The Growing Influence of the Courts over the Fate of Refugees

A number of migration scholars suggest that domestic courts have become the key protective institution for refugees. How can we explain this claim? One prominent explanation identifies group litigation as the key source of the increasing influence of the courts. How well does this explanation travel empirically? The article evaluates this explanation by examining the puzzling behaviour of German refugee NGOs. They have not entered the legal arena directly (either as parties or as interveners), nor have they concentrated on developing extensive litigation campaigns. Still, they are remarkably ‘judicialized’: their frequent engagement with the law in other respects has heightened their legal consciousness. Why have German refugee NGOs made such different choices than their North American counterparts and what do these choices tell us about the expanding influence of the courts over the fate of refugees in Germany and North America? To make sense of the different choices that these organizations have made, we need to understand the role that institutional norms and procedures, in particular policy legacies, have played in directing the behaviour and identity of these groups. For a number of reasons, German refugee NGOs historically have been discouraged from directly accessing the courts in favour of indirect participation. Since Canadian and American refugee organizations follow a pattern closer to the expectations of the (largely North American) literature on the subject, we need to be more careful in thinking through our presuppositions when constructing a theory of the worldwide expansion of judicial power

Iron Tonics: Tracing the Development from Classical to Iatrochemical Formulations in Ayurveda

Around the eleventh century CE, Sanskrit medical texts began to record profound changes in the methods used for drug manufacture. New substances, especially metallic and non-metallic minerals, were added to the ayurvedic pharmacopoeia or were given new prominence. More significantly, however, new ways of processing raw materials were introduced that were thought to make them fit for medical use. Most of the new, but also many of the traditional substances were now put through a series of complicated, multistage processes before they were used as components of compound medicines. In this article, I will use the example of recipes for iron-based medicines, which describe the processing of iron and other substances to trace the evolution of these changes and to query whether the changes in drug production flow from earlier developments, or whether they represent a more fundamental shift in the theory and practice of medicine. I also consider whether the introduction of new substances and the new methods of drug production can be related to notions concerning the potency of substances and formulations

Schrittmacherkanäle im olfaktorischen Epithel der Maus

HCN channels hyperpolarization-activated and $\underline{c}$yclic $\underline{n}$ucleotide-gated channels) are membrane proteins participating in the generation of spontaneous rhythmic electrical activity in cellular networks. Therefore these channels are called pacemaker channels. This thesis describes for the first time, the expression pattern of four different HCN channel isoforms (HCN1 - HCN4) in the olfactory epithelium of the mouse on a subcellular level. The isoforms HCN1 and HCN2 are expressed in olfactory receptor neurons (ORN), more specifically in the dendrites and axons of the ORN. Strong labeling was particularly seen in the axon bundles. The HCN4 isoform was found almost exclusively in the axons of the ORN. Furthermore, the immunohistochemical stainings allowed to distinguish between two morphologically different axon bundles: small, tightly-packed axon bundles which express HCN 1, 2 and 4 to similar degrees, and large axon bundles in which predominantly HCN4 is expressed. Notably, HCN3 seems not to be expressed in the olfactory epithelium of the mouse. Specific shRNA molecules can be utilized to achieve a post-transcriptional downregulation of genes. To this end, $\underline{r}$ecombinant $\underline{a}deno-$\underline{a}$ssociated$\underline{v}$iruses (rAAV) were constructed allowing the gene transfer of shRNA-coding sequences. In transgenic cell lines which constitutively expressed specific HCN isoforms, a significant downregulation of HCN1 and HCN2 gene expression was achieved after infections with rAAV_shRNA constructs. Especially for HCN2, de novo protein biosynthesis was impaired almost completely. In a series of experiments, the transduction capability of rAAV for ORN was examined in vivo by virus-mediated eGFP expression. Both, ORN and supporting cells were successfully transduced by rAAV of serotype 2 and 5. In transduced cells, eGFP expression was very high and allowed to unequivocally identify the different cell types by their morphology. In summary, this thesis demonstrates that rAAV-mediated gene transfer is a versatile method that can be used both, to introduce genes into living organisms as well as to specifically knock down gene expression by rAAV_shRNA thereby supporting the ultimate goal to study a proteins’ function in vivo. As likely candidates, individual HCN isoforms might now be targeted as their subcellular expression pattern has been unraveled in the olfactory epithelium of the mouse

Aspectual interpretation of early verb forms in german

In the present paper, I will argue that even in a language like German, where the verb system does not contain a grammaticized aspect distinction, aspectual features do underlie the early form-function-mapping of verb forms in L1-acquisition. Furthermore, it will be argued that it is not only past tense forms that may receive an aspectual interpretation in early child language but also other forms of the verbal input. In the case of German, these are the forms of the present tense paradigm and the past participle. Showing and discussing various piecesof evidence for this assumption should strengthen the "aspect before tense" or "primacy of aspect" hypothesis. In general, the paper aims at a deeper understanding of the hierarchical relation between tense and aspect whereby aspect is the basic category and, therefore, aspectual features are the inevitable starting point of the acquisition of grammar

