Creative Writing at the English Department of WWU Münster

This short introduction to the Creative Writing Section in the inaugural edition of Satura, to which this group is very happy to be able to contribute, is meant to provide a short background on our work and on how this section came about

An Australian Convict in the Great English City: Peter Carey's Jack Maggs

The article discusses the prominence of London in this 'Australian' novel. It examines the significance of place in post-colonial thinking and the way that Jack Maggs exposes and questions the power of the hegemonic city

Retrospektive Studie zu Wirbelfrakturen klassifiziert nach Magerl et al. in Kombination mit subjektiven Befindenstests (SF-36, Fairbank)

Wir beschäftigten uns in dieser Dissertation mit der Frage wie sich die verschiedenen Frakturarten im zeitlichen Verlauf und unter verschiedenen Therapiephilosophien (konservativ, operativ) entwickeln und wie sich Dies auf das subjektive Befinden der Patienten auswirkt. Zur Einteilung der Frakturen verwendeten wir die Klassifikation nach Magerl et al.[49]. Im internationalen Vergleich konnte unsere Studie durchaus erfreuliche Ergebnisse erzielen, die konservative Therapiegruppe wies im Mittel bei der Nachuntersuchung zwar einen deutlich schlechteren Wert beim KW und GDW auf als die Gruppe von Seybold [72], hatte jedoch auch einen schlechtern Ausgangswert bei Therapiebeginn. Die Patienten gaben bei der Nachuntersuchung im Mittel leichten Schmerz an, dies entspricht den Ergebnissen anderer Veröffentlichungen [20,72,83] zum konservativen Therapieschema. Die Gruppe der operativ therapierten Patienten zeigt im Mittel gute Repositionsergebnisse und im zeitlichen Ablauf geringe Korrekturverluste. Die Schmerzangaben sind mit im Mittel mäßigem Schmerz eine ganze Stufe schlechter als bei der konservativen Therapiegruppe. In der Literatur werden uneinheitliche Erfahrungen geschildert, Chan [20] und Seybold [72] berichten über weniger Schmerz in ihren den konservativ behandelten Gruppen. Gertzbein [34] berichtet in seiner Multicenterstudie über eine nicht signifikant höhere Schmerzangabe in der konservativer Gruppe. Nicoll [60] stellte schon 1949 die Hypothese auf, dass ein gutes funktionelles Ergebnis nicht unbedingt von einem guten anatomischen Ergebnis abhängt. Finn und Stauffer [31] und Mick et al. [56] befanden das konservative Vorgehen bei neurologisch unauffälligen Patienten für sinnvoll, während ein operatives Vorgehen bei Fällen mit ligamentärer oder knöcherner Verletzung der hinteren Säule indiziert wäre. In der Literatur wurde bisher nicht über positive Korrelation zwischen Kyphosegrad und Schmerz berichtet [57,65,83], in unserer Studie errechneten wir in einer kleinen Patientengruppe mit dorso-ventraler Fusion und Kyphosewinkel größer 9° und kleiner 20° (n=5) eine signifikante Korrelation zwischen Kyphose den Schmerzangaben der Patienten. Die Betrachtung aller Patienten mit einem Kyphosewinkel größer 9° (n=6) schließt einen Patient mehr ein, diese Gruppe hatte einen deutlich schlechtern Korrelationskoeffizienten. In den sonstigen Patientengruppen ergab sich keine weiteren positiven Korrelationen, sowohl nicht auf konservativer als auch nicht auf operativer Seite. Ein zufällig entstandener Wert liegt hier nah. Die Untersuchung der Auswirkungen der Wirbelfrakturen auf die Zwischenwirbelräume im verletzten, im kranialen und im kaudalen Bewegungssegment erbrachte eine Annäherung der Grund- und Deckplatten im wesentlichen nur im verletzten Segment bei konservativ therapierten Patienten. Bei vielen Frakturen ist hier von einer Mitverletzung der Bandscheibe auszugehen. Die an einen Fixateur angrenzenden Zwischenwirbelräume zeigten keine signifikanten Reaktionen. Bei der Auswertung der Studie fiel uns auf, dass die Patienten mit Mehrfachfrakturen in ihren Gruppen regelmäßig deutlich bessere Ergebnisse sowohl bei den radiologischen Untersuchungen als auch bei den Subjektivtests im zeitlichen Ablauf erzielten. So erlitten die Patienten mit Mehrfachfrakturen im Schnitt deutlich „leichtere“ Frakturen, hatten eine bessere Heilungstendenz und erzielten insbesondere im subjektiven Bereich bessere Ergebnisse als Patienten mit Einfachfrakturen, was unter der Vorstellung der Verteilung der einwirkenden Kraft auf mehrere Wirbel durchaus plausibel erscheint.This study wants to expose our results with patients with spinal fractures. Different kinds of therapy were set against the subjective state of health. We used Magerls [49] classification to grade the spinal fractures. Our results are comparable to those in other international studies [20,72,83]. Our conservative group showed a trend of decreasing vertebra kyphosis angle over the years while the subjective health status showed good results. Seybolds [72] conservative group showed this trend also. Overall his group had a better outcome, because our starting point after trauma has been much worse. Our group state only little pain which is equivalent to other studies. Our operative group showed acceptable results at the vertebral angle with just a little correction loss over the years, but this group state moderate pain which is one step worse than the conservative group. There are different statements in the literature to this point. Chan [20] and Seybold [72] saw less pain in their conservative group. Gertzbein [34] had higher pain in the conservative group but this was not significant. Nicoll [60] made the hypothesis that for a good functional outcome good anatomical result is not forcible. Finn und Stauffer [31] and Mick et al. [56] thought that conservative therapy is suggestive for patients without neurological deficit and operative therapy should be preformed when ligament or dorsal column damage. A positive correlation between kyphosis and pain has not been seen in the literature [57,65,83], we saw a significant correlation just in small group of five patients with posterior-anterior fusion. The preoperative kyphosis-angle was greater than 9° and smaller than 20°. The same group with just one patient more is corresponding to the group with kyphosis greater than 9° and had no significant correlation with pain. All other groups had no correlation. We interpreted the positive correlation as a coincidence. While looking at the intervertebral spaces above, under and at the fractured segment we found approximation of the upper and lower articular surface only at the fractured segment when a conservative therapy was preformed. In most cases an injury of the intervertebral disc had been probably happen. We didn’t find any approximation in segments above and under spinal fusion. Most patients with more than one spinal fracture had better results at the subjective state of health and also at radiological results. Those patients had easier fractures, showed better healing and had less pain, which is easy to understand when acting force is divided up to many segments

