Die "Desorganisierung" des südkoreanischen Wirtschaftsmodells - Das Ende der Gründerzeit und der Aufstieg der neuen Mittelklasse

Alte Werte, Organisations- und Netzwerkformen sind in den letzten Jahren in den asiatischen Schwellenländern massiv in Frage gestellt worden. Das Ende der Tycoons und der „old bamboo networks“ wurde spätestens mit der asiatischen Finanzkrise eingeläutet. In Südkorea hat in den vergangenen Jahren die Suche nach Anworten auf die neuen ökonomischen und soziokulturellen Herausforderungen begonnen. Mit dem sozialstrukturellen Aufstieg der so genannten neuen Mittelklassen als Vorreiter eines kulturellen Wertewandels haben sich die "inneren" Bedingungen der ökonomischen Entwicklung in Südkorea verändert. Der auf den chaebôl lastende Reformdruck wächst von unten, von oben und von innen. Von unten durch die zweite Generation der Arbeiterschaft, von oben durch die Reformpolitik des Post-Entwicklungsstaates und von innen durch die zunehmend starke Expertenschar innerhalb der chaebôl

Discrepancy between German S3 Guideline Recommendations and Daily Urologic Practice in the Management of Nonmuscle Invasive Bladder Cancer: Results of a Binational Survey

Introduction: Guideline recommendations are meant to help minimize morbidity and to improve the care of nonmuscle invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC) patients but studies have suggested an underuse of guideline-recommended care. The aim of this study was to evaluate the level of adherence of German and Austrian urologists to German guideline recommendations. Methods: A survey of 27 items evaluating diagnostic and therapeutic recommendations (15 cases of strong consensus and 6 cases of consensus) for NMIBC was administered among 14 urologic training courses. Survey construction and realization followed the checklist for reporting results of internet e-surveys and was approved by an internal review board. Results: Between January 2018 and June 2019, a total of 307 urologists responded to the questionnaire, with a mean response rate of 71%. The data showed a weak role of urine cytology (54%) for initial diagnostics although it is strongly recommended by the guideline. The most frequently used supporting diagnostic tool during transurethral resection of the bladder was hexaminolevulinate (95%). Contrary to the guideline recommendation, 38% of the participants performed a second resection in the case of pTa low-grade NMIBC. Correct monitoring of Bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG) response with cystoscopy and cytology was performed by only 34% of the urologists. Conclusions: We found a discrepancy between certain guideline recommendations and daily routine practice concerning the use of urine cytology for initial diagnostics, instillation therapy with a low monitoring rate of BCG response, and follow-up care with unnecessary second resection after pTa low-grade NMIBC in particular. Our survey showed a moderate overall adherence rate of 73%. These results demonstrate the need for sharpening awareness of German guideline recommendations by promoting more intense education of urologists to optimize NMIBC care thus decreasing morbidity and mortality rates

The SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics' resources: focus on curated databases

The SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics (www.isb-sib.ch) provides world-class bioinformatics databases, software tools, services and training to the international life science community in academia and industry. These solutions allow life scientists to turn the exponentially growing amount of data into knowledge. Here, we provide an overview of SIB's resources and competence areas, with a strong focus on curated databases and SIB's most popular and widely used resources. In particular, SIB's Bioinformatics resource portal ExPASy features over 150 resources, including UniProtKB/Swiss-Prot, ENZYME, PROSITE, neXtProt, STRING, UniCarbKB, SugarBindDB, SwissRegulon, EPD, arrayMap, Bgee, SWISS-MODEL Repository, OMA, OrthoDB and other databases, which are briefly described in this article

Streeck, Wolfgang und Yamamura, Kozo (Hrsg.), The origins of nonliberal capitalism. Germany and Japan in Comparison

Die Rezension behandelt den Sammelband von Streeck und Yamamura, einerseits zum Thema des interkulturellen Vergleichs von Deutschland und Japan, andererseits jedoch auch zur Frage der Konvergenz oder Divergenz unterschiedlicher Kapitalismen. Die Bezeichnung des deutschen und des japanischen Kapitalismus als nicht liberal sei dabei nicht normativ zu verstehen, sondern diene als Vergleichsfolie zu dem "normalen" anglo-amerikanischen Kapitalismus. Die drei zentralen Untersuchungsgesichtspunkte seien die Entstehung des nicht liberalen Kapitalismus, die Gründe für die Entstehung unterschiedlicher Varianten und die Frage worin ihre Kohärenz begründet liegt. Der Autor kritisiert zwar nicht die instruktiven Einzelbeiträge, die Antworten auf diese Fragen suchen, aber das Fehlen einer theoriesystematischen Re-Interpretation, die nur in Ansätzen zu erkennen sei, doch rechnet er dies dem aktuellen Stand der Kapitalismustheorie zu

It's not enough to be right! The climate crisis, power, and the climate movement

The demands of the climate movement - for rapid and profound change - are based on scientific findings and the political commitments to the Paris Agreement. The activists are, therefore, factually "right". However, being right is not enough to justify or to accelerate the practical implementation of knowledge and decisions. We explain which social factors are at work, and how the climate movement can benefit if they incorporate these factors into actions for social change

Variation that can be expected when using particle tracking models in connectivity studies

Hydrodynamic Ocean Circulation Models and Lagrangian particle tracking models are valuable tools e.g. in coastal ecology to identify the connectivity between offshore spawning and coastal nursery areas of commercially important fish, for risk assessment and more for defining or evaluating marine protected areas. Most studies are based on only one model and do not provide levels of uncertainty. Here this uncertainty was addressed by applying a suite of 11 North Sea models to test what variability can be expected concerning connectivity. Different notional test cases were calculated related to three important and well-studied North Sea fish species: herring (Clupea harengus), and the flatfishes sole (Solea solea) and plaice (Pleuronectes platessa). For sole and plaice we determined which fraction of particles released in the respective spawning areas would reach a coastal marine protected area. For herring we determined the fraction located in a wind park after a predefined time span. As temperature is more and more a focus especially in biological and global change studies, furthermore inter-model variability in temperatures experienced by the virtual particles was determined. The main focus was on the transport variability originating from the physical models and thus biological behavior was not included. Depending on the scenario, median experienced temperatures differed by 3 °C between years. This range between the different models in one year was comparable to the temperature range observed between all modelled years. Connectivity between flatfish spawning areas and the coastal protected area was highly dependent on the release location and spawning time. No particles released in the English Channel in the sole scenario reached the protected area while up to 20% of the particles released in the plaice scenario did. Interannual trends in transport directions and connectivity rates were comparable between models but absolute values displayed high variations. Most models showed systematic biases during all years in comparison to the ensemble median, indicating that in general interannual variation was represented but absolute values varied. In conclusion: variability between models is generally high and management decisions or scientific analysis using absolute values from only one single model might be biased and results or conclusions drawn from such studies need to be treated with caution. We further concluded that more true validation data for particle modelling are required