Die Umsetzung der UN-Kinderrechtskonvention messbar machen: Anforderungen der Vereinten Nationen an Kinderrechte-Indikatoren

Es ist Aufgabe der Bundesregierung, die Umsetzung der UN-Kinderrechtskonvention in und durch Deutschland sicherzustellen und gegenüber dem UN-Ausschuss für die Rechte des Kindes Fort- und Rückschritte darzulegen. Bislang ist es kaum möglich, statistisch fundierte Aussagen über die Umsetzung der Rechte von Kindern in Deutschland zu treffen, da kinderrechtliche Indikatoren fehlen, die bestimmen, welche Informationen fehlen und welche Daten erhoben werden müssten. Die vorliegende Publikation überträgt die Vorgaben des UN-Hochkommissariats für Menschenrechte zur Entwicklung von Menschenrechts-Indikatoren auf die Umsetzung der UN-Kinderrechtskonvention und ihren normativen Gehalt

Ehen von Minderjährigen: Kindeswohl in den Mittelpunkt stellen: Differenziertes Vorgehen bei schon geschlossenen Ehen erforderlich

Derzeit prüft eine Bund-Länder-Arbeitsgruppe, ob das Ehemündigkeitsalter in Deutschland ausnahmslos auf 18 Jahre angehoben werden soll und ob nach ausländischem Recht geschlossenen Ehen die Anerkennung pauschal versagt werden soll, wenn keine Ehemündigkeit nach deutschem Recht besteht. Eine pauschale Lösung ist kinderrechtlich nicht geboten: Solche Ehen ausnahmslos für unwirksam zu erklären, bringt Probleme für die Betroffenen mit sich. Zentraler Maßstab für gesetzliche Änderungen sollte immer das Kindeswohl (Artikel 3 UN-Kinderrechtskonvention) sein

Testing the stress of higher status hypothesis. Variation of occupational stress among physicians and nurses at a German university hospital

Studies show especially for the UK and the US that physicians experience more occupational stress than nurses. It has also been shown that a higher status within the medical and nursing hierarchy is associated with less occupational stress. Our study's aim is to examine whether these results also can be found in the context of the German university hospital sector. Thus, we test the stress of higher status hypothesis in and between the occupational groups of nurses and physicians at a German university hospital. Based on two cross-section surveys in the years of 2016 and 2019 this paper compares the perceived level of occupational stress between physicians (n = 588) and nurses (n = 735). Perceived levels of occupational stress-measured via the effort-reward imbalance model and the job demand-control model-are differentiated by status positions within and between both occupational groups. Descriptive as well as inferential statistics (Mann-Whitney U test, Kruskal-Wallis H test) are used to test the stress of higher status hypothesis. Contrary to the stress of higher status hypothesis, our main result is that physicians and nurses perceive similar levels of occupational stress. Furthermore, within each hierarchy the perceived degree of work stress decreases with increasing status for both groups. Our main conclusion is that the stress of higher status hypothesis must be rejected in the German university hospital context and the competing resources of higher status hypothesis must be assumed. The findings can be explained by the unique relationship between physicians and nurses and the role of New Public Management in the German hospital sector

Finding Qs: Profiling QAnon Supporters on Parler

The social media platform "Parler" has emerged into a prominent fringe community where a significant part of the user base are self-reported supporters of QAnon, a far-right conspiracy theory alleging that a cabal of elites controls global politics. QAnon is considered to have had an influential role in the public discourse during the 2020 U.S. presidential election. However, little is known about QAnon supporters on Parler and what sets them aside from other users. Building up on social identity theory, we aim at profiling the characteristics of QAnon supporters on Parler. We analyze a large-scale dataset with more than 600,000 profiles of English-speaking users on Parler. Based on users' profiles, posts, and comments, we then extract a comprehensive set of user features, linguistic features, network features, and content features. This allows us to perform user profiling and understand to what extent these features discriminate between QAnon and non-QAnon supporters on Parler. Our analysis is three-fold: (1) We quantify the number of QAnon supporters on Parler, finding that 34,913 users (5.5% of all users) openly report to support the conspiracy. (2) We examine differences between QAnon vs. non-QAnon supporters. We find that QAnon supporters differ statistically significantly from non-QAnon supporters across multiple dimensions. For example, they have, on average, a larger number of followers, followees, and posts, and thus have a large impact on the Parler network. (3) We use machine learning to identify which user characteristics discriminate QAnon from non-QAnon supporters. We find that user features, linguistic features, network features, and content features, can - to a large extent - discriminate QAnon vs. non-QAnon supporters on Parler. In particular, we find that user features are highly discriminatory, followed by content features and linguistic features.Comment: Accepted at the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (ICWSM, 2023

