Moving forward, looking back: the European avant-garde and the invention of film culture, 1919-1939

This first critical overview of the European film avant-garde ushers in a new approach and creates its own subject. Arguing that a European perspective is the only way to understand the film avant-garde of the 1920s and 1930s, Hagener provides a much-needed summary of the theory and practice of the movement. This incisive study also pioneers a new approach to the alternative cinema network that sustained the avant-garde, paying particular attention to the emergence of screening clubs, film festivals, and archives

Shifted Eisenstein polynomials, irreducible compositions of polynomials and group key exchanges

In my dissertation, I have covered multiple different topics. First, we consider the concept of natural density over the integers, and extend it to holomorphy rings over function fields. This allows us to give a function field analogue of Cesàro’s theorem, which gives the “probability” that an m-tuple of random elements of the holomorphy ring is oprime. We also generalize this and consider the density of k × m matrices over holomorphy rings which can be extended to unimodular m × m matrices. In the second part, we determine the natural density of shifted Eisenstein polynomials. This means that we compute the density of integer polynomials f(x) of a fixed degree n for which some shift f(x + i) for an integer i satisfies Eisenstein’s irreducibility criterion. We then also compute the density of affine Eisenstein polynomials. Thirdly, we consider an arbitrary set of monic quadratic polynomials over a finite field and ask ourselves which compositions of copies of them are irreducible. We first give a criterion to decide whether all such compositions are irreducible, and then show that in general, the irreducible compositions have the structure of a regular language. In the final chapter, we study cryptographic protocols for key exchange in ad-hoc groups. We first translate some protocols from the literature to the more general setting of semigroup actions, and then propose our own variants of these protocols, which aim to have improved security or efficiency. Then, we demonstrate a couple of active attacks on certain such protocols which are in some ways more powerful than man-in-the-middle attacks

Moving Forward, Looking Back

This first critical overview of the European film avant-garde ushers in a new approach and creates its own subject. Arguing that a European perspective is the only way to understand the film avant-garde of the 1920s and 1930s, Hagener provides a much-needed summary of the theory and practice of the movement. This incisive study also pioneers a new approach to the alternative cinema network that sustained the avant-garde, paying particular attention to the emergence of screening clubs, film festivals, and archives

Montage aesthetics : narrative, adaptation and urban modernity in Alfred Döblin’s Berlin Alexanderplatz

Alfred Döblin’s famous 1929 novel Berlin Alexanderplatz has often been discussed in terms of the appropriation of film poetics by the medium of literature and is said to abound with examples of literary montage. In most post-war discussions of literary montage in Berlin Alexanderplatz, however, the device is regularly understood as an umbrella term for anything of stylistic interest. Deploying 1920s and 1930s literary and film criticism I demonstrate that this regularly leads to anachronisms and terminological over-inflation. I thus offer a historically informed definition of literary montage in precise narratological, stylistic and experiential categories. Montage rests on the identification of intradiegetically unmotivated ready-mades and the perceived experiential similarities between the novel, Soviet montage films, and Dadaist photomontage. The lack of motivation affords the experience of disruption which, I demonstrate, has within the Benjaminian “modernity thesis” too often been extrapolated to characterize all film editing. My analysis shows that contemporary critics regularly discriminated between different types of editing on at least three experiential axes – tempo and dynamism, confusion, and disruption. My proposed definition of literary montage thus also allows me to analyse the novel in terms of the key narratological novelties that literary montage introduces: the global proliferation of heterodiegetic zero-level narrators accompanied with the local elimination of zerolevel narrators altogether. In other words, Döblin accomplishes in literary fiction what holds for film fiction in general – the absence of a narrator held to be fictionally in control of the whole of the text. Conversely, through the use of intertitles and the particular type of voice-over interjections, Fassbinder’s adaptation endeavours to emulate the reciprocal commonplace of literary fiction – the narrator’s continuous presence. Paired with Fassbinder’s film, Jutzi’s adaptation demonstrates how visual and sound film montage both differ from literary montage. Whereas literary montage hinges on disruptive stylistic shifts, film montage rests on disruptive spatio-temporal dislocation

