Wenn der Spaten sich zurückbiegt: Mouffes Wittgensteinianische Analyse radikalen Dissenses und darüber hinaus

In diesem Aufsatz diskutiere ich die erkenntnistheoretischen Aspekte ‚radikalen Dissenses' anhand der Demokratietheorie Chantal Mouffes und der Spätphilosophie Ludwig Wittgensteins, auf die sich Mouffe stützt, um ihre Kritik an 'rationalistischer' politischer Philosophie den nötigen epistemologischen Unterbau zu geben und sie auf dieser Ebene fortzuführen. Ich argumentiere, dass sie dabei den Clou an Wittgensteins 'tiefen Kontextualismus' verkennt, der fest in der Perspektive einer Lebensform verankert ist. Will man Wittgenstein an dieser Stelle treu bleiben, erzwingt die Existenz einer Pluralität von Lebensformen keine automatische Abkehr vom Paradigma der Rechtfertigung, wie es 'rationalistische' Strömungen innerhalb der politischen Philosophie beinhalten. Vielmehr zeige ich am Beispiel John Rawls's politischem Liberalismus, dass sich dieser mit Mouffes Projekt einer 'radikalen' Demokratietheorie versöhnen lässt, wenn wir ihre Differenzen als Ausdruck einer Arbeitsteilung in der Analyse verschiedener Typen politischen Dissenses deuten. Diese so noch nicht beschriebene Möglichkeit einer Versöhnung dieser wichtigen Strömungen der zeitgenössischen politischen Philosophie wirft allerdings die Frage nach den Grenzen demokratischer Lebensformen auf, die ich dann am Ende des Aufsatzes diskutiere.In this article, I discuss the epistemological aspects of 'radical disagreement' with reference to Chantal Mouffe’s theory of democracy and Ludwig Wittgenstein's late philosophy. Mouffe builds on the latter to provide the necessary epistemological foundation to her critique of 'rationalistic' political philosophy and to continue this critique on the epistemological register. I argue, however, that her reading of Wittgenstein misses aspects vital to his 'deep contextualism'. If we remain faithful to his project, the existence of a plurality of forms of life does not necessitate a rejection of the paradigm of justification as it is embedded in 'rationalistic' currents of contemporary political philosophy. Using the example of John Rawls’s brand of political liberalism, I show furthermore that we can reconcile it with Mouffe's project of radical democracy if we interpret their differences as the expression of a division of labor in the analysis of different types of political disagreement. This newly won possibility of reconciling these important currents of contemporary philosophy, however, raises the question, which I will discuss towards the end of the article, how to determine the boundaries of democratic forms of life

Reconstruction of a first-order phase transition from computer simulations of individual phases and subphases

We present a new method for investigating first-order phase transitions using Monte Carlo simulations. It relies on the multiple-histogram method and uses solely histograms of individual phases. In addition, we extend the method to include histograms of subphases. The free energy difference between phases, necessary for attributing the correct statistical weights to the histograms, is determined by a detour in control parameter space via auxiliary systems with short relaxation times. We apply this method to a recently introduced model for structure formation in polypeptides for which other methods fail.Comment: 13 pages in preprint mode, REVTeX, 2 Figures available from the authors ([email protected], [email protected]

Single base mismatches in the mRNA target site allow specific seed region-mediated off-target binding of siRNA targeting human coagulation factor 7

We have analyzed the off-target activity of two siRNAs (F7-1, F7-2) that knock-down human blood coagulation factor 7 mRNA. F7-1 modulates a significant number of non-target transcripts while F7-2 shows high selectivity for the target transcript under various experimental conditions. The 3′-UTRs of all F7-1 off-target genes show statistically significant enrichment of the reverse complement of the F7-1 siRNA seed region located in the guide strand. Seed region enrichment was confirmed in off-target transcripts modulated by siRNA targeting the glucocorticoid receptor. To investigate how these sites contribute to off-target recognition of F7-1, we employed CXCL5 transcript as model system because it contains five F7-1 seed sequence motifs with single base mismatches. We show by transient transfection of reporter gene constructs into HEK293 cells that three out of five sites located in the 3′-UTR region are required for F7-1 off-target activity. For further mechanistic dissection, the sequences of these sites were synthesized and inserted either individually or joined in dimeric or trimeric constructs. Only the fusion constructs were silenced by F7-1 while the individual sites had no off-target activity. Based on F7-1 as a model, a single mismatch between the siRNA seed region and mRNA target sites is tolerated for target recognition and the CXCL5 data suggest a requirement for binding to multiple target sites in off-target transcripts