Russian propaganda on social media during the 2022 invasion of Ukraine

The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 was accompanied by a large-scale propaganda campaign. Here, we analyze the spread of Russian propaganda on social media. For this, we collected N = 349,455 messages from Twitter with pro-Russian content. Our findings suggest that pro-Russian messages were mainly disseminated through a systematic, coordinated propaganda campaign. Overall, pro-Russian content received ~251,000 retweets and thereby reached around 14.4 million users, primarily in countries such as India, South Africa, and the United States. We further provide evidence that bots played a disproportionate role in the dissemination of propaganda and amplified its proliferation. Overall, 20.28% of the spreaders are classified as bots, most of which were created in the beginning of the invasion. Together, our results highlight the new threats to society that originate from coordinated propaganda campaigns on social media in modern warfare. Our results also suggest that curbing bots may be an effective strategy to mitigate such campaigns

Kinderrechte ins Grundgesetz: Kinder als Träger von Menschenrechten stärken

Kinder haben Rechte - dieses Verständnis der UN-Kinderrechtskonvention sollte auch die deutsche Verfassung klar zum Ausdruck bringen. Daher empfiehlt das Deutsche Institut für Menschenrechte eine Grundgesetzänderung, um die zentralen Inhalte der UN-Kinderrechtskonvention im Grundgesetz zu verankern. Der UN-Ausschuss für die Rechte des Kindes hat dies Deutschland wiederholt nahegelegt - zuletzt 2014. Mehrere Bundesländer wie Bayern und Brandenburg haben sich jüngst dafür ausgesprochen, die Kinderrechte ins Grundgesetz aufzunehmen. Auch die im Bundestag vertretenen Fraktionen sollten sich des Themas daher, gerade mit Blick auf ihre Wahlprogramme für die nächste Bundestagswahl, annehmen

Online Emotions During the Storming of the U.S. Capitol: Evidence from the Social Media Network Parler

The storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 has led to the killing of 5 people and is widely regarded as an attack on democracy. The storming was largely coordinated through social media networks such as Twitter and "Parler". Yet little is known regarding how users interacted on Parler during the storming of the Capitol. In this work, we examine the emotion dynamics on Parler during the storming with regard to heterogeneity across time and users. For this, we segment the user base into different groups (e.g., Trump supporters and QAnon supporters). We use affective computing to infer the emotions in content, thereby allowing us to provide a comprehensive assessment of online emotions. Our evaluation is based on a large-scale dataset from Parler, comprising of 717,300 posts from 144,003 users. We find that the user base responded to the storming of the Capitol with an overall negative sentiment. Akin to this, Trump supporters also expressed a negative sentiment and high levels of unbelief. In contrast to that, QAnon supporters did not express a more negative sentiment during the storming. We further provide a cross-platform analysis and compare the emotion dynamics on Parler and Twitter. Our findings point at a comparatively less negative response to the incidents on Parler compared to Twitter accompanied by higher levels of disapproval and outrage. Our contribution to research is three-fold: (1) We identify online emotions that were characteristic of the storming; (2) we assess emotion dynamics across different user groups on Parler; (3) we compare the emotion dynamics on Parler and Twitter. Thereby, our work offers important implications for actively managing online emotions to prevent similar incidents in the future

