Der polnische "Westgedanke" nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg (1944-1950)

Die vorliegende Arbeit behandelt die Geschichte des polnischen "Westgedankens" in den ersten Jahren nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg. Mit dem Begriff "Westgedanke" (myśl zachodnia) wird jener von der Nationaldemokratie um Roman Dmowski entwickelte "historisch-programmatische Vorstellungskomplex" bezeichnet, der die Inkorporation von Gebieten westlich der Grenze von 1772 als wesentliche Grundlage eines stabilen polnischen Staates ansah. Wie sich in der Untersuchung herausstellte, boten bereits im Februar 1945 Vertreter dieses "Westgedankens" um den Rechtshistoriker Zygmunt Wojciechowski der von der kommunistischen Arbeiterpartei PPR dominierten Übergangsregierung eine weitreichende Zusammenarbeit an. Während die überwiegende Mehrheit der polnischen Gesellschaft den neuen Machthabern also feindlich gegenüberstand, kam es bereits relativ früh zur Kooperation zwischen Vertretern der nationalistischen Rechten und der Übergangsregierung. Eine Erklärungsmöglichkeit für diese paradoxe Situation bot eine ideengeschichtliche Analyse des "Westgedankens". Besonders Zygmunt Wojciechowski hatte in seinen Arbeiten die territoriale Gestalt Polens zur historischen Schicksalsfrage des Landes erhoben. Wesentliche Bedeutung maß er dem mittelalterlichen Staat der Piasten bei, den er als "polnische Mutterländer" ("polskie ziemie macierzyste") bezeichnete. Polen sei in seiner Geschichte staatliche Stabilität dadurch verwehrt geblieben, dass es vom deutschen Expansionismus von diesem "natürlichen" Gebiet verdrängt worden war. Gleichzeitig sei durch die "natürliche" Zusammengehörigkeit der "polnischen Mutterländer" dem deutschen Expansionismus das Tor für weitere Eroberungszüge geöffnet worden. Diese Sichtweise der deutsch-polnischen Geschichte wurde vor allem durch die Erfahrung eines deutschen Vernichtungskrieges verstärkt, den Wojciechowski als Kulminationspunkt dieser Entwicklung deutete. Die Westverschiebung der polnischen Grenze wurde somit als Möglichkeit gesehen, einen "natürlichen" Zustand wiederherzustellen, der Polen Sicherheit und Stabilität garantierte. Auf diese Weise wurden die Ereignisse der Nachkriegszeit zur Erfüllung der Leitidee polnischer Geschichte. Im Kontext des beginnenden Kalten Kriegs wurde damit letztlich auch die kommunistische Umgestaltung des Landes zu einem gewissen Grade legitimiert

Brain age predicts disability accumulation in multiple sclerosis

OBJECTIVE: Neurodegenerative conditions often manifest radiologically with the appearance of premature aging. Multiple sclerosis (MS) biomarkers related to lesion burden are well developed, but measures of neurodegeneration are less well-developed. The appearance of premature aging quantified by machine learning applied to structural MRI assesses neurodegenerative pathology. We assess the explanatory and predictive power of brain age analysis on disability in MS using a large, real-world dataset. METHODS: Brain age analysis is predicated on the over-estimation of predicted brain age in patients with more advanced pathology. We compared the performance of three brain age algorithms in a large, longitudinal dataset (\u3e13,000 imaging sessions from \u3e6,000 individual MS patients). Effects of MS, MS disease course, disability, lesion burden, and DMT efficacy were assessed using linear mixed effects models. RESULTS: MS was associated with advanced predicted brain age cross-sectionally and accelerated brain aging longitudinally in all techniques. While MS disease course (relapsing vs. progressive) did contribute to advanced brain age, disability was the primary correlate of advanced brain age. We found that advanced brain age at study enrollment predicted more disability accumulation longitudinally. Lastly, a more youthful appearing brain (predicted brain age less than actual age) was associated with decreased disability. INTERPRETATION: Brain age is a technically tractable and clinically relevant biomarker of disease pathology that correlates with and predicts increasing disability in MS. Advanced brain age predicts future disability accumulation

Quantitative signal properties from standardized MRIs correlate with multiple sclerosis disability

