Technischer Staat und neue soziale Kontrolle: nur Mythen der Soziologie?

In seinem Vortrag unternimmt der Autor "den mutigen und provokanten Versuch einer empirischen Antwort auf die Frage, ob die Entwicklung zum technischen Staat insofern eingetreten ist, als er eine Intensivierung und Technisierung der sozialen Kontrolle betrieben hat, die den Schreckensvisionen einer totalen Kontrolle durch den Staat entspricht". Eine vergleichende Analyse von Herrschaftsstrukturen führt zu dem Ergebnis, daß von keiner Totalisierung sozialer Kontrolle geredet werden kann: "Technischer Staat - im großen und ganzen: Mythos der Soziologie! Neue soziale Kontrolle: gesellschaftliche Wirklichkeit, wenn man dem Begriff einen anderen Sinn gibt." (psz

Handlungsintentionen und -folgen

Der Verfasser behandelt Handlungsintentionen und Handlungsfolgen von einem komplexen Ansatz aus, der neben 'begründetem Handeln' auch nicht-intentionales 'verursachtes Verhalten', neben beabsichtigten Handlungsfolgen und -zielen auch nicht-beabsichtigte Handlungsfolgen berücksichtigt. Er referiert die Aussagen der analytischen Handlungsphilosophie zum Problem der Handlungsverursachung und diskutiert den Stellenwert von Freiheit und Determinismus in der Handlungsbestimmung. Die Behandlung des Problemkreises 'Handlungsfolgen' konzentriert sich auf die theoretische Erfassung unbeabsichtigter Handlungsfolgen in der Soziologie von Ferguson bis Merton und Boudon, wobei der Bedeutung von 'handlungsbegründendem Wissen' besondere Aufmerksamkeit gewidmet wird. (WZ

Degree of Actinic Elastosis Is a Surrogate of Exposure to Chronic Ultraviolet Radiation and Correlates More Strongly with Cutaneous Squamous Cell Carcinoma than Basal Cell Carcinoma

(1) Background: Keratinocyte cancer (KC) is associated with exposure to ultraviolet (UV) radiation. However, data are controversial as to whether chronic UV exposure or high intermittent UV exposure are key drivers of carcinogenesis in cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (cSCC) and basal cell carcinoma (BCC). Prolonged sun exposure of the skin causes photo-aging, which is associated with actinic elastosis, a condition characterized by the degeneration of elastin in the upper dermis, which is assessable via conventional histology. In this study, we aimed to compare the degree of actinic elastosis in different types of KC with regard to various patient characteristics. (2) Methods: We defined a semiquantitative score for the degree of actinic elastosis ranging from 0 = none to 3 = total loss of elastic fibers (basophilic degeneration). The extent was measured histometrically by two independent dermatohistopathologists in the immediate vicinity of 353 KC. The scores were merged and matched with tumor types (cSCC and BCC with subtypes), and clinical variables such as body site, sex and age. (3) Results: As expected, the degree of actinic elastosis correlated with age. However, it was significantly higher in cSCC compared to BCC irrespective of age, sex, body site and tumor subtypes. (4): Conclusions: Lifetime sun exposure may be estimated via routine histology using this scoring technique for actinic elastosis as a surrogate marker. cSCCs are more strongly associated with chronic UV exposure than BCCs, even in sun-exposed localizations such as the face

Potential Use of Gluconate in Cancer Therapy

We have recently discovered that cancer cells take up extracellular citrate through plasma membrane citrate transporter (pmCiC) and advantageously use citrate for their metabolism. Citrate uptake can be blocked with gluconate and this results in decreased tumor growth and altered metabolic characteristics of tumor tissue. Interestingly, gluconate, considered to be physiologically neutral, is incidentally used in medicine as a cation carrier, but not as a therapeutically active substance. In this review we discuss the results of our recent research with available literature and suggest that gluconate may be useful in the treatment of cancer

External validation of biomarkers for immune-related adverse events after immune checkpoint inhibition

Immune checkpoint inhibitors have revolutionized treatment of advanced melanoma, but commonly cause serious immune-mediated complications. The clinical ambition of reserving more aggressive therapies for patients least likely to experience immune-related adverse events (irAE) has driven an extensive search for predictive biomarkers. Here, we externally validate the performance of 59 previously reported markers of irAE risk in a new cohort of 110 patients receiving Nivolumab (anti-PD1) and Ipilimumab (anti-CTLA-4) therapy. Alone or combined, the discriminatory value of these routine clinical parameters and flow cytometry biomarkers was poor. Unsupervised clustering of flow cytometry data returned four T cell subsets with higher discriminatory capacity for colitis than previously reported populations, but they cannot be considered as reliable classifiers. Although mechanisms predisposing some patients to particular irAEs have been described, we are presently unable to capture adequate information from pre-therapy flow cytometry and clinical data to reliably predict risk of irAE in most cases

“Hot standards” for the thermoacidophilic archaeon Sulfolobus solfataricus

Within the archaea, the thermoacidophilic crenarchaeote Sulfolobus solfataricus has become an important model organism for physiology and biochemistry, comparative and functional genomics, as well as, more recently also for systems biology approaches. Within the Sulfolobus Systems Biology (“SulfoSYS”)-project the effect of changing growth temperatures on a metabolic network is investigated at the systems level by integrating genomic, transcriptomic, proteomic, metabolomic and enzymatic information for production of a silicon cell-model. The network under investigation is the central carbohydrate metabolism. The generation of high-quality quantitative data, which is critical for the investigation of biological systems and the successful integration of the different datasets, derived for example from high-throughput approaches (e.g., transcriptome or proteome analyses), requires the application and compliance of uniform standard protocols, e.g., for growth and handling of the organism as well as the “–omics” approaches. Here, we report on the establishment and implementation of standard operating procedures for the different wet-lab and in silico techniques that are applied within the SulfoSYS-project and that we believe can be useful for future projects on Sulfolobus or (hyper)thermophiles in general. Beside established techniques, it includes new methodologies like strain surveillance, the improved identification of membrane proteins and the application of crenarchaeal metabolomics