Authenticity and originarity in foreign language learning in the diaspora

This paper reflects on a telecollaborative project with second-year students of German between the University of Pretoria (South Africa) and Colgate University (United States of America) in 2008. The project resulted from a critical discussion on the potential of online technology in foreign languagelearning (FLL). A central concern in implementing such technology should be the all-inclusive, authentic use of all language faculties, which Peeters (2008) calls "originarity". The latter overcomes structuralist or poststructuralist reductions of language as a medium of communication. Thus, the essence of FLL can be redefined, not as the acquisition of mimicry of specific codes, but as intercultural dialogue.Keywords: originarity, authenticity, foreign language learning, video conferencin

ESG performance and stock market returns

Treballs Finals del Grau d'Economia, Facultat d'Economia i Empresa, Universitat de Barcelona, Curs: 2019-2020, Tutor: Montserrat Termes-Rifé[eng] This paper shows that stock market returns are related to ESG (Environment, Social and Governance) performance and that different areas of ESG performance affect returns in different ways. It shows that improved environmental performance is related with decreased returns, likely due to decreased idiosyncratic risk. At the same time improved social and governance performance is related to increased returns, meaning that these factors are indicators of quality. These insights are based on data from German and European stocks for the period from 2000 to 2020. Fixed-effect least square estimation was utilized. Additionally, the paper shows that there are some differences in these relationships depending on the size of firms. It also shows that these relationships are stronger in the time period after the financial crisis than for the period before the financial crisis.[spa] Este trabajo muestra que los rendimientos del mercado de valores están relacionados con el desempeño de ESG (Medio Ambiente, Social y Gobernanza empresarial) y que las diferentes áreas de ESG afectan a los rendimientos de diferentes maneras. Muestra que el desempeño ambiental mejorado está relacionado con una reducción de los rendimientos, probablemente por motivo de disminución del riesgo idiosincrásico. Al mismo tiempo, el mejor desempeño social y de gobernanza está relacionado con mayores rendimientos, lo que significa que estos factores son indicadores de calidad. Estos resultados se basan en datos de acciones alemanas y europeas para el período de 2000 a 2020. Se utilizó modelos de efecto fijo. Además, el trabajo muestra que existen algunas diferencias en estas relaciones en función del tamaño de las empresas. También muestra que estas relaciones son más fuertes en el período posterior a la crisis financiera que en el período anterior a la crisis financiera

Introduction

All countries in the Southern Hemisphere have had to grapple with language policies during the period following freedom from the grip of colonialism and, in the case of South Africa, from that of apartheid as well. While some have succeeded in at least partly overcoming the various problems that accompanied linguistic colonialism, there is a general feeling that the interpretation of sociolinguistic phenomena is inadequate and that the solutions to language problems fall short of solving the underlying issues

Zwischen ethnografischer Feldforschung und künstlerisch-ästhetischer Praxis. Textiles Gestalten an der Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg

Zwischen ethnografischen Feldforschung und künstlerisch-ästhetischer Praxis verortet sich das Textile Gestalten an der Carl von Ossietzky Universität in Oldenburg. Ein Schwerpunkt des Studiums liegt auf Textilien im Spannungsfeld zwischen Sachkultur, Körper, Medien, Design und Bildung für nachhaltige Entwicklung. Im Studiengang Materielle Kultur geht es um Formate des Forschenden Lernens im interdisziplinären Kontext. Das Lehr-Lern-Labor Textil lädt Schüler:innen, Lehrer:innen, Studierende und Dozierende dazu ein, gemeinsam die textile Alltagskultur zu erforschen

Black Hawk Down - "Global Player" im freien Flug? - Von der Konstruktion filmischer Helden in Zeiten neuer Kriege

Patricia Mühr Black Hawk Down – “Global Player” in Free Flight? On the Construction of Filmic Heroes in Times of New Wars This article argues that in popular war films, the representation of American soldiers as “global players” functions as an important and new element in the formation of sovereignty. Ridley Scott’s 2001 blockbuster film Black Hawk Down is taken as an example to examine the modes of representation by which the “body in crisis” can be healed. While the topic of the film  – the 1993 UN/US intervention in Somalia and the failure of that mission – promotes a persisting politicization of the condition of masculinity, this article is interested in how the film (re)creates the body of the soldier in the special forces as a representation of powerful and sovereign masculinity. This is done first of all through the way in which the relationship between “America” and “the world” is represented. The analysis shows that there are three important strategies in the construction of meanings, messages, and connotations, which can be seen as strategies of global national healing: the panoptic view, the image of “the woman”, and the sacrifices of militarism. Black Hawk Down, the article argues, articulates and is articulated by a newly emerging global order that operates through diffuse, complex and deterritorialized categories, as well as through traditional national images. The variety of power formations that exceed the scope of the transnational state illustrate the ways in which new and old modes of representation are constructed. &nbsp

