"Betet für mich, daß die Kraft des Herrn in mir Schwachem mächtig werde": evangelische Diakone als Krankenpfleger an Bord der Gera ; der chinesische "Boxeraufstand" (1900-1901)

The GERA, an ocean steamer owned by Norddeutscher Lloyd, left the naval base of Wilhelmshaven on July 19, 1900 on course for a distant destination on the other side of the globe. After a voyage along the coasts of France and Portugal and several intermediate stops in Gibraltar and Malta, the GERA sailed down the Suez Canal and across the Red Sea. On September 6, 1900 it arrived at the harbour city of Colombo on the coast of the British colony of Ceylon. Its actual destination, however, was the coast of China. On October 13, 1900 the GERA ended its voyage in the Roads of Taku, at the mouth of the Peiho River in Northeastern China. Beforehand the ship had been converted by order of the "Central Committee of the German Red Cross Associations" to serve a special purpose: It was to be used as a hospital for the units of the German expeditionary corps that had crushed the rebellion by the militant secret society known as the I Ho Chuan (Righteous and Harmonious Fists). On board, apart from the ship’s crew, were several navy doctors and medical orderlies and also some thirty "freelance nurses," who had signed a six-month contract with the Red Cross in Berlin before their departure. They included seven members of the Westphalian “Nazareth” social and welfare work centre in Bielefeld-Bethel, founded in 1877. Since the 1890s China had been divided into foreign "zones of influence": the Russian tsar, the British Empire, France, Italy, Japan, Portugal, Austria and the German Empire all had colonial interests in it. In 1897 Tsingtao, in the Bay of Kiaochow, was occupied by German troops, and the region was leased to the German Reich for 99 years as a "protective region." In 1900, events escalated: In Peking the German envoy was murdered by "Boxer" rebels. The German Reich mobilised around thirty thousand marines and other landing-party troops as part of an international expeditionary corps under the supreme command of the German field-marshal Count Waldersee. The steamer GERA was employed as a hospital ship for these units. A diary account survives of the ship's voyage to China. The person who wrote it gives a very detailed account of his experiences on board the ship and his visits ashore. While it is true that his portrayal of foreign cultures, customs and living standards and of the natives, especially the dark-skinned ones, frequently reflects a sense of superiority rife with prejudices; this diary remains an extraordinary document of the history of early twentieth-century seafaring

Characterization of strain fields in Si1-xGex island structures by means of quantitative high-resolution electron microscopy

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.Peer Reviewe

A Novel Rapid Sample Preparation Method for MALDI-TOF MS Permits Borrelia burgdorferi Sensu Lato Species and Isolate Differentiation

The genus Borrelia comprises vector-borne bacterial pathogens that can severely affect human and animal health. Members of the Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato species complex can cause Lyme borreliosis, one of the most common vector-borne diseases in the Northern hemisphere. Besides, members of the relapsing fever group of spirochetes can cause tick-borne relapsing fever in humans and various febrile illnesses in animals in tropical, subtropical and temperate regions. Borrelia spp. organisms are fastidious to cultivate and to maintain in vitro, and therefore, difficult to work with in the laboratory. Currently, borrelia identification is mainly performed using PCR and DNA sequencing methods, which can be complicated/frustrating on complex DNA templates and may still be relatively expensive. Alternative techniques such as matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) are not well established for Borrelia spp., although this technique is currently one of the most used techniques for rapid identification of bacteria in microbiological diagnostic laboratories. This is mainly due to unsatisfactory results obtained by use of simple sample preparation techniques and medium-contamination obscuring the mass spectra. In addition, comprehensive libraries for Borrelia spp. MALDI-TOF MS have yet to be established. In this study, we developed a new filter-based chemical extraction technique that allows measurement of high quality Borrelia spp. spectra from less than 100,000 bacteria per spot in MALDI-TOF MS. We used 49 isolates of 13 different species to produce the largest mass-library for Borrelia spp. so far and to validate the protocol. The library was successfully established and identifies >96% of used isolates correctly to species level. Cluster analysis on the sum spectra was applied to all the different isolates, which resulted in tight cluster generation for most species. Comparative analysis of the generated cluster to a phylogeny based on concatenated multi-locus sequence typing genes provided a surprising homology. Our data demonstrate that the technique described here can be used for fast and reliable species and strain typing within the borrelia complex

Electrodeposition of cobalt based ferro-magnetic metal nanowires in polycarbonate films with cylindrical nanochannels fabricated by heavy-ion-track etching

Polycarbonate films of thickness 30 μm were irradiated with heavy ions by applying a flux of 108 ions cm-2 to produce straight tracks perpendicular to the film surface. The tracks were preferentially etched in 6 M aqueous solution of sodium hydroxide to prepare cylindrical nanochannels. The channel diameters were tuned between 200 and 600 nm by varying the etching time. Co81Cu19 alloy nanowires were electrodeposited potentiostatically, while Co/Cu multilayered nanowires, consisting of alternating Co and Cu layers with thickness 10 nm, were synthesized by means of a pulse plating technique in channels of length 30 μm and diameter 200 nm. Co81Cu19 alloy nanowires showed an anisotropic magnetoresistance effect of 0.6%, and the giant magnetoresistance of Co/Cu multilayered nanowires reached up to 8.0%

Women’s memories of themselves on their journeys to housemother-style roles, 1945–1995

