Die Problematik des Pauschalurteils

Klaus P. Hansen betont in seinem Beitrag über die "Problematik des Pauschalurteils", dass sich Verallgemeinerungen über ein Kollektiv nur auf die partiellen Gemeinsamkeiten dieser Gruppe, nicht aber auf Individuen beziehen dürfen. Der Kulturtheoretiker erinnert an die menschliche Multikollektivität, plädiert für eine dichte Zuschreibung beobachteter Merkmale zu einzelnen Gruppenmitgliedschaften und entwirft eine Typologie unterschiedlicher Kollektivformen. Nationen konzipiert er als Dachkollektive mit homogenem Überbau und polykollektiver Basis. Kulturwissenschaftler müssen diese Ebenen sorgfältig unterscheiden, um zulässige Pauschalurteile fällen zu können.Cultural anthropologists define culture as the habits which constitute a group or collective. By means of what epistemological instruments might researchers describe these habits and thus gain insight into the collective? The only way is to pass generalizing statements and resort to stereotypes. The romantic poet William Blake, however, maintained that "to generalize is to be an idiot". If this is true, all academics working in the field of culture are feeble-minded. On the other hand, Blake's maxim is also a generalization, if not a sweeping statement. Nevertheless, we should take it as a warning and realize that there are valid generalizations as well as invalid ones. Often enough the question of validity depends on the kind of collective which is under scrutiny. Therefore, when analyzing the culture of collectives one should be aware first of the kind of collective and second of the kind of general statement one is using

Interkulturelle Tragik: Jürgen Klinsmann über Amerika

Jürgen Kliensmann liebt seine neue Heimat, die USA, doch wenn er sich über sie äußert, benutzt er all die Stereotype, die er aus Deutschland mitbrachte.The famous soccer coach Jürgen Klinsmann emigrated to the US and settled in California. During a recent talk show on German TV he judged his new home country in a strange way

Zulässige und unzulässige Komplexitätsreduktion beim Kulturträger Nation

Klaus P. Hansen widmet sich dem Kollektiv Nation. Er zeigt, dass nicht die oft unterstellte Homogenität diese zusammenhält, sondern vielmehr kollektive Mehrfachzugehörigkeiten oder "Polykollektivität". Hansen veranschaulicht wie Interaktionsregeln und Institutionen den Kollektiven Kohäsion verleihen und wie sie in präkollektiven und pankollektiven Zusammenhängen funktionieren. Auf Grundlage dieser Prozesse können Nationen letztlich als Unikatskonglomerate analysiert werden.Once again the question is raised, what is a nation? It is not as usually is taken for granted a homogenous object. This incorrect premise is of venerable age, but strongly cherished today by the bulk of interculturalists. It is high time to discard this premise. This does not mean, however, that we have to do without the concept of nation. Without doubt a nation is an object of distinctiveness and singularity. But how might it be described? The article offers suggestions how it could be done

Zulässige und unzulässige Komplexitätsreduktion beim Kulturträger Nation

Klaus P. Hansen widmet sich dem Kollektiv Nation. Er zeigt, dass nicht die oft unterstellte Homogenität diese zusammenhält, sondern vielmehr kollektive Mehrfachzugehörigkeiten oder "Polykollektivität". Hansen veranschaulicht wie Interaktionsregeln und Institutionen den Kollektiven Kohäsion verleihen und wie sie in präkollektiven und pankollektiven Zusammenhängen funktionieren. Auf Grundlage dieser Prozesse können Nationen letztlich als Unikatskonglomerate analysiert werden.Once again the question is raised, what is a nation? It is not as usually is taken for granted a homogenous object. This incorrect premise is of venerable age, but strongly cherished today by the bulk of interculturalists. It is high time to discard this premise. This does not mean, however, that we have to do without the concept of nation. Without doubt a nation is an object of distinctiveness and singularity. But how might it be described? The article offers suggestions how it could be done

