Ökonomien im Zirkulationsfeld Theaterfestival

Die Theaterwissenschaftlerin Barbara Gronau diagnostiziert im Abgleich mit den Kolonialausstellungen des ausgehenden 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhunderts, die vor allem auf eine Vorführung von Differenz zielten, für die Jetztzeit einen »globalisierte[n] Diskurs des Kuratierens« (Gronau 2015:54). Dieser sorge dafür, »dass auf Tagungen dieselben Aufführungsbeispiele gezeigt« (ebd.) würden, aus denen sich zunehmend ein gemeinsamer ästhetischer Kanon bilde. Gronau konstatiert, das Fachpublikum, bestehend aus Forscher_innen, Kurator_innen und Theatermacher_innen, trage zu dieser Entwicklung bei, indem es sich vor allem auf Theaterfestivals treffe und diese Seherfahrungen anschließend auf theaterwissenschaftlichen Tagungen auswerte. Aus dieser Perspektive ergibt sich eine enorme Relevanz der Theaterfestivals für den theaterwissenschaftlichen Diskurs. Daher lohnt sich eine nähere Betrachtung der unterschiedlichen Interessen und Ökonomien im Zirkulationsfeld Theaterfestival.

Quasiconformal homogeneity after Gehring and Palks

In a very influential paper Gehring and Palka introduced the notions of quasiconformally homogeneous and uniformly quasiconformally homogeneous subsets of Euclidean space. Their motivation was to provide a characterization of quasi-disks, i.e. domains which are quasiconformally homeomorphic to the unit disk. As a generalization, Bonfert-Taylor, Canary, Martin and Taylor initiated the study of uniformly quasiconformally homogeneous hyperbolic manifolds. In this paper, we review the theory of quasiconformally homogeneous subsets of Euclidean and uniformly quasiconformally homogeneous hyperbolic manifolds. We finish with a discussion of open problems in the theory.Comment: To be published in a volume of Computational Methods and Function Theory dedicated to the memory of Fred Gehrin

International Migration Management for Poverty Reduction: How can International collaboration turn cross-border migration in a poverty reduction tool?

The present paper explores the connections between cross-border migration and the global goal to eradicate poverty in all its forms everywhere in order to identify the ways in which cross-border migration can support poverty reduction targets. Assessing perspectives of Germany and Nigeria as presented in secondary and tertiary literature, this paper concludes that collaboration between countries with different perspectives can contribute to turning cross-border migration into a poverty reduction tool. However, these case studies also uncover a lack of actual cooperation and policy integration, thus leaving potential cross-bordermigration benefits largely unexploited. Finally, based on the insights from these perspectives, this paper proposes a framework for assessing and evaluating potential policies that may help turn cross-border migration into a driver for poverty eradication. However, the proposed framework requires major rethinking of existing power imbalances in international cooperation

