Das Bild des römischen Staates in Ciceros philosophischen Schriften

Die vorliegende Dissertation hat zum Ziel, das von Cicero in seinen philosophischen Schriften beschriebene Bild des römischen Staates nachzuzeichnen. Obwohl nämlich Cicero Politik und Recht in eigenen Schriften, De re publica und De legibus, behandelt, setzt er sich auch in den rein philosophisch-theoretischen Schriften mit zahlreichen politischen Themen auseinander. Eingehende Untersuchungen zu Ciceros politischen Auffassungen in seinen philosophischen Schriften gibt es in der umfangreichen Cicero-Forschung bis heute nicht. Bisher hat man sich dort auf die Untersuchung des politischen Verhältnisses zwischen Cicero und Caesar und auf die prosopographische Analyse der Dialogpartner beschränkt. Deshalb ist eine erneute Untersuchung zu rechtfertigen, die nicht nur die damaligen, aktuellen tagespolitischen Bezüge zu ermitteln versucht, sondern allgemein das Verhältnis zwischen politischen Vorstellungen, der einschlägigen Argumentationskunst, die Cicero in seinen Reden auf dem Forum aktiv beherrschte, und den philosophischen Leitgedanken herauszuarbeiten versucht. Zur Beantwortung der Frage, auf welche Weise und warum Cicero seine politischen Vorstellungen auch in seine philosophischen Schriften einbringt, werden folgende Analysen durchgeführt: 1) Politiker und Nicht-Politiker als Dialogteilnehmer, 2) Explizite Aussagen über Politik und politisches Engagement, 3) Verwendung historischer und politischer Beispiele in den Dialogen, 4) Römische moralische Wertbegriffe. Hier ergibt sich, daß Politik und Philosophie bei Cicero in besonderer Weise verbunden sind. Cicero verdeutlicht römische Staatsideale und die idealen Handlungsperspektiven der römischen Politik meist durch exempla maiorum, welche zugleich gerade das spezifisch Römische ausmachen. Hauptergebnisse der obengenannten Analysen sind folgende: Cicero nutzt gerade in seinen vor dem Tod Caesars und unter hohem politischen Druck verfaßten, scheinbar rein philosophischen Schriften die philosophische Diskussion sowie die exempla-Verwendung, um mächtige Staatsfeinde\213und zwar nicht nur aktive wie Caesar und dessen Unterstützer, sondern auch passive korrupte Politiker, die ihre Skepsis gegen diese Staatsfeinde unterdrücken\213indirekt, aber effektiv zu kritisieren. Dabei stellt er eine Beziehung zwischen Erkenntnistheorie und rechter Staatskunst her: Er propagiert also nicht nur einen philosophischen, sondern auch einen politischen Skeptizismus. Ferner läßt sich feststellen, daß der politische Hintergrund die Bestimmung des Zeitpunkts in der jeweiligen Schrift und deren Form, Dialog oder Monolog, beeinflußt. Nach dem Tod Caesars behandeln die philosophica, die Cicero nach seiner Rückkehr nach Rom verfaßt hat, plötzlich realpolitische und soziale Themen. Darüber hinaus stellt Cicero durch die Monologform seine eigene Person in den Vordergrund. Dabei spielt der sapiens, der in den früheren Schriften heftig kritisiert worden ist, die Hauptrolle, und wird in positiver Weise als Autorität dargestellt. In den letzten drei Werken ist Ciceros Wille zu erkennen, sich im Rom als einziger wirklicher sapiens in der Politik zu betätigen, politische Freunde, Optimaten sowie alle viri boni zu vereinigen und eine neue res publica wiederherzustellen. Schließlich führt er sein Ideal des pro patria mori mit seiner Redetätigkeit in seinen Philippica aus, ein Ideal, an das er durch exempla maiorum in seinen philosophica immer wieder appelliert hat, und stellt sich so selbst in die Reihe der römischen Weisen, die sich in beispielhafter Weise für den Staat eingesetzt hatten