Diakonische Betriebsfamilien stellten im 20. Jahrhundert in Deutschland eine bedeutende Ressource im Hinblick auf die langfristige Betreuung von Kranken und behinderten Menschen dar. Da kaum empirisches Material zur Funktion der Hausmutter existierte, wurde untersucht, wie sich die Hausmutter-Funktion in der zweiten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts in der Interaktion mit den Mitgliedern der Familie gestaltete und welche Bedeutung ihr zugeschrieben wurde. Für den vorliegenden Artikel wurden die Interviews von neun Hausmüttern verwendet. Orientiert an den Prinzipien der Grounded Theory nach Strauss und Corbin konnten im Gesamtergebnis drei Phasen beschrieben werden, welche die Hausmutter während ihrer Funktion durchlief. Mit der Kernkategorie Macht und Herrschaft stellt der vorliegende Artikel die erste Phase der Hausmutter-Funktion dar und zeigt, dass der Weg zur Hausmutter mit vielen Entbehrungen und einer Überforderung verbunden war. Hausmütter absolvierten zwar einen „Brautkurs“, jedoch fühlten sie sich besonders zu Beginn ihrer Funktion häufig überfordert und nur wenig auf die Funktion als Hausmutter vorbereitet. Die Erkenntnisse über die drei Phasen der Hausmutter-Funktion können zum gegenseitigen Verständnis von Pflegenden beitragen und verdeutlichen, dass professionelle Pflege am Beispiel von Betriebsfamilien gewachsen ist. In the twentieth century, diaconical institutional families represented a significant resource in the long-term care of sick and disabled people in Germany. As little empirical material on life in institutional families existed, a qualitative study was carried out to explore aspects of the role of the housemother in the context of their interactions with residents in the second half of the twentieth century and to find out it is importance was attached to this role. For this article nine former housemothers were interviewed using oral history interviews. The qualitative study based on grounded theory approach, following Strauss & Corbin. The phenomena of power and domination form the central category, which can then be divided into three phases of the role of the housemother. This article exclusively concentrates on the first phase: “‘Setting out as a bride’ – borrowed power and domination”. The process of becoming a housemother was accompanied by a great deal of sacrifice. Today, the role of the housemother is seen as outdated as it was based strongly on structures of power and domination. Understanding the three phases of the housemother role can contribute towards a mutual understanding of care providers and show that professional nursing care has grown out of the example of institutional families

Ionic conduction, rectification, and selectivity in single conical nanopores

Modern track-etching methods allow the preparation of membranes containing a single charged conical nanopore that shows high ionic permselectivity due to the electrical interactions of the surface pore charges with the mobile ions in the aqueous solution. The nanopore has potential applications in electrically assisted single-particle detection, analysis, and separation of biomolecules. We present a detailed theoretical and experimental account of the effects of pore radii and electrolyte concentration on the current-voltage and current-concentration curves. The physical model used is based on the Nernst-Planck and Poisson equations. Since the validity of continuum models for the description of ion transport under different voltages and concentrations is recognized as one of the main issues in the modeling of future applications, special attention is paid to the fundamental understanding of the electrical interactions between the nanopore fixed charges and the mobile charges confined in the reduced volume of the inside [email protected]

Citrate as Cost-Efficient NADPH Regenerating Agent

The economically efficient utilization of NAD(P)H-dependent enzymes requires the regeneration of consumed reduction equivalents. Classically, this is done by substrate supplementation, and if necessary by addition of one or more enzymes. The simplest method thereof is whole cell NADPH regeneration. In this context we now present an easy-to-apply whole cell cofactor regeneration approach, which can especially be used in screening applications. Simply by applying citrate to a buffer or directly using citrate/-phosphate buffer NADPH can be regenerated by native enzymes of the TCA cycle, practically present in all aerobic living organisms. Apart from viable-culturable cells, this regeneration approach can also be applied with lyophilized cells and even crude cell extracts. This is exemplarily shown for the synthesis of 1-phenylethanol from acetophenone with several oxidoreductases. The mechanism of NADPH regeneration by TCA cycle enzymes was further investigated by a transient isotopic labeling experiment feeding [1,5-13C]citrate. This revealed that the regeneration mechanism can further be optimized by genetic modification of two competing internal citrate metabolism pathways, the glyoxylate shunt, and the glutamate dehydrogenase

Twist Mode in Spherical Alkali Metal Clusters

A remarkable orbital quadrupole magnetic resonance, so-called twist mode, is predicted in alkali metal clusters where it is represented by $I^{\pi}=2^-$ low-energy excitations of valence electrons with strong M2 transitions to the ground state. We treat the twist by both macroscopic and microscopic ways. In the latter case, the shell structure of clusters is fully exploited, which is crucial for the considered size region ($8\le N_e\le 1314$). The energy-weighted sum rule is derived for the pseudo-Hamiltonian. In medium and heavy spherical clusters the twist dominates over its spin-dipole counterpart and becomes the most strong multipole magnetic mode.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, to be published in Phys. Rev. Lett., v.85, n.15, 200

Sensing external spins with nitrogen-vacancy diamond

A single nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center is used to sense individual, as well as small ensembles of, electron spins placed outside the diamond lattice. Applying double electron–electron resonance techniques, we were able to observe Rabi nutations of these external spins as well as the coupling strength between the external spins and the NV sensor, via modulations and accelerated decay of the NV spin echo. Echo modulation frequencies as large as 600 kHz have been observed, being equivalent to a few nanometers distance between the NV and an unpaired electron spin. Upon surface modification, the coupling disappears, suggesting the spins to be localized at surface defects. The present study is important for understanding the properties of diamond surface spins so that their effects on NV sensors can eventually be mitigated. This would enable potential applications such as the imaging and tracking of single atoms and molecules in living cells or the use of NVs on scanning probe tips to entangle remote spins for scalable room temperature quantum computers