›The Postcolonial Game‹. Reflections on an African Postcolonial Theory of Alterity

In diesem Aufsatz geht es um die politische Relevanz des Diskurses über Alterität. Ausgangspunkt ist die Einsicht, dass Andersheit keine Essenz, sondern Ausdruck einer Beziehung ist. Es werden drei vorherrschende Umgangsformen mit Alterität vorgestellt und mit literarischen Beispielen illustriert – die Abwehr und Unterdrückung des Anderen, seine Absolutsetzung und ein wertschätzender responsiver Umgang. Dies geschieht unter Rückgriff auf Autoren wie Lévinas, Waldenfels und Glissant. In einem nächsten Schritt werden die Möglichkeiten literarischer Alterität und ihrer Didaktik ausgelotet. Dabei wird auch auf Texte eingegangen, deren Vorstellung des Anderen nicht-menschliches Leben einschließt.In the African-European context, alterity has a long, problematic history, which has, also from the African perspective, led to the exclusion of any possibility of an encounter. In the context of mutual alienation of discourses on European vs. African identities, the paper attempts to pave way for a responsive encounter which might occur in the field of literature. To achieve this, I will first exercise a self- and meta-critique of remarks on a hermeneutics of interculturality which I formulated ten years ago. I will then proceed to draw consequences that lay the foundations for a theory of alterity that is not postcolonial but decolonial

Speciation of uranium: Compilation of a thermodynamic database and its experimental evaluation using different analytical techniques

Environmental hazards are caused by uranium mining legacies and enhanced radioactivity in utilized groundwater and surface water resources. Knowledge of uranium speciation in these waters is essential for predicting radionuclide migration and for installing effective water purification technology. The validity of the thermodynamic data for the environmental media affected by uranium mining legacies is of utmost importance. Therefore, a comprehensive and consistent database was established according to current knowledge. The uranium data included in the database is based on the NEA TDB (Guillaumont et al., 2003) and is modified or supplemented as necessary e.g. for calcium and magnesium uranyl carbonates. The specific ion interaction theory (Brönsted, 1922) is used to estimate activity constants, which is sufficient for the considered low ionic strengths. The success of this approach was evaluated by comparative experimental investigations and model calculations (PHREEQC (Parkhurst and Appelo, 1999)) for several model systems. The waters differ in pH (2.7–9.8), uranium concentration (10−9-10−4 mol/L) and ionic strength (0.002–0.2 mol/L). We used chemical extraction experiments, ESI-Orbitrap-MS and time-resolved laser-induced fluorescence spectroscopy (TRLFS) to measure the uranium speciation. The latter method is nonintrusive and therefore does not change the chemical composition of the investigated waters. This is very important, because any change of the system under study may also change the speciation

Infections in skin cancer

The increasing prevalence of skin cancer results in that it will soon equal that of all other cancers combined. Sun exposure is a well-known risk factor for its development, but despite the growing public awareness of the harmful consequences of ultraviolet radiation, the cancer incidence continues to increase, implying that other factors might also have a role in promoting this disease. Data from immunosuppressed patients reveals a 100-fold increased incidence of nonmelanoma skin carcinoma (NMSC), but an infectious etiology has not been established. However, certain human papillomaviruses (HPVs) have previously been detected in this type of cancer. We applied high throughput sequencing to different skin lesions in order to assess which organisms were present. Most viral reads (>95%) belonged to human papillomavirus. Traditionally, viral detection was performed using PCR methods. We used degenerate “general” HPV primers and multiplexed novel “specific” HPV primers in order to amplify a broad number of HPVs by PCR. This method showed a very high sensitivity, but the HPV types with low similarity to the primer sequences might have escaped amplification. Therefore, we performed an unbiased approach based on non-PCR whole genome amplification, independent of sequence information, in order to detect those “escaping” HPV types, as well as to determine if other viruses were present in the samples. Overall, we identified almost 100 putative novel HPV types in total, and characterized 4 novel HPV types (HPV 197, 200, 201 and 202). Most of the HPV types were detected in very few patients each, and at a very low viral load (below 0.5 copies/cell), except for HPV 197, which was the most commonly found virus in skin tumors (37.4% of skin lesions). Despite the higher sensitivity of PCR methods, the unbiased approach detected HPV in 37/40 condyloma acuminata that had been reported as “HPV-negative” with specific PCR techniques. Certain HPV types, including HPV 197, were not detected by PCR and only by non-PCR based methods. Therefore, more unbiased PCR-independent methods are needed to describe which organisms are most commonly present in skin lesions. The work in this thesis has expanded our knowledge of the wide genomic diversity of HPV on the skin, and finds that PCR-independent methods are needed to describe which organisms are most commonly present in skin lesions. Further studies are needed to assess any possible role of viral infections in skin cancer, elucidation of mechanistic effects and determine the direction of causality of any associations