Recent Advances in Polynomials

This book provides a broad overview of recent developments in polynomials and their applications. It includes eight chapters that address such topics as characteristic functions of polynomials, permutations, Gon?arov polynomials, irreducible factors, polynomial regression algorithms, and the use of polynomials in fractional calculus, and much more

Computational approaches to semantic change (Volume 6)

Semantic change — how the meanings of words change over time — has preoccupied scholars since well before modern linguistics emerged in the late 19th and early 20th century, ushering in a new methodological turn in the study of language change. Compared to changes in sound and grammar, semantic change is the least understood. Ever since, the study of semantic change has progressed steadily, accumulating a vast store of knowledge for over a century, encompassing many languages and language families. Historical linguists also early on realized the potential of computers as research tools, with papers at the very first international conferences in computational linguistics in the 1960s. Such computational studies still tended to be small-scale, method-oriented, and qualitative. However, recent years have witnessed a sea-change in this regard. Big-data empirical quantitative investigations are now coming to the forefront, enabled by enormous advances in storage capability and processing power. Diachronic corpora have grown beyond imagination, defying exploration by traditional manual qualitative methods, and language technology has become increasingly data-driven and semantics-oriented. These developments present a golden opportunity for the empirical study of semantic change over both long and short time spans

Abstract Algebra : An Introductory Course

This book is intended for students encountering the beautiful subject of abstract algebra for the first time. My goal here is to provide a text that is suitable for you, whether you plan to take only a single course in abstract algebra, or to carry on to more advanced courses at the senior undergraduate and graduate levels. Naturally, I wish to encourage you to study the subject further and to ensure that you are prepared if you do so. At many universities, including my own, abstract algebra is the first serious proof-based course taken by mathematics majors. While it is quite possible to get through, let us say, a course in calculus simply by memorizing a list of rules and applying them correctly, without really understanding why anything works, such an approach would be disastrous here. To be sure, you must carefully learn the definitions and the statements of theorems, but that is nowhere near sufficient. In order to master the material, you need to understand the proofs and then be able to prove things yourself. This book contains hundreds of problems, and I cannot stress strongly enough the need to solve as many of them as you can. Do not be discouraged if you cannot get all of them! Some are very difficult. But try to figure out as many as you can. You will only learn by getting your hands dirty

