Technical Note: Weight approximation of coccoliths using a circular polarizer and interference colour derived retardation estimates – (The CPR Method)

A circular polarizer is used for the first time to image coccoliths without the extinction pattern of crossed polarized light at maximum interference colour. The combination of a circular polarizer with retardation measurements based on grey values derived from theoretical calculations allows for the first time accurate calculations of the weight of single coccoliths thinner than 1.37 μm. The weight estimates of 364 Holocene coccoliths using this new method are in good agreement with published volumetric estimates. A robust calibration method based on the measurement of a calibration target of known retardation enables the comparison of data between different imaging systems. Therefore, the new method overcomes the shortcomings of the error prone empirical calibration procedure of a previously reported method based on birefringence of calcite. Furthermore, it greatly simplifies the identification of coccolithophore species on the light microscope as well as the calculation of the area and thus weight of a coccolith

West Germany\u27s Ostpolitik and Relations with the United States Under Willy Brandt, Helmut Schmidt, and Helmut Kohl

Many questions arose during the late 1970s and early 1980s about the reliability of West Germany\u27s relationship with the United States. This thesis was written to examine the relationship between the United States and West Germany during the post-war years, especially during the Chancellorships of Willy Brandt, Helmut Schmidt, and Helmut Kohl. The initial phase of U.S.-FRG relations was marked with a great deal of harmony between the two countries. The United States placed a great deal of emphasis on West Germany as part of its evolving containment of communism strategy. The FRG was recognized as a nation in 1949 and integrated into NATO in 1955. During the late 1960s under West Germany\u27s Grand Coalition, a slow but steady move toward an Ostpolitik with the East led to tension. A major turning point was the 1968-69 elections of Richard Nixon and Willy Brandt. The initial phase of West Germany\u27s Ostpolitik was part of a global detente between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. Bonn negotiated treaties with the Soviet Union and Poland in 1970, which led the way to a Four-Power Agreement over the status of Berlin signed in 1971. As global detente waned in the mid-1970s, relations between the two allies became more difficult. America\u27s involvement in Vietnam, American troops in Europe, and the Year of Europe as called for by Henry Kissinger caused minor irritations. However, with the signing of the new Atlantic Declaration in 1974 and the Helsinki Accords in 1975, harmonious relations were once again restored. Increasing tension became evident during the late 1970s. With the decline of global detente and the eventual Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the United States began to feel that the policy of linkage and detente had failed. The FRG desired to maintain detente as part of its Ostpolitik, as it had witnessed concrete benefits in relations with the East. As the policy of the United States shifted more to one of confrontation and containment, the FRG found itself increasingly at odds with its Atlantic partner. Several issues caused the Alliance partners extreme difficulty during the early 1980s. NATO\u27s 1979 two-track agreement to explore arms-control agreements with the Soviet Union while at the same time deploying modernized Cruise and Pershing II missiles caused trans-Atlantic relations a great deal of strain. Hundreds of thousands of Europeans protested the stationing and the U.S. feared that West Germany would not be able to live up to its end of the agreement. This split in the FRG was so large that even the SPD, after being voted out of office in 1982, voted against missile deployment. The issue of trade with the Eastern bloc became an issue between the two countries, as President Reagan imposed sanctions to cancel the Siberian natural gas pipeline between the Soviet Union and Western Europe. The FRG\u27s response to the imposition of martial law in Poland and its improving relationship with East Germany led some American observers to question West Germany\u27s reliability as a NATO ally. They feared a neutralized or self-Finlandized West Germany caught between East and West. While on the surface there appears to be many disagreements between the two Atlantic partners, when one analyzes the post-war relationship there is actually a great deal of unity. The basis for this unity is the common interest of the two countries to withstand the threat of the Soviet Union. After examining each country\u27s views on the East-West conflict, the importance of detente, the role and structure of defense, the role of each country in the Alliance, and economic relations between the East and each other, it is clear that West Germany is still a reliable partner in the Atlantic Alliance. While the FRG has increasingly voiced its views on major issues within the Alliance, and while those views are not always in agreement with the United States, West Germany is not on the road to neutralism or self-Finlandization

West Germany\u27s Ostpolitik and Relations with the United States Under Willy Brandt, Helmut Schmidt, and Helmut Kohl

