Status Quo and Future Challenges for the Research Infrastructure in the Field of Culture

The term "culture" is notorious for the multitude of its meanings. This expertise strictly focuses on culture in terms of the arts. We adopt a sociological as well as an economic perspective. Research questions are subdivided into three spheres of action: artistic production and its organization; the distribution and valuation of culture; and the consumption and reception of culture. The data requirements and the availability of adequate data vary substantively, depending on artistic branches (music, performing arts, etc.) and specific research questions. In order to make the empirical investigation of culture a flourishing field, we recommend the following improvements of the data infrastructure: firstly, comprehensive surveys of artists on the one hand and cultural consumption on the other hand should be carried out with the support of public funding; secondly, a national cultural statistic should be established, illuminating the size, impact and evolution of the cultural sector in comparative perspective; thirdly, the public availability of organization-level data as well as communal surveys on cultural production and consumption issues should be improved; fourthly, the transparency of existing data sources and their accessibility should be improved by archiving them centrally, e.g. at the ZA.culture, arts, artists, production, distribution, consumption, reception, cultural sector, cultural industries.

Urlaub als lebensführungsspezifisches Investitionsverhalten

"In der Tourismusforschung werden häufig Theoriedefizite beklagt. Dies gilt auch für die Frage, wer wo und warum seinen Urlaub verbringt. Nach einem Überblick über gängige Ansätze zur Erklärung von Urlaubszielwahlen wird ein integriertes theoretisches Modell präsentiert. Dieses begreift Urlaube als langfristige Investitionen in symbolisches Kapital, das der Erlangung sozialer Anerkennung dient und dessen Wert mit der Lebensführung sozialer Akteure variiert. Im Mittelpunkt der Analysen steht daher eine Typologie differenzieller Arten der Lebensführung. Das neuartige, theoriegeleitete Vorgehen bei der Typenbildung ermöglicht eine exakte Replizierbarkeit der Typologie und damit raum-zeitliche Vergleiche der Größe und Verhaltensweisen einzelner Typen. Auf der Grundlage einer quantitativen Befragung wird die inhaltliche und statistische Erklärungsleistung der Lebensführungstypologie im Vergleich mit soziodemographischen Variablen demonstriert." (Autorenreferat)"Frequently, a lack of theory is lamented in tourism research. This is also true for the question of who goes on holiday where and why. After an overview of common explanatory approaches of holiday destination choices an integrated theoretical model is presented. Holidays are seen as long-term investments in symbolic capital, which serves the attainment of social approval and whose value varies with the lifestyles of the social actors involved. Central to the analyses is therefore a typology of differential lifestyles. The new and theoretically grounded way of typology construction facilitates an exact replicability of the lifestyle typology and thus time-spatial comparisons of each type's size and behaviour. On the basis of a quantitative survey the typology's sociological and statistical explanatory power is demonstrated in comparison with sociodemographic variables." (author's abstract

Körperkapital und Partnersuche in Clubs und Diskotheken: eine ungleichheitstheoretische Perspektive

'In diesem Beitrag werden körperliche Inszenierungen Jugendlicher und junger Erwachsener als Dimension kultureller Ungleichheit im Kontext von Clubs und Diskotheken betrachtet. Dieser Perspektive zufolge fungiert der subjektiv bearbeitete Körper als ein Kapital, das zur Steigerung der physischen Attraktivität beim Flirten auf dem Partnermarkt eingesetzt wird. Auf der Grundlage vorwiegend quantitativer Daten wird der von Bourdieu formulierten Hypothese nachgegangen, dass die Körperkultivierung klassenspezifisch variiert. Zudem werden Befunde von Bozon/ Héran überprüft, denen zufolge Tanzlokalitäten vorrangig von Angehörigen unterer sozialer Klassen zur Partnersuche genutzt werden. Schließlich wird gezeigt, wie soziale Ungleichheiten der Körperästhetiken und Umgangsweisen mit Musik einen im Aggregat systematisch segmentierten großstädtischen Club- und Diskothekenmarkt erzeugen.' (Autorenreferat)'This contribution views bodily presentations of adolescents and young adults as a dimension of cultural inequality in clubs and discotheques. According to this perspective the subjectively shaped body serves as a capital used to enhance physical attractiveness in flirtation situations with potential mating partners. The author primarily draws on quantitative data to assess Bourdieu's hypothesis that bodily cultures vary in terms of social class. He further examines findings of Bozon/ Héran who identified dance halls to be mating sites predominantly of the lower classes. Finally, the study shows how social inequalities in bodily aesthetics and practices of musical consumption produce a systematically segmented urban market of clubs and discotheques in Leipzig, Germany.' (author's abstract)

Urbanism as a Way of Life? Räumliche Variationen der Lebensführung in Deutschland

