Im Kontext

Die etymologische Herkunft des Wortes Kontext findet sich im lateinischen Begriff contexere, bedeutet somit zusammenweben, zusammenflechten. Während die immanente Deutung, z.B. eines Bildes oder einer Architektur, auf formale oder symbolische Aspekte und deren Verbindung zueinander abzielt, wird bei einer kontextuellen Betrachtungsweise der Blick außerhalb des Werkrahmens gelenkt. Etwas im Kontext zu betrachten bestimmt das Verständnis von Äußerungen und Gegenständen, da Zusammenhänge und Beziehungen sichtbar gemacht und aktiv hergestellt werden. Ein umfassenderer Blick wird gewährleistet, der das Objekt vielleicht in einem neuen Licht erscheinen lässt, oder aber auch die dazugehörige Umgebung. Nicht nur der Standpunkt der Betrachtung, auch wie nah oder fern man dem Betrachtungsgegenstand kommt, welchen Ausschnitt man wählt, aus welchem Erfahrungshorizont man an ihn herantritt – all dies beeinflusst letztlich das Ergebnis, sei es einer Deutung oder einer neuen Architektur, eines neuen Stadtteils etc. Der Kontext ist somit kein abgeschlossenes Konstrukt. „Im Kontext“ ist ein Begriff, der gerade in Architektur und Städtebau von zentraler Bedeutung ist, und vielleicht gerade deshalb gewisse Abnutzungserscheinungen zeigt. Die Frage, inwiefern sich Neubauten in den architektonischen, stadträumlichen oder auch naturräumlichen „Kontext“ fügen (sollten), ist ein immer wiederkehrendes Thema in Architektur und Städtebau, über das leidenschaftlich gestritten wird und wurde. Heutzutage, wo es kaum noch Freiflächen gibt, steht alles in irgendeinem Kontext oder soll zumindest in diesem betrachtet werden. Wird in einer (historischen) Stadt eine Lücke geschlossen, so muss sich das Implantat „in den Kontext“ fügen, sei es architektonisch, räumlich, inhaltlich, historisch, konstruktiv, emotional, theoretisch… Hier hat der Kontext sicherlich auch seine Grenzen. Die Suche nach dem genius loci, nach einer Eigenart des Ortes, nach Traditionen und Kontinuität wird an manchen Orten, die bereits, um die berühmte Metapher Freuds zu bemühen, als Palimpsest erscheinen, geradezu zu einem Manierismus. "Im Kontext" darf also durchaus kritisch hinterfragt werden. Doch können wir deshalb auf die Frage nach dem Kontext verzichten? Gerade, wenn in der Gegenwart die historischen Zusammenhänge verloren zu gehen scheinen, wenn Bedeutungen losgelöst werden von ihrem historischen Gewordensein, kann es wichtig sein, diese wieder zu verankern

The colours of the Higgs boson: a study in creativity and science motivation among high-school students in Italy

AbstractWith the increasing shift from STEM to STEAM education, arts-based approaches to science teaching and learning are considered promising for aligning school science curricula with the development of twenty-first century skills, including creativity. Yet the impact of STEAM practices on student creativity and specifically on how the latter is associated with science learning outcomes have thus far received scarce empirical support. This paper contributes to this line of research by reporting on a two-wave quantitative study that examines the effect of a long-term STEAM intervention on two cognitive processes associated with creativity (act, flow) and their interrelationships with intrinsic and extrinsic components of science motivation. Using pre- and post-survey data from 175 high-school students in Italy, results show an overall positive effect of the intervention both on the act subscale of creativity and science career motivation, whereas a negative effect is found on self-efficacy. Gender differences in the above effects are also observed. Further, results provide support for the mediating role of self-efficacy in the relationship between creativity and science career motivation. Implications for the design of STEAM learning environments are discussed

The intracellular detection of MIP-1beta enhances the capacity to detect IFN-gamma mediated HIV-1-specific CD8 T-cell responses in a flow cytometric setting providing a sensitive alternative to the ELISPOT

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>T-cell mediated immunity likely plays an important role in controlling HIV-1 infection and progression to AIDS. Several candidate vaccines against HIV-1 aim at stimulating cellular immune responses, either alone or together with the induction of neutralizing antibodies, and assays able to measure CD8 and CD4 T-cell responses need to be implemented. At present, the IFN-γ-based ELISPOT assay is considered the gold standard and it is broadly preferred as primary assay for detection of antigen-specific T-cell responses in vaccine trials. However, in spite of its high sensitivity, the measurement of the sole IFN-γ production provides limited information on the quality of the immune response. On the other hand, the introduction of polychromatic flow-cytometry-based assays such as the intracellular cytokine staining (ICS) strongly improved the capacity to detect several markers on a single cell level.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The cumulative analysis of 275 samples from 31 different HIV-1 infected individuals using an ICS staining procedure optimized by our laboratories revealed that, following antigenic stimulation, IFN-γ producing T-cells were also producing MIP-1β whereas T-cells characterized by the sole production of IFN-γ were rare. Since the analysis of the combination of two functions decreases the background and the measurement of the IFN-γ+ MIP-1β+ T-cells was equivalent to the measurement of the total IFN-γ+ T-cells, we adopted the IFN-γ+ MIP-1β+ data analysis system to evaluate IFN-γ-based, antigen-specific T-cell responses. Comparison of our ICS assay with ELISPOT assays performed in two different experienced laboratories demonstrated that the IFN-γ+ MIP-1β+ data analysis system increased the sensitivity of the ICS up to levels comparable to the sensitivity of the ELISPOT assay.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The IFN-γ+ MIP-1β+ data evaluation system provides a clear advantage for the detection of low magnitude HIV-1-specific responses. These results are important to guide the choice for suitable highly sensitive immune assays and to build reagent panels able to accurately characterize the phenotype and function of responding T-cells. More importantly, the ICS assay can be used as primary assay to evaluate HIV-1-specific responses without losing sensitivity in comparison to the ELISPOT assay.</p

