Lernen durch Kulturkontakt. Eine Prozeßanalyse der Akkulturation deutscher Studienreferendare in multikuturellen Klassen

Ein Ziel der qualitativen Längsschnittuntersuchung ist die inhaltsanalytische Rekonstruktion der Unterschiede individueller Veränderungen bei deutschen Studienreferendaren, die während ihres Referendariats einem kontinuierlichen Kontakt mit Schülern anderer kultureller Orientierungen ausgesetzt sind. Es wird von der Annahme ausgegangen, daß die Struktur und Richtung von Veränderungen abhängig davon sind, inwieweit es den Referendaren gelingt, unverträgliche kulturelle Validitäten eigener Verhaltensweisen und derjenigen von Schülern mit anderen kulturellen Orientierungen kognitiv und affektiv zu verarbeiten, und welche Interkulturalitätsstrategie sie wählen. Dargestellt werden die vor Beginn des Referendariats erwarteten eigenen Veränderungen der Referendare durch Kulturkontakt, ihre Veränderungen durch ihre Erfahrungen nach dessen Beendigung sowie solche, die sich in einer tutoriell gelenkten Auseinandersetzung mit fremdkulturellen Sichtweisen ermitteln ließen. Es lassen sich deutliche Unterschiede in den Akkulturationsverläufen feststellen. Die mit der Erfahrung zunehmende kognitive Differenzierung im Umgang mit kulturbezogenen Phänomenen wird mehrheitlich als Chance für individuelle Veränderungen gewertet. (DIPF/Orig.)One of the aims of this qualitative longitudinal study focusing on novice teachers is the contentanalytic reconstruction of the differences in individual changes triggered by continuous contact with students of another cultural background in multicultural schools. The underlying hypothesis is that the structure and direction of changes depends on the young teacher\u27s ability to cope both cognitively and affectively with incompatible cultural validities in their own behavior and in that of students of a different cultural background as well as on the intercultural strategy chosen. The authors sketch the personal changes through cultural contact expected by the beginning teachers before starting their practical training, the changes resulting from the experiences made during that time as they manifest themselves at the end of training phase, and those changes which could be detected in tutorially guided discussions of foreign cultural positions. The results show clear differences in the acculturation processes. By the majority, the increase in cognitive differentiation resulting from experiences made in dealing with cultural phenomena is regarded as an opportunity for personal change. (DIPF/Orig.

Selbstassoziation platinmodifizierter Basenpaare und Tripel über Wasserstoffbrücken

Die Arbeit befasst sich mit der Synthese und spektroskopischer Untersuchung platinmodifizierter Basenpaare bzw. Basentripel und der Untersuchung ihrer Selbst-erkennungseigenschaften unter Ausbildung von Wasserstoffbrücken sowie dem Einsatz dieser Komplexe als potentielle Rezeptormoleküle, die komplementäre Substrat- oder Anionen-moleküle über Wasserstoffbrücken reversibel binden können.Der wichtigste im Rahmen dieser Arbeit verwendete Ligand ist die Modellnukleobase 9-Methylhypoxanthin (9-MeHyp), die neben 9-Methylguanin (9-MeGH) zu den 6-Oxopurin-nukleobasen gehört. Ebenfalls eingesetzt wird die Purinnukleobase 9-Methyladenin (9-MeA) bzw. die Pyrimidinnukleobase 1-Methylcytosin (1-MeC).Im ersten Teil werden mononukleare Homo- bzw. Heteropurin sowie gemischte Purin-Pyrimidin Basenpaare mit der trans-a2Pt2+-Einheit (a=NH3 oder CH3NH2) beschrieben. Die Auswahl der Nukleobase bestimmt die H-Donor-/Akzeptorreihenfolge, so dass die Bildung metallmodifizierter Basenquartetts gebunden über Wasserstoffbrücken erfolgt. Reaktion der dargestellten Modellverbindungen mit Silber führt zu einem geschlossenen tetranuklearen Nukleobasenquartett bzw. einer polymeren Helix.Ausgehend von dem diplatinierten Adeninbaustein trans,trans-[(a2PtCl)2(µ-9-MeA-N7,N1)]2+ (a=NH3 oder CH3NH2) werden Basentripel mit 6-Oxopurinnukleobasen (9-Methyl-guanin und 9-Methylhypoxanthin) synthetisiert und charakterisiert. Untersucht wird dabei die Neigung der neutralen 6-Oxopurinnukleobasen in den Komplexen mit Transplatin Selbstassoziation über Wasserstoffbrücken einzugehen und große Aggregate wie Basen-sextetts oder Meander auszubilden.Der letzte Teil dieser Arbeit behandelt Versuche zum Nachweis der molekularen Erkennung über Wasserstoffbrücken zwischen den synthetisierten mono- bzw. dinuklearen Modellverbindungen und den komplementären Molekülen