"Drei Positionen dominieren die Diskussion um großräumige Variationen der Lebensführung: Die These der Nivellierung von Stadt-Land-Unterschieden geht auf Wirths (1938) Annahme einer Diffusion urbaner Lebensweisen zurück. In der Stadt- und Regionalforschung ist die Ansicht verbreitet, dass der Stadt-Land-Kontrast heute von regionalen Disparitäten prosperierender und schrumpfender Räume überlagert wird. Fischer (1975) postuliert ein Fortbestehen der Stadt-Land-Differenz, da erst eine 'kritische Masse' räumlich konzentrierter Personen die Institutionalisierung unkonventioneller Kulturpraxen ermögliche. Diese Positionen empirisch zu untersuchen, ist das erste Anliegen der Verfasser. Dazu stützen sie sich auf eine standardisierte Bevölkerungsumfrage in ländlichen und großstädtischen Gemeinden in vier Bundesländern. Als Messinstrument verwenden die Verfasser die von Otte (2004) konzipierte Lebensführungstypologie, die sie - das ist ihr zweites Ziel - erstmals überregional replizieren und validieren. Die Performanz des Instruments ist insgesamt überzeugend, wenn auch in Ostdeutschland mit Vorbehalten. Inhaltlich zeigen sich - bei Kontrolle sozialstruktureller Kompositionsunterschiede - Tendenzen zu modernen, unkonventionellen Lebensführungsmustern in Großstädten und eine geringe Verbreitung statusgehobener Muster in Ostdeutschland." (Autorenreferat)"In his classic article Wirth (1938) asserted that urban ways of life would eventually spread into rural areas through enhanced mobility and communicative interconnectedness. This view is shared by many contemporary urban sociologists who claim that disparities in prosperity and shrinking regions have replaced the rural-urban continuum as the primary dimension of spatial inequality in Germany. According to Fischer's (1975) subcultural theory of urbanism, however, large cities will continue to produce and attract unconventional, nontraditional lifestyles due to a critical mass of like-minded people. In this paper, the authors test these hypotheses against rural-urban as well as regional variations in lifestyles using survey data randomly sampled from resident registration lists of rural and urban municipalities in four German states. As a measurement instrument they use Otte's (2004) lifestyle typology conceptualized along two dimensions: a level of living and a modernity/ biographical perspective. Replicating it supra-regionally for the first time, they provide evidence of its reliability and construct validity, albeit with some reservations for East Germany. In essence, inhabitants of large cities prove to be more modern, biographically open, and unconventional; East Germans tend to have a reduced level of high status patterns of living - even when differences in social structural composition are controlled for." (author's abstract

Post-Translational Inhibition of IP-10 Secretion in IEC by Probiotic Bacteria: Impact on Chronic Inflammation

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Mapping H4K20me3 onto the chromatin landscape of senescent cells indicates a function in control of cell senescence and tumor suppression through preservation of genetic and epigenetic stability

Background: Histone modification H4K20me3 and its methyltransferase SUV420H2 have been implicated in suppression of tumorigenesis. The underlying mechanism is unclear, although H4K20me3 abundance increases during cellular senescence, a stable proliferation arrest and tumor suppressor process, triggered by diverse molecular cues, including activated oncogenes. Here, we investigate the function of H4K20me3 in senescence and tumor suppression. Results: Using immunofluorescence and ChIP-seq we determine the distribution of H4K20me3 in proliferating and senescent human cells. Altered H4K20me3 in senescence is coupled to H4K16ac and DNA methylation changes in senescence. In senescent cells, H4K20me3 is especially enriched at DNA sequences contained within specialized domains of senescence-associated heterochromatin foci (SAHF), as well as specific families of non-genic and genic repeats. Altered H4K20me3 does not correlate strongly with changes in gene expression between proliferating and senescent cells; however, in senescent cells, but not proliferating cells, H4K20me3 enrichment at gene bodies correlates inversely with gene expression, reflecting de novo accumulation of H4K20me3 at repressed genes in senescent cells, including at genes also repressed in proliferating cells. Although elevated SUV420H2 upregulates H4K20me3, this does not accelerate senescence of primary human cells. However, elevated SUV420H2/H4K20me3 reinforces oncogene-induced senescence-associated proliferation arrest and slows tumorigenesis in vivo. Conclusions: These results corroborate a role for chromatin in underpinning the senescence phenotype but do not support a major role for H4K20me3 in initiation of senescence. Rather, we speculate that H4K20me3 plays a role in heterochromatinization and stabilization of the epigenome and genome of pre-malignant, oncogene-expressing senescent cells, thereby suppressing epigenetic and genetic instability and contributing to long-term senescence-mediated tumor suppression