Derivation of robust predictor variables for modelling urban shrinkage and its effects at different scales

Currently, we observe diverging processes of growth and shrinkage in European Cities. Whereas in the 80ies and 90ies partially accelerated through the crash of the socialist system mostly urban growth and suburban development occurred in European Cities, today we find a general decline of population as well as an increase of aged people (as results of the demographic change in Europe and worldwide, Cloet 2003, Lutz 2001). These processes influence land use pattern (state of the environment) and land use changes in urban areas enormously. Land use pattern reflect the current socio-economic development of an urban area and give an idea of how the urban ecosystem is influenced by man. In doing so, for instance, surface sealing reduces the filtering and remediation capacity of soils and the water retention in general as well as minimises habitat quality for wetland species. At the same time, the ecosystem(s) provide so-called ecosystem services, benefits people obtain from ecosystems: water availability, drinking water, remediation and filtering of waste, places to settle, recreation facilities in nature and others. Their quantification enables to bring the change (availability/loss) of ecosystem services into relation with effective costs (economic sphere, Farber 2002, De Groot et al. 2002). The above mentioned population decline and related shrinkage processes will have enormous consequences on the demand and availability of ecosystem services needed to sustain a high and even increasing status of quality of life for European citizens in the next future. Therefore, the predictor variables describing on the one hand shrinkage-related land use changes and on the other its effects are most important but at the same time it is still a challenge; to extract such predictor variables from a huge catalogue of urban socio-economic and environmental indicators elaborated by many studies for different landscape types and scales; to derive relevant digital and spatially explicit data as model input to calculate the effects of land use (change) and; to validate the model results at the city and the quarter level (scale) as well as to prove the response of the (gained/released) ecosystem service (environmental quality) at the city and at quarter level (closing the circle). Here, the author will give some expressive examples showing the derivation of predictor variables for modelling peri-urban growth and inner city shrinkage as well as its effects on water balance, habitat quality (urban green network) and recreational space. Of major interest is the approach of how to tackle the problem of urban shrinkage in spatially explicit land use (change) modelling (Haase et al. 2004).

Evolution of secondary cellular circulation flow above submarine bedforms imaged by remote sensing techniques

Normalized radar cross section (NRCS) modulation and acoustic Doppler current profiler (ADCP) measurements above submarine sand ribbons and sand waves are presented. The two study areas are located in the Southern Bight of the North Sea at the Birkenfels wreck and in the sand wave field of the Lister Tief in the German Bight of the North Sea. These measurements reveal the developments of secondary cellular circulations in tidally induced coastal sea areas. Secondary circulation cells can develop perpendicular as well as parallel to the direction of the dominant tidal current flow. Circulation cells developed perpendicular to the direction of the dominant tidal current flow are associated with marine sand ribbons manifested near an underwater wreck. Secondary circulation cells within the water column observed parallel to the direction of the dominant tidal current flow have been initiated during flood and ebb tidal current phases associated with submarine sand waves. These two types of cellular circulations must obey the Hamiltonian principle of classical mechanics. The current–short surface wave interaction is described by the action balance or radiation balance-equation based on weak hydrodynamic interaction theory. The calculated current gradient or strain rate of the applied imaging theory has the same order of magnitude for both bedforms such as marine sand ribbons and sand waves, respectively

Radar imaging mechanism of marine sand waves at very low grazing angle illumination

The investigations carried out between 2002-2004 during several field experiments within the Op-erational radar and optical mapping in monitoring hydrodynamic, morphodynamic and environ-mental parameters for coastal management project (OROMA) aimed to improve the effectiveness of new monitoring technologies such as shipborne imaging radars in coastal waters. The coastal monitoring radar of the GKSS Research Centre, Geesthacht, Germany, is based on a Kelvin Hughes RSR 1000 X-band (9.42 GHz) VV polarized river radar and was mounted on board the research vessel Ludwig Prandtl during the experiments in the Lister Tief, a tidal inlet of the German Bight in the North Sea. The important progress realized in this investigation is the availability of calibrated X-band radar data. Another central point of the study is to demonstrate the applicability of the quasi-specular scattering theory in combination with the weak hydrodynamic interaction the-ory for the radar imaging mechanism of the sea bed. It is shown that specular point scattering con-tributes significantly to the normalized radar cross section (NRCS) modulation due to marine sand waves. According to the theory quasi-specular scattering can be applied for wind speeds Uw ≤ 8 m s-1. Measured and simulated NRCS modulations caused by flood and ebb tide oriented marine sand waves have been compared and agree fairly wel