Tonsatz: Ein Weg zu eigenen Vokal- und Instrumentalsätzen: Künstlerische und pädagogische Praxis in der Lehramtsausbildung

In diesem Artikel wird das Konzept des Tonsatzseminars an der Technischen Universität Dortmund vorgestellt, das Brücken zur Komposition bauen will. Jedes Semester endet mit einem Tonsatz-Konzert, das von Studierenden mit eigenen Kompositionen bestritten wird. Die Stücke entstehen in den Tonsatzseminaren. Seminar und zugehöriges Konzert sind jeweils einem bestimmten Thema gewidmet. Die Tonsatzseminare wurden umfassend dokumentiert: Die Stücke aller Teilnehmer*innen liegen schriftlich vor, wurden im Konzert aufgenommen. Begleitet wird der Kurs in den letzten Jahren von musikpsychologischen Tests zum Kreativitäts-Selbstkonzept, die Datenmaterial für statistische Auswertungen geliefert haben. Vor dem Hintergrund musikästhetischer Diskussion im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert hinsichtlich der Anteile von ›Inspiration‹ und ›Arbeit‹ am Kompositionsprozess werden musikpsychologische Untersuchungen zur musikalischen Wahrnehmung (Carl Stumpf) und neurowissenschaftliche Grundlagen der Kreativitätsforschung dargestellt. Diese Forschungen werden im Hinblick auf ihre pädagogische Bedeutung für das Tonsatzseminar reflektiert.In this essay, we present the concept of the Tonsatz seminar at TU Dortmund University. This seminar aims to include the idea of composition. Each series of lessons concludes with a concert with students performing their own compositions created in the Tonsatz seminars. The seminars and the recorded concert are dedicated to a specific topic. All scores and the recordings are available. In recent years, the seminars have been accompanied by psychological tests on a self-concept of creativity providing data for statistical evaluations. Against the background of music-aesthetic discussions in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries regarding the relation between the concepts of »inspiration« and »work« in the compositional process, music psychological studies on musical perception (Carl Stumpf), and neuroscientific foundations of creativity are presented. These insights are reflected in terms of their pedagogical significance for the Tonsatz seminar in compositional techniques

Effective Field Theory for Highly Ionized Plasmas

We examine the equilibrium properties of hot, dilute, non-relativistic plasmas. The partition function and density correlation functions of a classical plasma with several species are expressed in terms of a functional integral over electrostatic potential distributions. The leading order, field-theoretic tree approximation automatically includes the effects of Debye screening. Subleading, one-loop corrections are easily evaluated. The two-loop corrections, however, have ultraviolet divergences. These correspond to the short-distance, logarithmic divergence which is encountered in the spatial integral of the Boltzmann exponential when it is expanded to third order in the Coulomb potential. Such divergences do not appear in the underlying quantum theory --- they are rendered finite by quantum fluctuations. We show how such divergences may be removed and the correct finite theory obtained by introducing additional local interactions in the manner of modern effective quantum field theories. We obtain explicit results for density-density correlation functions through two-loop order and thermodynamic quantities through three-loop order. The induced couplings are shown to obey renormalization group equations, and these equations are used to characterize all leading logarithmic contributions in the theory. A linear combination of pressure and energy and number densities is shown to be described by a field-theoretic anomaly. The effective theory allows us to evaluate very easily the algebraic long-distance decay of density correlation functions.Comment: 194 pages, uses elsevier & epsf.sty; final corrections include

High throughput transcriptome analysis of lipid metabolism in Syrian hamster liver in absence of an annotated genome

Background: Whole transcriptome analyses are an essential tool for understanding disease mechanisms. Approaches based on next-generation sequencing provide fast and affordable data but rely on the availability of annotated genomes. However, there are many areas in biomedical research that require non-standard animal models for which genome information is not available. This includes the Syrian hamster Mesocricetus auratus as an important model for dyslipidaemia because it mirrors many aspects of human disease and pharmacological responses. We show that complementary use of two independent next generation sequencing technologies combined with mapping to multiple genome databases allows unambiguous transcript annotation and quantitative transcript imaging. We refer to this approach as ``triple match sequencing{''} (TMS). Results: Contigs assembled from a normalized Roche 454 hamster liver library comprising 1.2 million long reads were used to identify 10'800 unique transcripts based on homology to RefSeq database entries from human, mouse, and rat. For mRNA quantification we mapped 82 million SAGE tags (SOLiD) from the same RNA source to the annotated hamster liver transcriptome contigs. We compared the liver transcriptome of hamster with equivalent data from human, rat, minipig, and cynomolgus monkeys to highlight differential gene expression with focus on lipid metabolism. We identify a cluster of five genes functionally related to HDL metabolism that is expressed in human, cynomolgus, minipig, and hamster but lacking in rat as a non-responder species for lipid lowering drugs. Conclusions: The TMS approach is suited for fast and inexpensive transcript profiling in cells or tissues of species where a fully annotated genome is not available. The continuously growing number of well annotated reference genomes will further empower reliable transcript identification and thereby raise the utility of the method for any species of interest