Quantum memory for squeezed light

We produce a 600-ns pulse of 1.86-dB squeezed vacuum at 795 nm in an optical parametric amplifier and store it in a rubidium vapor cell for 1 us using electromagnetically induced transparency. The recovered pulse, analyzed using time-domain homodyne tomography, exhibits up to 0.21+-0.04 dB of squeezing. We identify the factors leading to the degradation of squeezing and investigate the phase evolution of the atomic coherence during the storage interval.Comment: To appear in PRL. Changes to version 3: we present a larger data set featuring somewhat less squeezing, but also better statistics and a lower margin of error. Some additional revisions are made in response to the referees' comment

Real-time displacement and tilt analysis by a speckle technique using Bi12SiO20-crystals

Storage of speckle pattern in real time by means of Bi12SiO20-crystals will be reported. Applying the double exposure technique, deformations, displacements as well as tilts can be analysed. The novel speckle technique displays the Young-interference fringes in quasi real time

Holography and speckle techniques for real time displacement deformation and vibration analysis

Holographic interferometry and speckle application are powerful techniques for deformation, displacement and vibration analysis especially when they can be applied in real time. Bismuth Silicon Oxide crystals Bi12SiO20 (BSO) were used for real-time deformation, displacement and vibration analysis using holography and "speckle photography". After a short introduction of holographic interferometry for deformation measurement using BSO crystals, speckle applications for deformation, displacement and vibration analysis in real time will be discussed

Aharonov-Bohm scattering of charged particles and neutral atoms: the role of absorption

The Aharonov-Bohm scattering of charged particles by the magnetic field of an infinitely long and infinitely thin solenoid (magnetic string) in an absorbing medium is studied. We discuss the partial-wave approach to this problem and show that standard partial-wave method can be adjusted to this case. The effect of absorption leads to oscillations of the AB cross section. Based on this we investigate the scattering of neutral atoms with induced electric dipole moments by a charge wire of finite radius which is placed in an uniform magnetic field. The physical realistic and practically important case that all atoms which collide with the wire are totally absorbed at its surface, is studied in detail. The dominating terms of the scattering amplitude are evaluated analytically for different physical constellations. The rest terms are written in a form suitable for a numerical computation. We show that if the magnetic field is absent, the absorbing charged wire causes oscillations of the cross section. In the presence of the magnetic field the cross section increases and the dominating Aharonov--Bohm peak appears in the forward direction, suppressing the oscillations.Comment: 15 pages, LaTeXfile, 2 figure

Influence of information technology on homeland security

The modern world is a complexly organized system, a space of global information technologies (IT). Information today is the main determinant of society, and the rapid development of IT, which penetrate into all spheres of our life, opens up completely new opportunities for social progress, as well as certain problems and challenges. Since information technologies are widely used in business, politics, and national development, they have become an attractive target for hacker attacks; as well as a very powerful tool which can threaten state's national security. This paper examines the issue of information technology and its role in homeland security protection, as well as the key problems associated with increasing their influence in the world

Psychological risk and protective factors for disability in chronic low back pain - a longitudinal analysis in primary care

Background: Utilizing psychological resources when dealing with chronic low back pain might aid the prevention of disability. The observational study at hand examined the longitudinal impact of resilience and coping resources on disability in addition to established risk factors. Methods: Four hundred eighty four patients with chronic low back pain (>3 months) were recruited in primary care practices and followed up for one year. Resilience, coping, depression, somatization, pain and demographic variables were measured at baseline. At follow-up (participation rate 89%), data on disability was collected. We first calculated bivariate correlations of all the predictors with each other and with follow-up disability. We then used a multiple regression to evaluate the impact of all the predictors on disability together. Results: More than half of the followed up sample showed a high degree of disability at baseline (53.7%) and had suffered for more than 10 years from pain (50.4%). Besides gender all of the predictors were bivariately associated with follow-up disability. However in the main analysis (multiple regression), disability at follow up was only predicted by baseline disability, age and somatization. There was no relationship between resilience and disability, nor between coping resources and disability. Conclusions: Although it is known that there are cross-sectional relationships between resilience/coping resources and disability we were not able to replicate it in the multiple regression. This can have several reasons: a) the majority of patients in our sample were much more disabled and suffered for a longer time than in other studies. Therefore our results might be limited to this specific population and resilience and coping resources might still have a protective influence in acute or subacute populations. b) We used a rather broad operationalization of resilience. There is emerging evidence that focusing on more concrete sub facets like (pain) self-efficacy and acceptance might be more beneficial