Diagnostic stability among chronic patients with functional psychoses: an epidemiological and clinical study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Diagnostic stability and illness course of chronic non-organic psychoses are complex phenomena and only few risk factors or predictors are known that can be used reliably. This study investigates the diagnostic stability during the entire course of illness in patients with non-organic psychoses and attempts to identify non-psychopathological risk factors or predictors.</p> <p>Method</p> <p>100 patients with functional psychosis were initially characterised using the Operational Criteria Checklist for Psychotic Illness and Affective Illness (OPCRIT), medical records and health registers. To study the stability of diagnoses (i.e. shifts per time), we used registry data to define four measures of diagnostic variation that were subsequently examined in relation to four possible measures of time (i.e. observation periods or hospitalisation events). Afterwards, we identified putative co-variables and predictors of the best measures of diagnostic stability.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>All four measures of diagnostic variation are very strongly associated with numbers-of-hospitalisations and less so with duration-of-illness, duration-of-hospitalisation and with year-of-first-admission. The four measures of diagnostic variation corrected for numbers-of-hospitalisations were therefore used to study the diagnostic stability. Conventional predictors of illness course – e.g. age-of-onset and premorbid-functioning – are not significantly associated with stability. Only somatic-comorbidity is significantly associated with two measures of stability, while family-history-of-psychiatric-illness and global-assessment-of-functioning (GAF) scale score show a trend. However, the traditional variables age-of-first-admission, civil-status, first-diagnosis-being-schizophrenia and somatic-comorbidity are able to explain two-fifth of the variation in numbers-of-hospitalisations.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Diagnostic stability is closely linked with the contact between patient and the healthcare system. This could very likely be due to fluctuation of disease manifestation over time or presence of co-morbid psychiatric illness in combination with rigid diagnostic criteria that are unable to capture the multiple psychopathologies of the functional psychoses that results in differential diagnoses and therefore diagnostic instability. Not surprisingly, somatic-comorbidity was found to be a predictor of diagnostic variation thereby being a non-psychiatric confounder.</p

On the coupling between molecular diffusion and solvation shell exchange

The connection between diffusion and solvent exchanges between first and second solvation shells is studied by means of molecular dynamics simulations and analytic calculations, with detailed illustrations for water exchange for the Li+ and Na+ ions, and for liquid argon. First, two methods are proposed which allow, by means of simulation, to extract the quantitative speed-up in diffusion induced by the exchange events. Second, it is shown by simple kinematic considerations that the instantaneous velocity of the solute conditions to a considerable extent the character of the exchanges. Analytic formulas are derived which quantitatively estimate this effect, and which are of general applicability to molecular diffusion in any thermal fluid. Despite the simplicity of the kinematic considerations, they are shown to well describe many aspects of solvent exchange/diffusion coupling features for nontrivial systems

Global gene expression profiling of brown to white adipose tissue transformation in sheep reveals novel transcriptional components linked to adipose remodeling

BACKGROUND: Large mammals are capable of thermoregulation shortly after birth due to the presence of brown adipose tissue (BAT). The majority of BAT disappears after birth and is replaced by white adipose tissue (WAT). RESULTS: We analyzed the postnatal transformation of adipose in sheep with a time course study of the perirenal adipose depot. We observed changes in tissue morphology, gene expression and metabolism within the first two weeks of postnatal life consistent with the expected transition from BAT to WAT. The transformation was characterized by massively decreased mitochondrial abundance and down-regulation of gene expression related to mitochondrial function and oxidative phosphorylation. Global gene expression profiling demonstrated that the time points grouped into three phases: a brown adipose phase, a transition phase and a white adipose phase. Between the brown adipose and the transition phase 170 genes were differentially expressed, and 717 genes were differentially expressed between the transition and the white adipose phase. Thirty-eight genes were shared among the two sets of differentially expressed genes. We identified a number of regulated transcription factors, including NR1H3, MYC, KLF4, ESR1, RELA and BCL6, which were linked to the overall changes in gene expression during the adipose tissue remodeling. Finally, the perirenal adipose tissue expressed both brown and brite/beige adipocyte marker genes at birth, the expression of which changed substantially over time. CONCLUSIONS: Using global gene expression profiling of the postnatal BAT to WAT transformation in sheep, we provide novel insight into adipose tissue plasticity in a large mammal, including identification of novel transcriptional components linked to adipose tissue remodeling. Moreover, our data set provides a useful resource for further studies in adipose tissue plasticity. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12864-015-1405-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users

Decoherence of matter waves by thermal emission of radiation

Emergent quantum technologies have led to increasing interest in decoherence - the processes that limit the appearance of quantum effects and turn them into classical phenomena. One important cause of decoherence is the interaction of a quantum system with its environment, which 'entangles' the two and distributes the quantum coherence over so many degrees of freedom as to render it unobservable. Decoherence theory has been complemented by experiments using matter waves coupled to external photons or molecules, and by investigations using coherent photon states, trapped ions and electron interferometers. Large molecules are particularly suitable for the investigation of the quantum-classical transition because they can store much energy in numerous internal degrees of freedom; the internal energy can be converted into thermal radiation and thus induce decoherence. Here we report matter wave interferometer experiments in which C70 molecules lose their quantum behaviour by thermal emission of radiation. We find good quantitative agreement between our experimental observations and microscopic decoherence theory. Decoherence by emission of thermal radiation is a general mechanism that should be relevant to all macroscopic bodies.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure