BALKAN IMAGES IN THE FICTION OF ISMAIL KADARE

In 2001, the aftermath of the Bosnian and Kosovo wars, Ismail Kadare wrote in anarticle titled "The Balkans: Truth and Untruths":The distorted history of the Balkan peoples is one of the veils that prevents knowledge of these peoples, and ... fuels the Balkan chaos. This fog of history has been the best ally of the chauvinistic castes in the region, of fierce nationalism and monstrous doctrines (6)According to Kadare, both the Ottoman and the Balkan people have distorted selfperceptions:the Ottomans think they humanized and civilized the Balkan, whereas the Balkan people believe they were martyrs and heroes (7). The heroic Balkan self image emerged from an embarrassment about cooperation with the Ottomans;Serbia has claimed for itself an exaggerated importance and belittled an allegedly small Albania, which actually supplied Ottoman Grand Viziers.As in the article, such Balkan relations and misconceptions are associated in Kadare's fiction, with fog and veiling. Fog and mist often appear as features of the Albanian and Balkan landscape, whereas in a figurative sense, they prevent people from recognizing who and where they are. I want to show that the blurring of sight and insight is at the very heart of Kadare's fiction. In the first part of my talks I discuss portrayals of the relationship between Albanians, Slavs, and the Ottomans;in the second, I focus on the ambiguous power that ancient bards and the famous Albanian Kanun still wield in Kadare's fiction

The Role of Lymphadenectomy in Surgical Staging of Endometrial Cancer

Surgical staging, including lymph node sampling, for endometrial cancer was adopted by the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO) in 1988 based on reports demonstrating diagnostic and therapeutic advantages. This review focuses on the incidence of lymph node metastasis, risk factors for lymph node involvement, the effect of lymph node metastasis on prognosis, the therapeutic effect and diagnostic usefulness of lymphadenectomy, risks of lymph node dissection, and future directions in surgical staging of endometrial cancer. Surgical staging identifies most patients with extrauterine disease as well as uterine risk factors for recurrence, thereby allowing for a more informed approach to postoperative adjuvant therapy. Lymphadenectomy as a part of surgical staging is not required in patients assessed intraoperatively to be at low risk for lymph node metastasis (<2 cm grade 1 tumors with superficial myometrial invasion), however, a systematic lymph node dissection should be performed in most other patients with endometrial cancer. In the future, molecular markers may be useful to predict preoperatively tumor aggressiveness and lymph node metastasis. It is hoped that an approach of surgical staging with selective lymph node dissection will improve survival and spare patients additional surgical complications or unnecessary postoperative exposure to radiation and/or chemotherapy

Vaccine efficacy in swine challenged with a highly virulent S. typhimurium

Vaccination is one of several options to reduce the impact of Salmonella infections in pork. To demonstrate cross protection against infection with S. typhimurium, pigs were vaccinated with a live vaccine (Enterisol SC-54, Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica, Inc.), left as positive challenge controls or negative, non challenged controls

Bifocal Vision: Novalis' Philosophy of Nature and Disease

Relying on an edition of Novalis' notebooks which includes much of the author's scientific and philosophical musings, Neubauer's study evaluates Novalis' outline for a creative science and philosophical background of the eighteenth century. Concentrating on his study of physiology and medicine, this work illuminates Novalis' changing perspectives on the relationship between the imagination and the material world, and whether a synthesis between the two is possible

Toward microbioreactor arrays : a slow-responding xxygen sensor for monitoring of microbial cultures in standard 96-well plates

Dieser Beitrag ist mit Zustimmung des Rechteinhabers aufgrund einer (DFG geförderten) Allianz- bzw. Nationallizenz frei zugänglich.This publication is with permission of the rights owner freely accessible due to an Alliance licence and a national licence (funded by the DFG, German Research Foundation) respectively.In this study, a slow-responding chemo-optical sensor for dissolved oxygen (DO) integrated into a 96-well plate was developed. The slow response time ensures that the measured oxygen value does not change much during plate transport to the microplate reader. The sensor therefore permits at-line DO measurement of microbial cultures. Moreover, it eliminates the necessity of individual optical measurement systems for each culture plate, as many plates can be measured successively. Combined with the 96-well format, this increases the experimental throughput enormously. The novel sensor plate (Slow OxoPlate) consists of fluorophores suspended in a polymer matrix that were placed into u-bottom 96-well plates. Response time was measured using sodium sulfite, and a t90 value of 9.7 min was recorded. For application, DO values were then measured in Escherichia coli and Saccharomyces cerevisiae cultures grown under fed-batch–like conditions. Depending on the DO sensor’s response time, different information on the oxygenation state of the culture plate was obtained: a fast sensor variant detects disturbance through sampling, whereas the slow sensor indicates oxygen limitation during incubation. A combination of the commercially available OxoPlate and the Slow OxoPlate enables operators of screening facilities to validate their cultivation procedures with regard to oxygen availability.BMBF, 02PJ1150, Plattformtechnologien für automatisierte Bioprozessentwicklung (AutoBio

The Role of Lymphadenectomy in Surgical Staging of Endometrial Cancer

Surgical staging, including lymph node sampling, for endometrial cancer was adopted by the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO) in 1988 based on reports demonstrating diagnostic and therapeutic advantages. This review focuses on the incidence of lymph node metastasis, risk factors for lymph node involvement, the effect of lymph node metastasis on prognosis, the therapeutic effect and diagnostic usefulness of lymphadenectomy, risks of lymph node dissection, and future directions in surgical staging of endometrial cancer. Surgical staging identifies most patients with extrauterine disease as well as uterine risk factors for recurrence, thereby allowing for a more informed approach to postoperative adjuvant therapy. Lymphadenectomy as a part of surgical staging is not required in patients assessed intraoperatively to be at low risk for lymph node metastasis (&lt;2 cm grade 1 tumors with superficial myometrial invasion), however, a systematic lymph node dissection should be performed in most other patients with endometrial cancer. In the future, molecular markers may be useful to predict preoperatively tumor aggressiveness and lymph node metastasis. It is hoped that an approach of surgical staging with selective lymph node dissection will improve survival and spare patients additional surgical complications or unnecessary postoperative exposure to radiation and/or chemotherapy