Actin Re-Organization Induced by Chlamydia trachomatis Serovar D - Evidence for a Critical Role of the Effector Protein CT166 Targeting Rac

The intracellular bacterium Chlamydia trachomatis causes infections of urogenital tract, eyes or lungs. Alignment reveals homology of CT166, a putative effector protein of urogenital C. trachomatis serovars, with the N-terminal glucosyltransferase domain of clostridial glucosylating toxins (CGTs). CGTs contain an essential DXD-motif and mono-glucosylate GTP-binding proteins of the Rho/Ras families, the master regulators of the actin cytoskeleton. CT166 is preformed in elementary bodies of C. trachomatis D and is detected in the host-cell shortly after infection. Infection with high MOI of C. trachomatis serovar D containing the CT166 ORF induces actin re-organization resulting in cell rounding and a decreased cell diameter. A comparable phenotype was observed in HeLa cells treated with the Rho-GTPase-glucosylating Toxin B from Clostridium difficile (TcdB) or HeLa cells ectopically expressing CT166. CT166 with a mutated DXD-motif (CT166-mut) exhibited almost unchanged actin dynamics, suggesting that CT166-induced actin re-organization depends on the glucosyltransferase motif of CT166. The cytotoxic necrotizing factor 1 (CNF1) from E. coli deamidates and thereby activates Rho-GTPases and transiently protects them against TcdB-induced glucosylation. CNF1-treated cells were found to be protected from TcdB- and CT166-induced actin re-organization. CNF1 treatment as well as ectopic expression of non-glucosylable Rac1-G12V, but not RhoA-G14A, reverted CT166-induced actin re-organization, suggesting that CT166-induced actin re-organization depends on the glucosylation of Rac1. In accordance, over-expression of CT166-mut diminished TcdB induced cell rounding, suggesting shared substrates. Cell rounding induced by high MOI infection with C. trachomatis D was reduced in cells expressing CT166-mut or Rac1-G12V, and in CNF1 treated cells. These observations indicate that the cytopathic effect of C. trachomatis D is mediated by CT166 induced Rac1 glucosylation. Finally, chlamydial uptake was impaired in CT166 over-expressing cells. Our data strongly suggest CT166's participation as an effector protein during host-cell entry, ensuring a balanced uptake into host-cells by interfering with Rac-dependent cytoskeletal changes

Interaction of the 89K murine cytomegalovirus immediate-early protein with core histones

The conditions that permit the interaction of immediate-early proteins of murine cytornegalovirus (MCMV) with DNA were studied. Chromatography of extracts from infected cells on MCMV DNA cellulose and calf thymus DNA cellulose showed that pp89, the regulatory major immediate-early protein, interacts with DNA and dissociates at salt concentrations between 0.3 and 0.6 M NaCl. pp76, a cleavage product of pp89, and additional minor ie1 proteins eluted already at low ionic strength. Cellular DNA-binding factors were required for association of pp89 with DNA. These factors were identified as core histones. Chromatography of IE proteins on histone-Sepharose in the absence of DNA revealed a high-binding affinity that was resistant to 2 M NaCl. These results suggest that pp89 has no direct DNA-binding activity. A role for an amino acid sequence homology in the N-terminal region of pp89 with histone H2B in the pp89-histone-DNA Interaction is discussed

Analytical Investigation of Innovation Dynamics Considering Stochasticity in the Evaluation of Fitness

We investigate a selection-mutation model for the dynamics of technological innovation,a special case of reaction-diffusion equations. Although mutations are assumed to increase the variety of technologies, not their average success ("fitness"), they are an essential prerequisite for innovation. Together with a selection of above-average technologies due to imitation behavior, they are the "driving force" for the continuous increase in fitness. We will give analytical solutions for the probability distribution of technologies for special cases and in the limit of large times. The selection dynamics is modelled by a "proportional imitation" of better technologies. However, the assessment of a technology's fitness may be imperfect and, therefore, vary stochastically. We will derive conditions, under which wrong assessment of fitness can accelerate the innovation dynamics, as it has been found in some surprising numerical investigations.Comment: For related work see http://www.helbing.or