Many questions arose during the late 1970s and early 1980s about the reliability of West Germany\u27s relationship with the United States. This thesis was written to examine the relationship between the United States and West Germany during the post-war years, especially during the Chancellorships of Willy Brandt, Helmut Schmidt, and Helmut Kohl. The initial phase of U.S.-FRG relations was marked with a great deal of harmony between the two countries. The United States placed a great deal of emphasis on West Germany as part of its evolving containment of communism strategy. The FRG was recognized as a nation in 1949 and integrated into NATO in 1955. During the late 1960s under West Germany\u27s Grand Coalition, a slow but steady move toward an Ostpolitik with the East led to tension. A major turning point was the 1968-69 elections of Richard Nixon and Willy Brandt. The initial phase of West Germany\u27s Ostpolitik was part of a global detente between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. Bonn negotiated treaties with the Soviet Union and Poland in 1970, which led the way to a Four-Power Agreement over the status of Berlin signed in 1971. As global detente waned in the mid-1970s, relations between the two allies became more difficult. America\u27s involvement in Vietnam, American troops in Europe, and the Year of Europe as called for by Henry Kissinger caused minor irritations. However, with the signing of the new Atlantic Declaration in 1974 and the Helsinki Accords in 1975, harmonious relations were once again restored. Increasing tension became evident during the late 1970s. With the decline of global detente and the eventual Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the United States began to feel that the policy of linkage and detente had failed. The FRG desired to maintain detente as part of its Ostpolitik, as it had witnessed concrete benefits in relations with the East. As the policy of the United States shifted more to one of confrontation and containment, the FRG found itself increasingly at odds with its Atlantic partner. Several issues caused the Alliance partners extreme difficulty during the early 1980s. NATO\u27s 1979 two-track agreement to explore arms-control agreements with the Soviet Union while at the same time deploying modernized Cruise and Pershing II missiles caused trans-Atlantic relations a great deal of strain. Hundreds of thousands of Europeans protested the stationing and the U.S. feared that West Germany would not be able to live up to its end of the agreement. This split in the FRG was so large that even the SPD, after being voted out of office in 1982, voted against missile deployment. The issue of trade with the Eastern bloc became an issue between the two countries, as President Reagan imposed sanctions to cancel the Siberian natural gas pipeline between the Soviet Union and Western Europe. The FRG\u27s response to the imposition of martial law in Poland and its improving relationship with East Germany led some American observers to question West Germany\u27s reliability as a NATO ally. They feared a neutralized or self-Finlandized West Germany caught between East and West. While on the surface there appears to be many disagreements between the two Atlantic partners, when one analyzes the post-war relationship there is actually a great deal of unity. The basis for this unity is the common interest of the two countries to withstand the threat of the Soviet Union. After examining each country\u27s views on the East-West conflict, the importance of detente, the role and structure of defense, the role of each country in the Alliance, and economic relations between the East and each other, it is clear that West Germany is still a reliable partner in the Atlantic Alliance. While the FRG has increasingly voiced its views on major issues within the Alliance, and while those views are not always in agreement with the United States, West Germany is not on the road to neutralism or self-Finlandization

Determining the energetics of vicinal perovskite oxide surfaces

The energetics of vicinal SrTiO$_3$(001) and DyScO$_3$(110), prototypical perovskite vicinal surfaces, has been studied using topographic atomic force microscopy imaging. The kink formation and strain relaxation energies are extracted from a statistical analysis of the step meandering. Both perovskite surfaces have very similar kink formation energies and exhibit a similar triangular step undulation. Our experiments suggest that the energetics of perovskite oxide surfaces is mainly governed by the local oxygen coordination.Comment: 16 pages, 4 figure

Imaging Pulsed Laser Deposition oxide growth by in-situ Atomic Force Microscopy

To visualize the topography of thin oxide films during growth, thereby enabling to study its growth behavior quasi real-time, we have designed and integrated an atomic force microscope (AFM) in a pulsed laser deposition (PLD) vacuum setup. The AFM scanner and PLD target are integrated in a single support frame, combined with a fast sample transfer method, such that in-situ microscopy can be utilized after subsequent deposition pulses. The in-situ microscope can be operated from room temperature (RT) up to 700$^\circ$C and at (process) pressures ranging from the vacuum base pressure of 10$^{-6}$ mbar up to 1 mbar, typical PLD conditions for the growth of oxide films. The performance of this instrument is demonstrated by resolving unit cell height surface steps and surface topography under typical oxide PLD growth conditions.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figure

Multiple CSLs for the body centered cubic lattice

Ordinary Coincidence Site Lattices (CSLs) are defined as the intersection of a lattice $\Gamma$ with a rotated copy $R\Gamma$ of itself. They are useful for classifying grain boundaries and have been studied extensively since the mid sixties. Recently the interests turned to so-called multiple CSLs, i.e. intersections of $n$ rotated copies of a given lattice $\Gamma$, in particular in connection with lattice quantizers. Here we consider multiple CSLs for the 3-dimensional body centered cubic lattice. We discuss the spectrum of coincidence indices and their multiplicity, in particular we show that the latter is a multiplicative function and give an explicit expression of it for some special cases.Comment: 4 pages, SSPCM (31 August - 7 September 2005, Myczkowce, Poland

Bilateral Ureteral Stenosis with Hydronephrosis as First Manifestation of Granulomatosis with Polyangiitis (Wegener's Granulomatosis): A Case Report and Review of the Literature.