Nef-specific CD45RA+ CD8+ T cells secreting MIP-1β but not IFN-γ are associated with nonprogressive HIV-1 infection

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Long-term survival of HIV-1 infected individuals is usually achieved by continuous administration of combination antiretroviral therapy (ART). An exception to this scenario is represented by HIV-1 infected nonprogressors (NP) which maintain relatively high circulating CD4+ T cells without clinical symptoms for several years in the absence of ART. Several lines of evidence indicate an important role of the T-cell response in the modulation of HIV-1 infection during the acute and chronic phase of the disease.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We analyzed the functional and the differentiation phenotype of Nef- and Tat-specific CD8+ T cells in a cohort of HIV-1 infected NP in comparison to progressors, ART-treated seropositive individuals and individuals undergoing a single cycle of ART interruption. We observed that a distinctive feature of NP is the presence of Nef-specific CD45RA+ CD8+ T cells secreting MIP-1beta but not IFN-gamma. This population was present in 7 out of 11 NP. CD45RA+ IFN-gamma^negMIP-1beta+ CD8+ T cells were not detected in HIV-1 infected individuals under ART or withdrawing from ART and experiencing a rebounding viral replication. In addition, we detected Nef-specific CD45RA+ IFN-gamma^negMIP-1beta+ CD8+ T cells in only 1 out of 10 HIV-1 infected individuals with untreated progressive disease.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The novel antigen-specific CD45RA+ IFN-gamma^negMIP-1beta+ CD8+ T cell population represents a new candidate marker of long-term natural control of HIV-1 disease progression and a relevant functional T-cell subset in the evaluation of the immune responses induced by candidate HIV-1 vaccines.</p

Biogeochemistry, grain size and mineralogy of the Central and Southern Adriatic Sea sediments: a review.

Volume 26 Supplement 1, January 2010

Stadtbild HRO

The heritage preservation law of 1975 attached particular importance to monuments, which sought to actualise the GDR as its own sovereign nation through constructed canonical architectural history. This law used party testimonies in a process of designating recent buildings under new preservation orders. Younger technical monuments like the Berlin TV Tower (1969) were on the register alongside architecture from the immediate post-war period. In an unprecedented move, buildings from the 1970s were registered only a few years after their completion. This practice culminated in the governing Socialist Unity Party’s (SED) initiated publication ‘Cultural Monuments of GDR History’ in the late 1980s—a project that remains unfinished. In late-2014 architectural historian Simone Bogner located the manuscript in an archive just outside of Berlin. The manuscript ‘Cultural Monuments of GDR History’ was scheduled to be published in 1989 — but never was — owing to the turbulent political events that year. The book presents 360 architectural objects connected to GDR history with accompanying texts by eighty different authors, incorporating sites of artistic, industrial, scientific, technical and political importance.. Having previously worked with Simone Bogner in 2012 on an exhibition describing architectural methods of documentation, I was invited to participate in the project to re-photograph the former monument sites across eastern Germany (Knight & Bogner 2012). Together we have been photographing the described sites as they remain in the present-day, whether demolished, transformed, replaced, or relocated

Der Einfluss des unterrichtlichen Einsatzes lebender Zwergmäuse auf Motivation und Lernerfolg [Abstract]

Lorenzen S, Wilde M. Der Einfluss des unterrichtlichen Einsatzes lebender Zwergmäuse auf Motivation und Lernerfolg [Abstract]. In: Harms U, Bogner FX, Graf D, Gropengießer H, Krüger D, Mayer J, eds. Heterogenität erfassen: individuell fördern im Biologieunterricht. Internationale Tagung der Fachsektion Didaktik der Biologie im vbio. Leibniz-Institut für die Pädagogik der Naturwissenschaften; 2009: 120-122

Overnight resting of PBMC changes functional signatures of antigen specific T- cell responses: impact for immune monitoring within clinical trials.

Polyfunctional CD4 or CD8 T cells are proposed to represent a correlate of immune control for persistent viruses as well as for vaccine mediated protection against infection. A well-suited methodology to study complex functional phenotypes of antiviral T cells is the combined staining of intracellular cytokines and phenotypic marker expression using polychromatic flow cytometry. In this study we analyzed the effect of an overnight resting period at 37 °C on the quantity and functionality of HIV-1, EBV, CMV, HBV and HCV specific CD4 and CD8 T-cell responses in a cohort of 21 individuals. We quantified total antigen specific T cells by multimer staining and used 10-color intracellular cytokine staining (ICS) to determine IFNγ, TNFα, IL2 and MIP1β production. After an overnight resting significantly higher numbers of functionally active T cells were detectable by ICS for all tested antigen specificities, whereas the total number of antigen specific T cells determined by multimer staining remained unchanged. Overnight resting shifted the quality of T-cell responses towards polyfunctionality and increased antigen sensitivity of T cells. Our data suggest that the observed effect is mediated by T cells rather than by antigen presenting cells. We conclude that overnight resting of PBMC prior to ex vivo analysis of antiviral T-cell responses represents an efficient method to increase sensitivity of ICS-based methods and has a prominent impact on the functional phenotype of T cells