Context-based RNA-seq mapping

In recent years, the sequencing of RNA (RNA-seq) using next generation sequencing (NGS) technology has become a powerful tool for analyzing the transcriptomic state of a cell. Modern NGS platforms allow for performing RNA-seq experiments in a few days, resulting in millions of short sequencing reads. A crucial step in analyzing RNA-seq data generally is determining the transcriptomic origin of the sequencing reads (= read mapping). In principal, read mapping is a sequence alignment problem, in which the short sequencing reads (30 - 500 nucleotides) are aligned to much larger reference sequences such as the human genome (3 billion nucleotides). In this thesis, we present ContextMap, an RNA-seq mapping approach that evaluates the context of the sequencing reads for determining the most likely origin of every read. The context of a sequencing read is defined by all other reads aligned to the same genomic region. The ContextMap project started with a proof of concept study, in which we showed that our approach is able to improve already existing read mapping results provided by other mapping programs. Subsequently, we developed a standalone version of ContextMap. This implementation no longer relied on mapping results of other programs, but determined initial alignments itself using a modification of the Bowtie short read alignment program. However, the original ContextMap implementation had several drawbacks. In particular, it was not able to predict reads spanning over more than two exons and to detect insertions or deletions (indels). Furthermore, ContextMap depended on a modification of a specific Bowtie version. Thus, it could neither benefit of Bowtie updates nor of novel developments (e.g. improved running times) in the area of short read alignment software. For addressing these problems, we developed ContextMap 2, an extension of the original ContextMap algorithm. The key features of ContextMap 2 are the context-based resolution of ambiguous read alignments and the accurate detection of reads crossing an arbitrary number of exon-exon junctions or containing indels. Furthermore, a plug-in interface is provided that allows for the easy integration of alternative short read alignment programs (e.g. Bowtie 2 or BWA) into the mapping workflow. The performance of ContextMap 2 was evaluated on real-life as well as synthetic data and compared to other state-of-the-art mapping programs. We found that ContextMap 2 had very low rates of misplaced reads and incorrectly predicted junctions or indels. Additionally, recall values were as high as for the top competing methods. Moreover, the runtime of ContextMap 2 was at least two fold lower than for the best competitors. In addition to the mapping of sequencing reads to a single reference, the ContextMap approach allows the investigation of several potential read sources (e.g. the human host and infecting pathogens) in parallel. Thus, ContextMap can be applied to mine for infections or contaminations or to map data from meta-transcriptomic studies. Furthermore, we developed methods based on mapping-derived statistics that allow to assess confidence of mappings to identified species and to detect false positive hits. ContextMap was evaluated on three real-life data sets and results were compared to metagenomics tools. Here, we showed that ContextMap can successfully identify the species contained in a sample. Moreover, in contrast to most other metagenomics approaches, ContextMap also provides read mapping results to individual species. As a consequence, read mapping results determined by ContextMap can be used to study the gene expression of all species contained in a sample at the same time. Thus, ContextMap might be applied in clinical studies, in which the influence of infecting agents on host organisms is investigated. The methods presented in this thesis allow for an accurate and fast mapping of RNA-seq data. As the amount of available sequencing data increases constantly, these methods will likely become an important part of many RNA-seq data analyses and thus contribute valuably to research in the field of transcriptomics

Orthogonality between weight and t-structures: simple-minded and silting collections

We study orthogonality of weight structures and t-structures in terms of silting collections and simple-minded collections, and formulate this relation using derived projective covers. We prove moreover a Koszul duality result for silting and simple-minded collections.Comment: 22 pages. Comments welcome

»Outside of Your Day-to-Day Comfort Zone«

An Interview with Ant Hampton on The Thing – An Automatic Workshop in Everyday DisruptionAn Interview with Ant Hampton on The Thing – An Automatic Workshop in Everyday DisruptionAn Interview with Ant Hampton on The Thing – An Automatic Workshop in Everyday Disruptio

User's Guide: Mississippi River Water Quality and the Clean Water Act

The 2008 National Research Council (NRC) report, Mississippi RiverWater Quality and the CleanWater Act: Progress, Challenges, and Opportunities, was initiated and funded by The McKnight Foundation to answer key questions about the state and federal responsibilities along the 10-state river corridor. The report is thorough in its analysis and offers compelling recommendations for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S.Department of Agriculture, and state agencies. This User's Guide was created by The McKnight Foundation's Environment Program as a resource for utilizing the NRC's important and substantive report