Adjuvant Radiotherapy in Patients with Squamous Cell Carcinoma of the Oral Cavity or Oropharynx and Solitary Ipsilateral Lymph Node Metastasis (pN1) : A Prospective Multicentric Cohort Study

(1) Background: Evaluation of impact of adjuvant radiation therapy (RT) in patients with oral squamous cell carcinoma of the oral cavity/oropharynx (OSCC) of up to 4 cm (pT1/pT2) and solitary ipsilateral lymph node metastasis (pN1). A non-irradiated group with clinical follow-up was chosen for control, and survival and quality of life (QL) were compared; (2) Methods: This prospective multicentric comprehensive cohort study included patients with resected OSCC (pT1/pT2, pN1, and cM0) who were allocated into adjuvant radiation therapy (RT) or observation. The primary endpoint was overall survival. Secondary endpoints were progression-free survival and QL after surgery; (3) Results: Out of 27 centers, 209 patients were enrolled with a median follow-up of 3.4 years. An amount of 137 patients were in the observation arm, and 72 received adjuvant irradiation. Overall survival did not differ between groups (hazard ratio (HR) 0.98 [0.55–1.73], p = 0.94). There were fewer neck metastases (HR 0.34 [0.15–0.77]; p = 0.01), as well as fewer local recurrences (HR 0.41 [0.19–0.89]; p = 0.02) under adjuvant RT. For QL, irradiated patients showed higher values for the symptom scale pain after 0.5, two, and three years (all p < 0.05). After six months and three years, irradiated patients reported higher symptom burdens (impaired swallowing, speech, as well as teeth-related problems (all p < 0.05)). Patients in the RT group had significantly more problems with mouth opening after six months, one, and two years (p < 0.05); (4) Conclusions: Adjuvant RT in patients with early SCC of the oral cavity and oropharynx does not seem to influence overall survival, but it positively affects progression-free survival. However, irradiated patients report a significantly decreased QL up to three years after therapy compared to the observation group

Metabolic profiling of Arabidopsis thaliana epidermal cells

Metabolic phenotyping at cellular resolution may be considered one of the challenges in current plant physiology. A method is described which enables the cell type-specific metabolic analysis of epidermal cell types in Arabidopsis thaliana pavement, basal, and trichome cells. To achieve the required high spatial resolution, single cell sampling using microcapillaries was combined with routine gas chromatography-time of flight-mass spectrometry (GC-TOF-MS) based metabolite profiling. The identification and relative quantification of 117 mostly primary metabolites has been demonstrated. The majority, namely 90 compounds, were accessible without analytical background correction. Analyses were performed using cell type-specific pools of 200 microsampled individual cells. Moreover, among these identified metabolites, 38 exhibited differential pool sizes in trichomes, basal or pavement cells. The application of an independent component analysis confirmed the cell type-specific metabolic phenotypes. Significant pool size changes between individual cells were detectable within several classes of metabolites, namely amino acids, fatty acids and alcohols, alkanes, lipids, N-compounds, organic acids and polyhydroxy acids, polyols, sugars, sugar conjugates and phenylpropanoids. It is demonstrated here that the combination of microsampling and GC-MS based metabolite profiling provides a method to investigate the cellular metabolism of fully differentiated plant cell types in vivo