Motivationale Bedingungen des Leistungsverhaltens von Heimkindern und Familienkindern

In einer empirischen Untersuchung werden Zielsetzungsverhalten und Anspruchsniveau bei zwei nach ihrer allgemeinen Intelligenz kontrollierten Gruppen von je 32 Heim- und Familienkindern mit einem vom Verfasser entwickelten Verfahren festgestellt. Die nach Verhaltensstrategien analysierten Befunde der beiden Stichproben werden im Kontext der Terminologie der Anspruchsniveau-Forschung dargestellt und diskutiert: Ein bemerkenswertes Ergebnis ist das bei den Heimkindern im Vergleich zu den Familienkindern statistisch hoch signifikant stärker ausgeprägte unrealistisch-überhöhte Anspruchsniveau. Diskutiert werden a) Zusammenhänge zwischen schichtabhängigen Entwicklungsbedingungen der Leistungsmotivation, relevanten Heimfaktoren und spezifischen Faktoren der Schulsituation von Heimkindern; b) die Zusammenhänge zwischen experimentell-motivationstheoretischem und neurosenpsychologischem Erklärungsansatz des auffälligen Zielsetzungsverhaltens von Heimkindern. (DIPF/Orig.

Calcific tendinitis of the supraspinatus tendon in children

We present the case of a 13-year-old girl with painful calcific tendinitis of the supraspinatus tendon of the left shoulder. The pathologic finding was the presence of a small calcium deposit within the supraspinatus tendo

Cell cycle regulation of structure-selective endonucleases during homologous recombination

The eukaryotic cell cycle is a complex process that coordinates protein function with the changing requirements of the different cell cycle phases. Many proteins are therefore regulated in a cell cycle-specific manner to make them available/active at a specific cell cycle phase, or prevent their action at other phases. Two proteins regulated in such a cell cycle-specific manner are the structure-selective endonucleases (SSEs) Mus81-Mms4 and Yen1 – repair factors required for the removal of DNA structures arising during homologous recombination (HR). Research in the last years thereby identified a variety of regulatory pathways leading to cell cycle-specific upregulation of the Mus81-Mms4 and Yen1 catalytic activity during M-phase. Despite accumulating evidence that the catalytic activity of the two SSEs is cell cycle-regulated, it remained elusive at which cell cycle phase they would exhibit their key function and how the different regulatory mechanisms upregulating Mus81-Mms4 and Yen1 during M-phase are working together. To address these questions, we developed an advanced toolbox of cell cycle tags which allowed us to restrict the expression of Saccharomyces cerevisiae Mus81-Mms4 and Yen1 to different cell cycle phases and thus analyze at which cell cycle phase these SSEs exhibit their key function. The advanced toolbox of cell cycle tags generally refines the methodology of cell cycle tags and overcomes critical limitations observed for previous cell cycle tag systems, such as the limited number of cell cycle tag constructs that did not allow adaption of expression levels. We circumvented this problem using genetic approaches like chimeric protein fusions, 5´UTR truncations and out-of-frame ATGs which resulted in a toolbox of 46 cell cycle tag constructs with a broad range of expression levels. In general, these advancements will help to answer the question of cell cycle regulation for many proteins and, more specifically, allowed us to address this question for the SSEs Mus81-Mms4 and Yen1. Applying the advanced cell cycle tag toolbox to Mus81-Mms4 and Yen1, we were able to restrict their expression to different cell cycle phases and attribute their key function to M-phase. Furthermore, we used the approach to reinstall cell cycle restriction to deregulated SSE versions, which highlights the importance of restricting SSE function to M-phase as their premature function during S-phase interferes with replication progression. As such, the observed function in M-phase matches the temporal regulation of the catalytic activity of Mus81-Mms4 and Yen1 which has been shown to be high in M-phase. For Mus81-Mms4, this upregulation of the catalytic activity is known to depend on phosphorylation by the cell cycle kinases CDK (cyclin-dependent kinase) and Cdc5 as well as on the formation of a scaffold protein complex. Here, we add a new kinase – the cell cycle kinase DDK (Dbf4-dependent kinase) – to this cell cycle regulatory network and gain insights into the interplay between the regulatory mechanisms involved. We establish that the two regulatory pathways, phosphorylation and scaffold protein complex formation, are highly interdependent and imply a switch-like activation mechanism. Taken together, our studies contribute to the understanding of the cell cycle regulation of Mus81-Mms4 and Yen1 and introduce an advanced toolbox of cell cycle tags which provides a technical source for studying cell cycle-regulated processes in general

Investigating the co-development of academic competencies and educational aspirations in German primary education

Academic achievement and educational decisions, which are strongly related to primary and secondary effects, are the two main drivers behind the emergence of social inequality in education. To understand this process in more detail, even before final decisions have to be made, the reciprocal influence of achievement and aspirations is of greatest interest. By not simply looking at an ultimate outcome but investigating its antecedents in a longitudinal fashion over the course of multiple years more insight is gained. Using German large-scale NEPS panel data, it is possible to demonstrate this co-development quantitatively. Cross-lagged panel models are utilized to show that the achievement in mathematics (measured by comprehensive achievement tests) and parental realistic aspirations influence each other positively in a statistically significant way over the course of primary education from grade one to four, even under the control of various potential confounding variables. Further analyses reveal that this process is socially stratified and works differently for lowly and highly educated families. Lower educated parents pay more attention to the performance of the child when adjusting their aspirations than tertiary educated parents, who always hold high aspirations. The results are of interest to understand in more detail how social inequality emerges at a very early point in the highly tracked German educational system. (DIPF/Orig.

Internal investigations under German Law

Folker Bittmann is a chief prosecutor and has served as head of the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Dessau-Roßlau, Germany since 2005. Prior to his current position, he worked as a lawyer in Heidelberg, a prosecutor in Darmstadt and Frankfurt, and a chief prosecutor in Halle/Saale. He is the editor and author of a handbook on criminal insolvency law, as well as an author of various articles on property law, white-collar crime, and criminal procedure law. Additionally, he is an advisor to an association on white-collar crime (Wirtschaftsstrafrechtliche Vereinigung e.V.) and is a member of the practice group of the Center for Criminal Compliance at the University of Gießen

Are cognitive ability and conscientiousness really more important for educational attainment than SES? A replication and extension of O‘Connell and Marks

Explaining which factors influence educational attainment is a highly relevant topic in disciplines like psychology and sociology. While in the past especially parental socioeconomic status (SES) has been seen as the most relevant factor, newer studies put psychological aspects such as personality traits and cognitive ability into focus. A recent study by O‘Connell and Marks (2022) using British data concludes that these factors are much better able at explaining educational attainment (school grades) than SES. This study is replicated and extended using German NEPS data (N = 4,607). By utilizing dominance analysis, which goes beyond the original study, it can be demonstrated that the core findings are robust and the marginal share of explained variance is larger for cognitive ability and personality traits (both about 5%) than for SES (about 2.3%). Track placement has little influence on attainment (less than 1%). However, track placement itself depends to a large extent on SES and cognitive ability (both around 12 %) but much less so on personality traits (less than 1%). These findings successfully corroborate and extend the original study. (DIPF/Orig.