Context-based RNA-seq mapping

In recent years, the sequencing of RNA (RNA-seq) using next generation sequencing (NGS) technology has become a powerful tool for analyzing the transcriptomic state of a cell. Modern NGS platforms allow for performing RNA-seq experiments in a few days, resulting in millions of short sequencing reads. A crucial step in analyzing RNA-seq data generally is determining the transcriptomic origin of the sequencing reads (= read mapping). In principal, read mapping is a sequence alignment problem, in which the short sequencing reads (30 - 500 nucleotides) are aligned to much larger reference sequences such as the human genome (3 billion nucleotides). In this thesis, we present ContextMap, an RNA-seq mapping approach that evaluates the context of the sequencing reads for determining the most likely origin of every read. The context of a sequencing read is defined by all other reads aligned to the same genomic region. The ContextMap project started with a proof of concept study, in which we showed that our approach is able to improve already existing read mapping results provided by other mapping programs. Subsequently, we developed a standalone version of ContextMap. This implementation no longer relied on mapping results of other programs, but determined initial alignments itself using a modification of the Bowtie short read alignment program. However, the original ContextMap implementation had several drawbacks. In particular, it was not able to predict reads spanning over more than two exons and to detect insertions or deletions (indels). Furthermore, ContextMap depended on a modification of a specific Bowtie version. Thus, it could neither benefit of Bowtie updates nor of novel developments (e.g. improved running times) in the area of short read alignment software. For addressing these problems, we developed ContextMap 2, an extension of the original ContextMap algorithm. The key features of ContextMap 2 are the context-based resolution of ambiguous read alignments and the accurate detection of reads crossing an arbitrary number of exon-exon junctions or containing indels. Furthermore, a plug-in interface is provided that allows for the easy integration of alternative short read alignment programs (e.g. Bowtie 2 or BWA) into the mapping workflow. The performance of ContextMap 2 was evaluated on real-life as well as synthetic data and compared to other state-of-the-art mapping programs. We found that ContextMap 2 had very low rates of misplaced reads and incorrectly predicted junctions or indels. Additionally, recall values were as high as for the top competing methods. Moreover, the runtime of ContextMap 2 was at least two fold lower than for the best competitors. In addition to the mapping of sequencing reads to a single reference, the ContextMap approach allows the investigation of several potential read sources (e.g. the human host and infecting pathogens) in parallel. Thus, ContextMap can be applied to mine for infections or contaminations or to map data from meta-transcriptomic studies. Furthermore, we developed methods based on mapping-derived statistics that allow to assess confidence of mappings to identified species and to detect false positive hits. ContextMap was evaluated on three real-life data sets and results were compared to metagenomics tools. Here, we showed that ContextMap can successfully identify the species contained in a sample. Moreover, in contrast to most other metagenomics approaches, ContextMap also provides read mapping results to individual species. As a consequence, read mapping results determined by ContextMap can be used to study the gene expression of all species contained in a sample at the same time. Thus, ContextMap might be applied in clinical studies, in which the influence of infecting agents on host organisms is investigated. The methods presented in this thesis allow for an accurate and fast mapping of RNA-seq data. As the amount of available sequencing data increases constantly, these methods will likely become an important part of many RNA-seq data analyses and thus contribute valuably to research in the field of transcriptomics

Community-supported agriculture networks in Wales and Central Germany: Scaling up, out, and deep through local collaboration

Multiple systemic crises have highlighted the vulnerabilities of our globalised food system, raising the demand for more resilient and ecologically sustainable alternatives, and fuelling engagement in practices such as community-supported agriculture (CSA). In CSA, local farmers and households share the costs and products of farming, allowing them to organise food provision non-commercially around short supply chains. While this may prefigure alternatives to the dominant food system, CSA is considered limited in regard to its scalability and accessibility. While these shortcomings apply to individual CSAs, we know little about whether multi-CSA networks can tackle them by expanding and institutionalising their practices at scale. This paper alleviates this blind spot by investigating local CSA networks in Wales and Germany through a lens of ‘food movement networks’, identifying their scaling practices and encountered challenges. It draws on semi-structured interviews with CSA actors and observations at network gatherings. The paper shows that local collaboration enables CSAs to integrate their supply chains (scaling out), engage their communities (scaling deep), and participate in food councils (scaling up), while further networking at regional level helps new initiatives start up. It also reveals competitive tensions between neighbouring CSAs, which constitutes a hitherto unknown challenge to CSA’s potential scalability