Birth Pleasure: Meanings, Politics, and Praxis

Little research has directly focused on the spectrum of pleasure experienced in birth, which until now has lacked a scholarly description or definition. In this article, I present the concept of birth pleasure and offer an introduction and preliminary definition synthesized from published experiential accounts, existing research and scholarship, and relevant lay literature. Through an intersectional and matricentric feminist lens, I offer implications of including birth pleasure in birth justice praxis

Who owns Haiti? Dilemmas and Ambiguities in Haitian Sovereignty

This thesis uses a historical lens to examine events related to dependency, colonialism, and sovereignty in order to answer the question “Is the international community responsible for Haiti's “failure” as a state?”. Since the Slave Revolution of 1804, Haiti has never been free from international interference. There is a long history of other countries and actors meddling in politics, economy, culture, and society, and there are numerous cases of international interference, involvement, and occupation whose effects are still present in Haitian society today. I use Haiti as the case in a case study to provide contextual examples and proof of why the International Community is responsible for how Haiti has become. I go through theories of development, international relations, failed state, and sovereignty, as well as look at how sovereignty is being contested by numerous actors in Haiti. From there comes a debate about ownership and international exclusion. The aim of the thesis is to provide a solid and thorough explanation as to why international interference has been detrimental to Haitian society, and how it became as bad as it is today

Economic freedom: a silver bullet for Europe’s economic challenges?

Entrepreneurial activity is viewed as beneficial for national economies, but does an economy therefore need a large degree of economic freedom to stimulate entrepreneurship? Andreas Kuckertz and Elisabeth S.C. Berger present recent research comparing the level of economic freedom and entrepreneurial activity across 63 economies. They argue that extreme levels of economic freedom are not a silver bullet to stimulating more entrepreneurship in Europe and that understanding the connection between these two factors requires a more fine-grained perspective

Small government is not a cure-all for entrepreneurship

It stimulates necessity (not opportunity-driven) entrepreneurs, write Andreas Kuckertz and Elizabeth S.C. Berge