The Potential of Social Media Analytics for Improving Social Media Communication of Emergency Agencies

A growing number of people use social media to seek information or coordinate relief activities in times of crisis. Thus, social media is increasingly used by emergency agencies as well to reach more people in crisis situations. However, the large amount of available data on social media could also be used by emergency agencies to understand how they are perceived by the public and to improve their communication. In this study, we examined the Twitter communication about the German emergency agency “Johanniter-Unfall-Hilfe” by conducting a frequency, sentiment, social network and content analysis. The results revealed that a right-wing political cluster politically instrumentalised an incident related to this agency. Furthermore, some individual persons used social media to express criticism. It can be concluded that the use of social media analytics in the daily work routine of emergency management professionals can be beneficial for improving their social media communication strategy

SYNTHESIS AND PHENOTYPIC DISCOVERY OF MOLECULAR PROBES OF BIOLOGICAL SYSTEMS

The Peterson laboratory has had a long-standing interest in fluorescent probes of biological systems. My research in the Peterson group has focused on the design, synthesis, and biological evaluation of fluorescent small molecules that exhibit specific patterns of subcellular localization and studies of their downstream biological effects. The relationship between this approach and the strategy of phenotypic drug discovery is described in Chapter 1. Chapter 2 describes the discovery of the intrinsic blue fluorescence of the potent anti- cancer/anti-viral compound AKT inhibitor-IV (AKTIV), and how we used this property to discover that its mechanism of biological action involves accumulation in mitochondria and associated effects on mitochondrial morphology and cellular bioenergetics. Chapter 3 describes the synthesis of a novel class of hydrophobic fluorinated rhodol fluorophores that selectively accumulate in the endoplasmic reticulum. These fluorophores were shown to enable delivery of linked small- molecules to control a specific biological pathway in this organelle. Building on these studies, Chapter 4 describes screening of a variety of fluorescent probes against the vertebrate model organism zebrafish (Danio rerio). These studies led to the discoveries that hydrophobic rhodamines can be used to target zebrafish mitochondria, and acid-activated fluorophores can accumulate in acidic tissues of the embryonic yolk. Chapter 5 describes another project involving the synthesis of novel cholesteryl dimers and analysis of the in vitro stability of liposomes that incorporate these compounds

Correlation between Processing Parameters, Morphology, and Properties of Injection-Molded Polylactid Acid (PLA) Specimens at Different Length Scales

Polylactic acid (PLA) is one of the most promising bioplastic representatives that finds application in many different areas, e.g., as single-use products in the packaging industry, in the form of mulch film for agriculture, or in medical devices. For the development of new areas, especially in terms of long-term applications and the production of recyclable products, the material properties controlled by processing must be known. The state of the art is investigations at the global scale (integral values) without consideration of local structure inhomogeneities and their influence on the material properties. In this work, morphological, thermal, and mechanical properties of injection-molded PLA tensile bars are investigated at different length scales (global and local) as a function of processing parameters. In addition to the processing parameters, such as melt temperature, mold temperature, and cooling time in the mold, the influence of the D-isomer content on the crystallization behavior and the resulting material properties are investigated. The material was found to form crystalline structures only when cooled in a mold tempered above Tg. In addition, PLA with a lower content of D-isomer was found to have a higher degree of crystallinity. Since the mechanical properties obtained by tensile tests could not be correlated with the degree of crystallinity, detailed analysis were performed showing a characteristic inhomogeneous morphology within the tensile bars. By means of micromechanical investigations on samples with different microstructure ranges, the relationship between local morphology and failure behavior could be explained