Multicolor Conjugated Polymer Dots for Biological Fluorescence Imaging

Highly fluorescent conjugated polymer dots were developed for demanding applications such as fluorescence imaging in live cells. These nanoparticles exhibit small particle diameters, extraordinary fluorescence brightness, and excellent photostability. Single particle fluorescence imaging and kinetic studies indicate much higher emission rates (∼108 s−1) and little or no blinking of the nanoparticles as compared to typical results for single dye molecules and quantum dots. Analysis of single particle photobleaching trajectories reveals excellent photostability—as many as 109 or more photons emitted per nanoparticle prior to irreversible photobleaching. The superior figures of merit of these new fluorescent probes, together with the demonstration of cellular imaging, indicate their enormous potential for demanding fluorescence-based imaging and sensing applications such as high speed super-resolution single molecule/particle tracking and highly sensitive assays

A Case Study for Large-Scale Human Microbiome Analysis Using JCVI’s Metagenomics Reports (METAREP)

As metagenomic studies continue to increase in their number, sequence volume and complexity, the scalability of biological analysis frameworks has become a rate-limiting factor to meaningful data interpretation. To address this issue, we have developed JCVI Metagenomics Reports (METAREP) as an open source tool to query, browse, and compare extremely large volumes of metagenomic annotations. Here we present improvements to this software including the implementation of a dynamic weighting of taxonomic and functional annotation, support for distributed searches, advanced clustering routines, and integration of additional annotation input formats. The utility of these improvements to data interpretation are demonstrated through the application of multiple comparative analysis strategies to shotgun metagenomic data produced by the National Institutes of Health Roadmap for Biomedical Research Human Microbiome Project (HMP) (http://nihroadmap.nih.gov). Specifically, the scalability of the dynamic weighting feature is evaluated and established by its application to the analysis of over 400 million weighted gene annotations derived from 14 billion short reads as predicted by the HMP Unified Metabolic Analysis Network (HUMAnN) pipeline. Further, the capacity of METAREP to facilitate the identification and simultaneous comparison of taxonomic and functional annotations including biological pathway and individual enzyme abundances from hundreds of community samples is demonstrated by providing scenarios that describe how these data can be mined to answer biological questions related to the human microbiome. These strategies provide users with a reference of how to conduct similar large-scale metagenomic analyses using METAREP with their own sequence data, while in this study they reveal insights into the nature and extent of variation in taxonomic and functional profiles across body habitats and individuals. Over one thousand HMP WGS datasets and the latest open source code are available at http://www.jcvi.org/hmp-metarep

Biochemical evidence for an alternate pathway in N-linked glycoprotein biosynthesis

Asparagine-linked glycosylation is a complex protein modification conserved among all three domains of life. Herein we report the in vitro analysis of N-linked glycosylation from the methanogenic archaeon Methanococcus voltae. Using a suite of synthetic and semisynthetic substrates, we show that AglK initiates N-linked glycosylation in M. voltae through the formation of α-linked dolichyl monophosphate N-acetylglucosamine, which contrasts with the polyprenyl diphosphate intermediates that feature in both eukaryotes and bacteria. Notably, AglK has high sequence homology to dolichyl phosphate β-glucosyltransferases, including Alg5 in eukaryotes, suggesting a common evolutionary origin. The combined action of the first two enzymes, AglK and AglC, afforded an α-linked dolichyl monophosphate glycan that serves as a competent substrate for the archaeal oligosaccharyl transferase AglB. These studies provide what is to our knowledge the first biochemical evidence revealing that, despite the apparent similarity of the overall pathways, there are actually two general strategies to achieve N-linked glycoproteins across the domains of life.National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (Grant GM039334

RNAcentral 2021: secondary structure integration, improved sequence search and new member databases

RNAcentral is a comprehensive database of non-coding RNA (ncRNA) sequences that provides a single access point to 44 RNA resources and >18 million ncRNA sequences from a wide range of organisms and RNA types. RNAcentral now also includes secondary (2D) structure information for >13 million sequences, making RNAcentral the world's largest RNA 2D structure database. The 2D diagrams are displayed using R2DT, a new 2D structure visualization method that uses consistent, reproducible and recognizable layouts for related RNAs. The sequence similarity search has been updated with a faster interface featuring facets for filtering search results by RNA type, organism, source database or any keyword. This sequence search tool is available as a reusable web component, and has been integrated into several RNAcentral member databases, including Rfam, miRBase and snoDB. To allow for a more fine-grained assignment of RNA types and subtypes, all RNAcentral sequences have been annotated with Sequence Ontology terms. The RNAcentral database continues to grow and provide a central data resource for the RNA community

RNAcentral 2021: secondary structure integration, improved sequence search and new member databases.

RNAcentral is a comprehensive database of non-coding RNA (ncRNA) sequences that provides a single access point to 44 RNA resources and >18 million ncRNA sequences from a wide range of organisms and RNA types. RNAcentral now also includes secondary (2D) structure information for >13 million sequences, making RNAcentral the world's largest RNA 2D structure database. The 2D diagrams are displayed using R2DT, a new 2D structure visualization method that uses consistent, reproducible and recognizable layouts for related RNAs. The sequence similarity search has been updated with a faster interface featuring facets for filtering search results by RNA type, organism, source database or any keyword. This sequence search tool is available as a reusable web component, and has been integrated into several RNAcentral member databases, including Rfam, miRBase and snoDB. To allow for a more fine-grained assignment of RNA types and subtypes, all RNAcentral sequences have been annotated with Sequence Ontology terms. The RNAcentral database continues to grow and provide a central data resource for the RNA community. RNAcentral is freely available at https://rnacentral.org

2016 ESC Guidelines for the management of atrial fibrillation developed in collaboration with EACTS.

Peer reviewe

ARTEFACTS: How do we want to deal with the future of our one and only planet?

The European Commission’s Science and Knowledge Service, the Joint Research Centre (JRC), decided to try working hand-in-hand with leading European science centres and museums. Behind this decision was the idea that the JRC could better support EU Institutions in engaging with the European public. The fact that European Union policies are firmly based on scientific evidence is a strong message which the JRC is uniquely able to illustrate. Such a collaboration would not only provide a platform to explain the benefits of EU policies to our daily lives but also provide an opportunity for European citizens to engage by taking a more active part in the EU policy making process for the future. A PILOT PROGRAMME To test the idea, the JRC launched an experimental programme to work with science museums: a perfect partner for three compelling reasons. Firstly, they attract a large and growing number of visitors. Leading science museums in Europe have typically 500 000 visitors per year. Furthermore, they are based in large European cities and attract local visitors as well as tourists from across Europe and beyond. The second reason for working with museums is that they have mastered the art of how to communicate key elements of sophisticated arguments across to the public and making complex topics of public interest readily accessible. That is a high-value added skill and a crucial part of the valorisation of public-funded research, never to be underestimated. Finally museums are, at present, undergoing something of a renaissance. Museums today are vibrant environments offering new techniques and technologies to both inform and entertain, and attract visitors of all demographics.JRC.H.2-Knowledge Management Methodologies, Communities and Disseminatio

Physics case for an LHCb Upgrade II - Opportunities in flavour physics, and beyond, in the HL-LHC era

The LHCb Upgrade II will fully exploit the flavour-physics opportunities of the HL-LHC, and study additional physics topics that take advantage of the forward acceptance of the LHCb spectrometer. The LHCb Upgrade I will begin operation in 2020. Consolidation will occur, and modest enhancements of the Upgrade I detector will be installed, in Long Shutdown 3 of the LHC (2025) and these are discussed here. The main Upgrade II detector will be installed in long shutdown 4 of the LHC (2030) and will build on the strengths of the current LHCb experiment and the Upgrade I. It will operate at a luminosity up to 2×1034 cm−2s−1, ten times that of the Upgrade I detector. New detector components will improve the intrinsic performance of the experiment in certain key areas. An Expression Of Interest proposing Upgrade II was submitted in February 2017. The physics case for the Upgrade II is presented here in more depth. CP-violating phases will be measured with precisions unattainable at any other envisaged facility. The experiment will probe b → sl+l−and b → dl+l− transitions in both muon and electron decays in modes not accessible at Upgrade I. Minimal flavour violation will be tested with a precision measurement of the ratio of B(B0 → μ+μ−)/B(Bs → μ+μ−). Probing charm CP violation at the 10−5 level may result in its long sought discovery. Major advances in hadron spectroscopy will be possible, which will be powerful probes of low energy QCD. Upgrade II potentially will have the highest sensitivity of all the LHC experiments on the Higgs to charm-quark couplings. Generically, the new physics mass scale probed, for fixed couplings, will almost double compared with the pre-HL-LHC era; this extended reach for flavour physics is similar to that which would be achieved by the HE-LHC proposal for the energy frontier