ARTD2 activity is stimulated by RNA

ADP-ribosyltransferases (ARTs) are important enzymes that regulate the genotoxic stress response and the maintenance of genome integrity. ARTD1 (PARP1) and ARTD2 (PARP2) are homologous proteins that modify themselves and target proteins by the addition of mono- and poly-ADP-ribose (PAR) moieties. Both enzymes have been described to be involved in the genotoxic stress response. Here, we characterize cellular PAR formation on hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) or N-methyl-N′-methyl-nitro-N-nitrosoguanidine (MNNG) stress, in combination with application of the RNA polymerase I inhibitor Actinomycin D (ActD), known to cause accumulation of short RNA polymerase I-dependent rRNA transcripts. Intriguingly, co-treatment with ActD substantially increased H2O2- or MNNG-induced PAR formation. In cells, this enhancement was predominantly mediated by ARTD2 and not ARTD1. In vitro experiments confirmed that ARTD2 is strongly activated by RNA and that the N-terminal SAP domain is important for the binding to RNA. Thus, our findings identify a new activator of ARTD2-dependent ADP-ribosylation, which has important implications for the future analysis of the biological role of ARTD2 in the nucleu

In situ theranostic platform uniting highly localized magnetic fluid hyperthermia, magnetic particle imaging, and thermometry in 3D

In all of medical profession a broad field of research is dedicated to seek less invasive and low-risk forms of therapy with the ultimate goal of non-invasive therapy, particularly in neoplasmic diseases. Theranostic platforms, combining diagnostic and therapeutic approaches within one system, have thus garnered interest to augment invasive surgical, chemical, and ionizing interventions. Magnetic particle imaging (MPI) offers, with its versatile tracer material (superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles, SPIOs), a quite recent alternative to established radiation based diagnostic modalities. In addition, MPI lends a bimodal theranostic frame allowing to combine tomographic imaging with therapy techniques using the very same SPIOs. In this work, we show for the first time the interleaved combination of MPI-based imaging, therapy (highly localized magnetic fluid hyperthermia) and therapy safety control (MPI-based thermometry) within one theranostic platform in all three spatial dimensions

Integration fluktuierender erneuerbarer Energien durch konvergente Nutzung von Strom- und Gasnetzen - Konvergenz Strom- und Gasnetze (KonStGas) - Abschlussbericht

Für die Energiewende in Deutschland ist zeitnah ein nennenswerter Ausbau der Stromnetze auf Transport- und Verteilnetzebene erforderlich. Mittel- bis langfristig werden für die Umstellung der Strom- und Energieversorgung auf erneuerbaren Energien (EE) zusätzlich große Speicherkapazitäten benötigt. Dabei sind kostengünstige und mit minimalen Energieverlusten verbundene Speicher- und Erzeugungstechnologien anzustreben. Lösungsansätze dafür werden bisher überwiegend auf der Stromseite diskutiert. Chancen, die sich aus der Kopplung von Strom- und Gasnetzen ergeben, werden kaum wahrgenommen. Das erhebliche Lösungspotential der vorhandenen Gasinfrastruktur und -Anwendungstechnologien mittels Power-to-Gas sowie die damit verbundenen Auswirkungen auf eine nachhaltige Gestaltung der Energiewende finden zu wenig Beachtung. Vor diesem Hintergrund hatte das Forschungsvorhaben "Integration fluktuierender erneuerbarer Energien durch konvergente Nutzung von Strom und Gasnetzen - Konvergenz Strom- und Gasnetze" zum Ziel, unter Berücksichtigung der Kopplung von Strom- und Gasnetzen, (1) die Potenziale zur Aufnahme, Speicherung und Verteilung von EE zu bestimmen, (2) die dynamischen Energieströme aus Angebot und Nachfrage in der gesamten Energieversorgungsstruktur zu modellieren, (3) die Kopplung volkswirtschaftlich zu analysieren und (4) Handlungsempfehlungen für den Ausbau der Netzinfrastrukturen und die Entwicklung eines zukünftigen Energiemarktes abzuleiten