and palliative care among professionals in Germany: a national cross-sectional web-based survey

Abstract Background Digital health technologies may support communication, symptom management, continuity of care, and access to services in hospice and palliative care. National data on their adoption, on professionals’ attitudes, and on perceived barriers are scarce. We examine...

Validating DigiHEALTHQUAL for measuring digital health effects on service quality in outpatient care in Germany

Abstract The adoption of digital health solutions (DHS) in outpatient care is hindered by uncertainty regarding their non-clinical effects and a lack of validated instruments for standardized evaluation. Health care service quality (HCSQ) provides a theoretically grounded framewo...

Diagnosing autoimmune encephalitis in psychiatry: clinical recommendations and unresolved challenges from the GENERATE network

Psychiatric syndromes can be caused by underlying autoimmune encephalitis (AE). This represents a diagnostic challenge at the interface of psychiatry and neurology. While AE mostly manifests with a combined, complex neuropsychiatric syndrome, some patients with AE may (initially)...

The German version of the Sleep Inertia Questionnaire in central disorders of hypersomnolence: a validation study

Background Sleep inertia, or sleep drunkenness, is a transitional state between sleep and wakefulness characterized by cognitive and physical impairment. It is particularly relevant in central disorders of hypersomnolence (CDH), but validated instruments to assess sleep inertia i...

Local electricity price effects of Bitcoin mining in renewable-rich energy systems

Load-shifting is increasingly important in renewable-rich energy systems. Bitcoin mining is often cited as a large, theoretically flexible load. Despite electricity consumption rivaling medium-sized industrial economies, the energy market behavior and impacts of Bitcoin miners re...

Spiritual Care professionalisieren: Effekte einer interprofessionellen Schulung in Spiritual/Existential Care in der Alexianer GmbH

Zusammenfassung Im Pilotprojekt der Alexianer GmbH in Kooperation mit der Universität Witten/Herdecke wird untersucht, wie Spiritual Care (SC) nachhaltig in komplexe Versorgungsstrukturen integriert werden kann und welche Auswirkungen dies auf Mitarbeitende und begleitete Persone...

Effect of prehospital cervical spine immobilization on mortality and neurological outcome in trauma patients: an observational cohort study with propensity score matching based on the trauma registry of the German trauma society (TraumaRegister DGU®)

Abstract Background Prehospital cervical spine immobilization is standard trauma care intended to prevent secondary spinal cord injury, yet evidence for its effectiveness is limited, and adverse effects are increasingly recognized. Large registry-based comparisons accounting for...

The lung microbiome in childhood-onset severe neuromuscular disease with respiratory insufficiency: rationale, current evidence, and opportunities for oxford nanopore long-read sequencing

Abstract In severe childhood-onset neuromuscular disease (NMD), ventilatory muscle weakness and ineffective airway clearance drive recurrent infections and chronic colonization that is often culture-negative, polymicrobial, or both. The lung microbiome framework offers a unifying...

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...

The programmed organization decentralized autonomous organizations and the transformation of organizational decision architectures

Purpose This article examines decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) through Luhmann's systems theory, asking what happens when organizational decision premises are no longer communicatively constituted and interpreted but compiled and executed as code. The concept of the...

Short-term effects of different toothpaste formulations on total salivary calcium: A randomized crossover study

Objectives Dental calculus formation can be inhibited by toothpastes containing pyrophosphate, which chelates calcium ions and prevents hydroxyapatite crystal formation. Although pyrophosphate may also influence salivary calcium availability, the short-term effects of commerciall...

Inpatient morbidity and structural care burden in oropharyngeal carcinoma in Germany: a nationwide cross-institutional EHR analysis using an AI-enabled data network

PURPOSE: This study aims to characterize hospitalization-level morbidity and care burden associated with oropharyngeal carcinoma (OPC) in Germany and assess the contribution of terminology-based extraction from narrative electronic health record (EHR) documentation beyond structu...

Adaptations to breath-hold diving: from traditional divers to elite athletes

Breath-hold diving exposes humans to repeated episodes of profound hypoxia and hypercapnia, eliciting physiological adaptations that enable prolonged underwater performance. This article summarises current knowledge on chronic adaptations in elite breath-hold athletes and traditi...

Zeb1 Is a Determinant of EMT in Human MDA-MB-231 Breast Cancer Cells and M13-MDA231 Tumor Hybrids

Zeb1 is a well-known epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT) transcription factor and is highly expressed in aggressive cancers. Tumor hybrids, which were derived from fusion events between cancer cells and normal cells, such as macrophage and stem cells, can possess novel proper...

Conclusions from an integral equation about the prevalence-odds in the illness-death model for chronic diseases

This research note explores the mathematical structure of the prevalence-odds integral equation for chronic disease dynamics recently formulated by Saem and Brinks (2024). We provide a rigorous derivation of the Brunet- Struchiner partial differential equation from the integral r...

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...

Extracorporeal CO2 elimination for acute exacerbation of severe COPD requiring invasive mechanical ventilation: a randomized controlled trial (the X-COPD trial)

Abstract Rationale Acute exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (AE-COPD) requiring invasive mechanical ventilation (IMV) are associated with high mortality and long-term disability. Extracorporeal CO₂ removal (ECCO₂R) using modern high-capacity devices may facili...