Kinetic and Thermodynamic Characterization of the Bacterial Lectin FimH

One fundamental aim of drug discovery is the development of new molecular entities that have a considerably advantage over already existing therapies. Urinary tract infections (UTIs) urgently require an alternative to the conventional antibiotic therapy as resistance rates for antibiotics are increasing. The development of an anti-adhesive UTI treatment strategy with the bacterial lectin FimH as target is a promising approach to remedy such alarming tendencies. FimH is presented by uropathogenic E. coli (UPEC) strains on the tip of type 1 pili and mediates adhesion to mannosylated residues on the urothelium. This interaction prevents the clearance of UPECs during micturition and enables internalization of the pathogens by urothelial cells. Mannoside-derived FimH antagonists are under development and are considered as promising treatment option for UTIs. In contrast to antibiotics, FimH antagonists do not necessarily exert resistance mechanisms against drugs because they block the adhesion of bacteria to the urothelium without killing them or inhibiting their growth. ________ In the present thesis, FimH and its interaction with mannose-based antagonists were biophysically characterized. Additionally, new methodical approaches are introduced, which are relevant not only for a strategic development of FimH antagonists but also for drugs of other therapeutic areas. The following aspects were investigated: ________ Publication 2: The publication “KinITC – One method supports both thermo-dynamic and kinetic SARs” (Chemistry, 2018,24(49), 13049-13057) comments on kinITC-ETC, a new method based on ITC data to reveal the kinetic fingerprint of a drug–target interaction. In this study, kinITC-ETC was independently validated for the first time. Moreover, structural properties of FimH antagonists could be correlated with kinetic parameters of FimH–antagonist interactions. ________ Manuscript 1: The development of an off-rate screening approach is presented in the study “Off-rate screening by surface plasmon resonance – The search for promising lead structures targeting low-affinity FimH”. The method is subsequently applied to screen a mannose-based compound library against full-length FimH. The assay allows classification of structurally diverse FimH antagonist in order to spot chemical classes exhibiting long dissociative half-lives. ________ Publication 3: The lectin domain is conformationally rigid and needs the pilin domain for allosteric propagation. However, the crosstalk between allosteric sites within the lectin domain takes also place in the absence of the pilin domain as demonstrated in the publication “Conformational switch of the bacterial adhesin FimH in the absence of the regulatory domain – Engineering a minimalistic allosteric system” (J. Biol. Chem., 2018, 293(5), 1835-1849). Mutants of the isolated lectin domain, FimHLD R60P and V27C/L34C, exhibited a low-affinity state and mimic full-length FimH regarding its conformational transition upon mannoside binding. ________ Publication 4: The publication “Target-directed dynamic combinatorial chemistry: A study on potentials and pitfalls as exemplified on a bacterial target” (Chemistry, 2017, 23, 11570-11577) illustrates a target-directed dynamic combinatorial chemistry (tdDCC) approach employing reversible acylhydrazone formation with FimH full-length as target. Optimal sample preparation and data procession are discussed in detail. Finally, the results of the tdDCC assay were subsequently compared with the affinity of library constituents by SPR. ________ Publication 5: In the publication “Comparison of affinity ranking by target-directed dynamic combinatorial chemistry and surface plasmon resonance” larger FimH antagonist libraries were screened using the tdDCC method established in publication 3. The comparison of amplification rates of library substituents with respective binding affinities determined by SPR revealed a linear association. Furthermore, the hazardous acylhydrazone moiety could be replaced by various bioisosteres without changing the affinity of the parent compound. ________ Manuscript 2: The hydrogen bond network formed between mannose derivates and the CRD of FimH is extensively elucidated in the manuscript ”High-affinity carbohydrate–lectin interaction: How nature makes it possible”. Computational methods and structural prediction in combination with binding data revealed that the hydrogen bond network forms a unified whole. The removal of only a single hydroxyl group leads to a disruption of the cooperative interplay within the network and consequently results in a dramatic loss in binding affinity. ________ Manuscript 3: In the study “The tyrosine gate of the bacterial adhesion FimH – An evolutionary remnant paves the way for drug discovery”, ITC measurements demonstrated the influence of the tyrosine gate on binding affinity between FimH and natural ligands. While the tyrosine gate is exploited to form optimal hydrophobic interactions with aryl aglycones of synthetic FimH antagonists in order to increase their binding affinity, the tyrosine gate has only a marginal impact on the KD of natural ligands. In contrast to wild-type FimH, mutants that partially or completely lack the tyrosine gate exhibited a comparable binding affinity to dimannoside. ________ Publication 6: The publication “Improvement of aglycone π-stacking yields nanomolar to sub-nanomolar FimH antagonists” displays that fluorination of biphenyl mannosides further improved π-π stacking with the tyrosine gate, reaching nanomolar affinities with FimHFL and even picomolar affinities with FimHLD. It also could be shown that ligand binding to FimHFL occurs with a highly favorable enthalpic and a considerably unfavorable entropic contribution. ________ Publication 7: In the publication “Enhancing the enthalpic contribution of hydrogen bonds by solvent shielding” microcalorimetric studies of FimH could reveal that conformational adaptions of the binding site can establish a solvent-free cavity. Shielding the solvent results in a lower dielectric environment, in which the formation of hydrogen bonds has a considerable enthalpic contribution to the binding free energy. In the case of FimH approximately -13 kJ mol-1 for mannoside binding