Rezeptionsgeschichte der österreichischen Literatur in Rumänien nach 1945

Kulturelle Wechselbeziehungen zwischen Österreich und Rumänien haben eine lange Tradition: Ziel dieser Untersuchung ist die Darstellung der literarischen Beziehungen zwischen Rumänien und Österreich nach 1945, der besondere Schwerpunkt liegt auf einer detaillierten Bibliographie der Übersetzung österreichischer Autoren ins Rumänische, zumal es eine solche noch nicht gibt. Anhand dieser Bibliographie wird den Fragen nachgegangen, welche Autoren, wann, von wem übersetzt wurden. Welche Verlage haben sich um ausländische, in diesem Fall österreichische Literatur verdient gemacht und welche Übersetzerpersönlichkeiten wurden dazu herangezogen – diese Fragen markieren ein weiteres Untersuchungsfeld. Aus historischen und politischen Gegebenheiten in der Geschichte Rumäniens eröffnet sich auch die Frage, in wieweit die literarische Rezeption auf einer Vorkriegstradition basiert und in wieweit der historische Kontext die Übersetzungen befördert. In ihrer Geschichte waren einige Regionen Rumäniens unter Habsburgerherrschaft (etwa Siebenbürgen, das Banat und die Bukowina) und damit bereits früh in eine kulturelle Wechselbeziehung eingebunden, woraus sich die Frage ergibt, ob kulturelle Institutionen, wie Zeitungen, Verlage oder eventuell einzelne Autoren und Übersetzer in diesen Gebieten verstärkt vermittelnd wirkten. Methodisch waren folgende Schritte vonnöten: Die Erstellung einer Bibliographie der monographischen und anthologischen Übersetzungen und Erwähnungen bzw. Schwerpunkte in größeren Literatur- und Kulturzeitschriften zwischen 1945 und 1989; aus der Datenfülle wurde pars pro toto die Zeitschrift Secolul XX gewählt. Desweiteren versuchte ich mich mit rumänischer Verlagsgeschichte vertraut zu machen um Verlage, die einen Schwerpunkt Österreichische Literatur in ihrem Programm aufwiesen, genauer zu bearbeiten, ein Übersetzungs- und Übersetzerprofil herauszuarbeiten. Auch sollen historische Bruchlinien, sofern sie die Interpretation des Datenmaterials unterstützen, einbezogen werden. So stellt etwa der fast autarkistische politische Kurs im Rumänien, der in den 50er und später den 80er Jahren eingeschlagen wurde, eine Bruchstelle in den traditionellen Beziehungen zum Ausland und zum wechselseitigen Austausch mit demselben dar; diese historische Einbettung lässt sich auch an der Zahl der Übersetzungen erkennen. Einige Übersetzerpersönlichkeiten und Verlagsleiter und LektorInnen sind noch am Leben, sie befragte ich gleichsam als Beispiel für oral history nach ihrer Tätigkeit, ihrem Werdegang und eventuellen Schwierigkeiten. Aus diesen Informationen heraus wurde versucht, ein Bild der Übersetzungstätigkeit in ihren historischen, politischen und regionalen Rahmenbedingungen nachzuzeichnen.The cultural dialogue between Romania and Austria has a longstanding tradition. This study aims at depicting the literary relationship between Romania and Austria after 1945. To date, no comprehensive bibliography of Austrian writers whose literary works have been translated into Romanian exists; however, this study seeks to remedy this shortcoming. On the basis of this bibliography, this study pursues the following questions: who are these authors, who translated their works and when? Another field of research deals with the editors that published the foreign literature - in this case, Austrian literature - and to describe the translators. Due to the historical and political events that took place in Romania, the question arises to which extent the literary reception is based on a pre-war tradition and to which extent the historical context promotes the translations mentioned above. Certain Romanian regions (e.g., Siebenbuergen, the Banat and Bucovina) used to be a part of the Habsburg Empire and have engaged in enduring cultural dialogues with Austria. This prompts the question whether cultural institutions such as newspapers, publishing houses and individual authors and translators acted as mediators in these regions. The methodological approach comprises the following: first, the production of a bibliography of translated monographs and anthologies. Secolul XX has been chosen to as a representative magazine to demonstrate their inclusion in Romanian cultural and literary magazines between 1945 and 1989. Second, I familiarised myself with the history of Romanian publishing houses that specialised in Austrian literature to characterise the publishers and their translators. Historical ruptures may help to interpret the paths of this cultural movement and the present data. Romania’s semi-independent political course in the 50s and later on in the 80s marks a significant interruption of traditional relationships and intercultural communication with foreign countries, which in this regard is remarkably demonstrated in the number of translations in general. Some of the mentioned translators, publishers and readers are still alive, and thus have been interviewed within the field of oral history to produce a picture of their work, the circumstances of their writing and possible difficulties in doing so. The utilization of this wealth of information gives an impression of historical, political and regional conditions in the field of reception and translation

Toward a configurational understanding of entrepreneurship using qualitative comparative analysis