Ureteral stenosis is a rare manifestation of granulomatosis with polyangiitis (formerly known as Wegener's granulomatosis). We report the case of a 76-year-old woman with progressive renal failure in which bilateral hydronephrosis due to ureteral stenosis was the first manifestation of the disease. Our patient also had renal involvement with pauci-immune crescentic glomerulonephritis associated with high titers of anti-proteinase 3 c-ANCAs, but no involvement of the upper or lower respiratory tract. The hydronephrosis and renal function rapidly improved under immunosuppressive therapy with high-dose corticosteroids and intravenous pulse cyclophosphamide. We reviewed the literature and found only ten other reported cases of granulomatosis with polyangiitis/Wegener's granulomatosis and intrinsic ureteral stenosis: in two cases, the presenting clinical manifestation was unilateral hydronephrosis and in only two others was the hydronephrosis bilateral, but this complication developed during a relapse of the disease. This case emphasizes the importance of including ANCA-related vasculitis in the differential diagnosis of unusual cases of unilateral or bilateral ureteral stenosis

Differential associations of personal and general just-world beliefs with the Five-Factor and HEXACO models of personality.

Recent literature evidences differential associations of personal and general just-world beliefs with constructs in the interpersonal domain. In line with this research, we examine the respective relationships of each just-world belief with the Five-Factor and the HEXACO models of personality in one representative sample of the working population of Switzerland and one sample of the general US population, respectively. One suppressor effect was observed in both samples: Neuroticism and emotionality was positively associated with general just-world belief, but only after controlling for personal just-world belief. In addition, agreeableness was positively and honesty-humility negatively associated with general just-world belief but unrelated to personal just-world belief. Conscientiousness was consistently unrelated to any of the just-world belief and extraversion and openness to experience revealed unstable coefficients across studies. We discuss these points in light of just-world theory and their implications for future research taking both dimensions into account

Lifshitz transition in the phase diagram of two-leg tt-JJ ladder systems at low filling

We use a combination of numerical matrix product states (MPS) and analytical approaches to investigate the phase diagram of the two-leg $t$-$J$ ladder in the region of low to intermediate fillings. We choose the same coupling strength along the leg- and rung-directions, but study the effect of adding a nearest-neighbor repulsion $V$. We observe a rich phase diagram and analytically identify a Lifshitz-like band filling transition, which can be associated to a numerically observed crossover from s-wave to d-wave like superconducting quasi-long range order (QLRO). Due to the strong interactions, the Lifshitz transition is smeared into a crossover region which separates two distinct Luttinger theories with unequal physical meaning of the Luttinger parameter. Our numerically exact MPS results spotlight deviations from standard Luttinger theory in this crossover region and is consistent with Luttinger theory sufficiently far away from the Lifshitz transition. At very low fillings, studying the Friedel-like oscillations of the local density identifies a precursor region to a Wigner crystal at small values of the magnetic exchange interaction $J/t$. We discuss analytically how tuning parameters at these fillings modifies the phase diagram, and find good agreement with MPS results.Comment: 14 pages, 4 appendices, 17 figure

A new simplified clarification approach for lentiviral vectors using diatomaceous earth improves throughput and safe handling

Lentiviral vectors have proven their great potential to serve as a DNA delivery tool for gene modified cell therapy and gene therapy applications. The downstream processing of these vectors is however still a great challenge, particularly because of the low stability of the virus. Harvesting and clarification are critical and until now insufficiently characterized steps for lentivirus processing. To address this bottleneck, we analyzed whether lentiviral vectors produced by transient transfection of HEK293 T/17 SF suspension cells can be efficiently clarified with a lab-scale method with the filter aid diatomaceous earth (DE) and bioburden reducing membrane filters achieving high lentivirus recoveries. Using a design of experiment approach we found that higher DE concentrations are advantageous for a higher turbidity reduction and shorter filtration times, but at the same time LV titer decreases with increasing DE concentration. A DE concentration of 9 g/L was identified with a DoE as a robust set-point. Clarification with DE was compared with for lab-scale traditionally employed centrifugation and subsequent bioburden reduction filtration of viral vectors. The use of DE allows to perform a harvest and clarification process, which does not only facilitate faster and safer virus handling, but enables a lower material consumption due to the extremely increased filter capacity, thus representing an efficient and robust lab-scale clarification process