This doctoral thesis aims to promote a configurational understanding of entrepreneurship by showing the potential challenges involved in applying qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) as a research method to study complex phenomena in entrepreneurship. In order to achieve this aim, the thesis presents four empirical studies, each of which has been presented repeatedly at scientific conferences and been developed further based on experts comments at presentations and from reviews. Three of the studies have been published in peer-reviewed journals or edited volumes and the fourth study is currently under review. The introduction of the thesis establishes the link between complexity and entrepreneurship and argues that the discipline can benefit from a configurational perspective. This also requires research designs to consider methods that can embrace characteristics of complexity such as the irreducibility of elements, interdependencies, non-proportionality and dynamics. QCA is a promising research method originating from political science, which facilitates dealing with complex phenomena. In the first study titled Is Qualitative Comparative Analysis an Emerging Method? Structured Literature Review and Bibliometric Analysis of QCA Applications in Business & Management Research, I present a structured literature review which studies the state of the art of the application of QCA in business and management and conveys the particularities of the research method. Among the 96 reviewed articles, ten articles might be assigned to entrepreneurship, but those have so far not included analysis on a country level, rarely introduced other methods, or used larger sample sizes. Three studies then apply QCA as a research method intending to show the benefits of adopting a configurational approach to entrepreneurship both at a macro and a micro level. In the second study titled What drives entrepreneurship? A configurational analysis of the determinants of entrepreneurship in innovation-driven economies, QCA is applied to analyze the configurations of institutional frameworks across 23 innovation-driven economies that foster high levels of opportunity-driven and necessity-driven entrepreneurship. By applying fsQCA for the cross-country comparison, the study moves from focusing on one construct to embracing the complexity of all three dimensions. Apart from revealing the causal conjuncture between conditions explaining entrepreneurial activity, it also shows that for entrepreneurial activity causation needs to be understood as equifinal and asymmetric. In the third study titled The more the merrier? Economic freedom and entrepreneurial activity I ask how elements of economic freedom need to be designed in economies in order to foster entrepreneurial activity. This study illustrates the asset of applying QCA in a cross-country setting. Despite small sample sizes, the study identifies patterns of the configurations of economic freedom that explain high or low levels of entrepreneurial activity. The results also stress the aspect of equifinality with regard to how to design elements of economic freedom and thereby point to the questionable nature of rankings of economic freedom, which imply more economic freedom is equivalent to a promise of more growth and development. In the fourth study titled Overcoming the Matthew effect in status-dominated environments a configurational analysis of venture capital investments, the authors apply QCA on a micro-level using a large longitudinal sample by investigating what combination of deal resources accumulated by venture capital partners leads to high deal performance. The aim is to analyze if new entrants can nonetheless overcome the burden of being new. The results point to a path that enables even new entrants to the status-dominated market to succeed. Applying QCA in this context provides an alignment between theory and research design, as other research methods such as regression or cluster analysis suggest eliminating outliers and would have prevented us from identifying this rare path of how new entrants can overcome the Matthew effect. In sum, this thesis has provided a review of past applications of QCA in business & management and three empirical studies highlighting the new insights and benefits of taking a configurational perspective and applying a research method that complies with it to study complex phenomena in entrepreneurship. While this thesis has made a major contribution to promote a configurational understanding of entrepreneurship by setting out designs on how to study in the face of the growing complexity faced by entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship research, I have also emphasized the challenges still to be overcome in order to establish the configurational perspective of entrepreneurship.Die Dissertation widmet sich der Frage, wie komplexe, unternehmerische Phänomene mit Hilfe eines konfigurationalen Ansatzes besser erklärt werden können. Speziell wird dabei das Potential der Anwendung der Forschungsmethode Qualitative Comparative Analysis für die Entrepreneurship Forschung untersucht

Die Versorgung der Offizierswitwen der k.(u.)k. Armee und ihre Darlegung in militärischen Zeitschriften

Die vorliegende Arbeit untersucht die Versorgung der Offizierswitwen der k.(u.)k. Armee von staatlicher Seite, durch private Wohltätigkeit und Selbsthilfeinitiativen. Zudem werden ihre öffentliche Thematisierung von Seiten des Militärs und die Positionen, Forderungen und Ansichten der Offiziere an Hand der Berichterstattung in militärischen Zeitschriften – ‚Armeeblatt’, ‚Armee- und Marine-Zeitung’, ‚Danzers Armee-Zeitung’, ‚Militär-Zeitung’ und ‚Vedette’ – dargelegt. Es werden die rechtlichen Bestimmungen der ‚Gnadenversorgung’, der Heiratsvorschriften und Heiratskaution, und der staatlichen Witwenpension erläutert. Ferner werden die Entwicklung, die Motiv und die Intention der gesetzlichen Bestimmungen der einzelnen Bereiche erörtert. Es wird dargelegt, wie die militärischen Zeitschriften die Gesetze beurteilten und welche Forderungen sie erhoben. Zudem wird die mediale Inszenierung und argumentative Vermittlung des Themenkomplexes in den militärischen Zeitschriften untersucht. Es werden die Stiftungen zu Gunsten von Offizierswitwen erörtert, wobei die Gemeinsamkeiten, Unterschiede und Tendenzen ihrer Ausgestaltung erläutert und anhand von Beispielen dargelegt werden. Anschließend werden die zwei Vereine ‚Kaiser Franz Josef-Stiftung für Versorgung der k.k. Offiziers-Witwen und Waisen’ und ‚Pension für Officiers-Witwen und Waisen Oesterreich Ungarns’ vorgestellt. Es werden die Organisation, Ausgestaltung, und der Aufbau der Vereine skizziert. Ferner wird die staatliche und private Unterstützung erörtert und die Rolle der untersuchten militärischen Zeitschriften und die öffentliche Präsentation der Vereine analysiert

Detaching from the negative by reappraisal: the role of right superior frontal gyrus (BA9/32)

The ability to reappraise the emotional impact of events is related to long-term mental health. Self-focused reappraisal (REAPPself), i.e., reducing the personal relevance of the negative events, has been previously associated with neural activity in regions near right medial prefrontal cortex, but rarely investigated among brain-damaged individuals. Thus, we aimed to examine the REAPPself ability of brain-damaged patients and healthy controls considering structural atrophies and gray matter intensities, respectively. Twenty patients with well-defined cortex lesions due to an acquired circumscribed tumor or cyst and 23 healthy controls performed a REAPPself task, in which they had to either observe negative stimuli or decrease emotional responding by REAPPself. Next, they rated the impact of negative arousal and valence. REAPPself ability scores were calculated by subtracting the negative picture ratings after applying REAPPself from the ratings of the observing condition. The scores of the patients were included in a voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping (VLSM) analysis to identify deficit related areas (ROI). Then, a ROI group-wise comparison was performed. Additionally, a whole-brain voxel-based-morphometry (VBM) analysis was run, in which healthy participant's REAPPself ability scores were correlated with gray matter intensities. Results showed that (1) regions in the right superior frontal gyrus (SFG), comprising the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (BA9) and the right dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (BA32), were associated with patient's impaired down-regulation of arousal, (2) a lesion in the depicted ROI occasioned significant REAPPself impairments, (3) REAPPself ability of controls was linked with increased gray matter intensities in the ROI regions. Our findings show for the first time that the neural integrity and the structural volume of right SFG regions (BA9/32) might be indispensable for REAPPself. Implications for neurofeedback research are discussed.Fil: Falquez, Rosalux. University of Heidelberg; AlemaniaFil: Couto, Juan Blas Marcos. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva. Fundación Favaloro. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva; ArgentinaFil: Ibáñez Barassi, Agustín Mariano. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva. Fundación Favaloro. Instituto de Neurociencia Cognitiva; ArgentinaFil: Freitag, Martin T.. German Cancer Research Center; AlemaniaFil: Berger, Moritz. German Cancer Research Center; AlemaniaFil: Arens, Elisabeth A.. University of Heidelberg; AlemaniaFil: Lang, Simone. University of Heidelberg; AlemaniaFil: Barnow, Sven. University of Heidelberg; Alemani

CA-125 Concentrations in the Serum and Pregnancy Outcome in IVF Cycles

Purpose: CA-125 has been proposed as a potential marker for endometrial receptivity in assisted reproduction. This study was designed to evaluate whether the levels of CA-125 in the serum of patients undergoing IVF-embryo transfer (ET) is correlated with the outcome. Methods: Levels of serum CA-125 were measured on the day before and on the day of human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) administration, ovum pickup (OPU), and ET in 74 patients undergoing 100 IVF cycles between January 1994 and March 1995. Patients were treated with a midluteal-phase gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) agonist protocol and follicular-phase human menopausal gonadotropin. Results: One hundred oocyte retrievals resulted in 91 ETs, and 22 clinical pregnancies (22%/OPU and 24.2%/ET). The live-born rate was 21%/OPU and 23.1%/ET. Neither the CA-125 serum levels nor their increase from the day of hCG until the day of ET showed any prognostic significance to the outcome of IVF, and they were not correlated with the endometrium thickness or the number of oocytes retrieved or fertilized. Conclusions: The CA-125 serum levels in conventional IVF cycles were not correlated with the IVF outcome and yielded no prognostic information in a GnRH agonist down-regulation protoco