OBJECTIVE: To enable use of clinical magnetic resonance images (MRIs) to quantify abnormalities in normal appearing (NA) white matter (WM) and gray matter (GM) in multiple sclerosis (MS) and to determine associations with MS-related disability. Identification of these abnormalities heretofore has required specialized scans not routinely available in clinical practice. METHODS: We developed an analytic technique which normalizes image intensities based on an intensity atlas for quantification of WM and GM abnormalities in standardized MRIs obtained with clinical sequences. Gaussian mixture modeling is applied to summarize image intensity distributions from T1-weighted and 3D-FLAIR (T2-weighted) images from 5010 participants enrolled in a multinational database of MS patients which collected imaging, neuroperformance and disability measures. RESULTS: Intensity distribution metrics distinguished MS patients from control participants based on normalized non-lesional signal differences. This analysis revealed non-lesional differences between relapsing MS versus progressive MS subtypes. Further, the correlation between our non-lesional measures and disability was approximately three times greater than that between total lesion volume and disability, measured using the patient derived disease steps. Multivariate modeling revealed that measures of extra-lesional tissue integrity and atrophy contribute uniquely, and approximately equally, to the prediction of MS-related disability. INTERPRETATION: These results support the notion that non-lesional abnormalities correlate more strongly with MS-related disability than lesion burden and provide new insight into the basis of abnormalities in NA WM. Non-lesional abnormalities distinguish relapsing from progressive MS but do not distinguish between progressive subtypes suggesting a common progressive pathophysiology. Image intensity parameters and existing biomarkers each independently correlate with MS-related disability

Distance to Diagnosing Provider as a Measure of Access for Patients With Melanoma

To examine the effect of travel distance and other sociodemographic factors on access to a diagnosing provider for patients with melanoma

A Bayesian network to predict coastal vulnerability to sea level rise

This paper is not subject to U.S. copyright. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research 116 (2011): F02009, doi:10.1029/2010JF001891.Sea level rise during the 21st century will have a wide range of effects on coastal environments, human development, and infrastructure in coastal areas. The broad range of complex factors influencing coastal systems contributes to large uncertainties in predicting long-term sea level rise impacts. Here we explore and demonstrate the capabilities of a Bayesian network (BN) to predict long-term shoreline change associated with sea level rise and make quantitative assessments of prediction uncertainty. A BN is used to define relationships between driving forces, geologic constraints, and coastal response for the U.S. Atlantic coast that include observations of local rates of relative sea level rise, wave height, tide range, geomorphic classification, coastal slope, and shoreline change rate. The BN is used to make probabilistic predictions of shoreline retreat in response to different future sea level rise rates. Results demonstrate that the probability of shoreline retreat increases with higher rates of sea level rise. Where more specific information is included, the probability of shoreline change increases in a number of cases, indicating more confident predictions. A hindcast evaluation of the BN indicates that the network correctly predicts 71% of the cases. Evaluation of the results using Brier skill and log likelihood ratio scores indicates that the network provides shoreline change predictions that are better than the prior probability. Shoreline change outcomes indicating stability (−1 1 m/yr) was not well predicted. We find that BNs can assimilate important factors contributing to coastal change in response to sea level rise and can make quantitative, probabilistic predictions that can be applied to coastal management decisions.Funding for this work was provided by the USGS Coastal and Marine Geology and Global Change Research programs

Left frontal hub connectivity delays cognitive impairment in autosomal-dominant and sporadic Alzheimer's disease

Patients with Alzheimer's disease vary in their ability to sustain cognitive abilities in the presence of brain pathology. A major open question is which brain mechanisms may support higher reserve capacity, i.e. relatively high cognitive performance at a given level of Alzheimer's pathology. Higher functional MRI-assessed functional connectivity of a hub in the left frontal cortex is a core candidate brain mechanism underlying reserve as it is associated with education (i.e. a protective factor often associated with higher reserve) and attenuated cognitive impairment in prodromal Alzheimer's disease. However, no study has yet assessed whether such hub connectivity of the left frontal cortex supports reserve throughout the evolution of pathological brain changes in Alzheimer's disease, including the presymptomatic stage when cognitive decline is subtle. To address this research gap, we obtained cross-sectional resting state functional MRI in 74 participants with autosomal dominant Alzheimer's disease, 55 controls from the Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer's Network and 75 amyloid-positive elderly participants, as well as 41 amyloid-negative cognitively normal elderly subjects from the German Center of Neurodegenerative Diseases multicentre study on biomarkers in sporadic Alzheimer's disease. For each participant, global left frontal cortex connectivity was computed as the average resting state functional connectivity between the left frontal cortex (seed) and each voxel in the grey matter. As a marker of disease stage, we applied estimated years from symptom onset in autosomal dominantly inherited Alzheimer's disease and cerebrospinal fluid tau levels in sporadic Alzheimer's disease cases. In both autosomal dominant and sporadic Alzheimer's disease patients, higher levels of left frontal cortex connectivity were correlated with greater education. For autosomal dominant Alzheimer's disease, a significant left frontal cortex connectivity × estimated years of onset interaction was found, indicating slower decline of memory and global cognition at higher levels of connectivity. Similarly, in sporadic amyloid-positive elderly subjects, the effect of tau on cognition was attenuated at higher levels of left frontal cortex connectivity. Polynomial regression analysis showed that the trajectory of cognitive decline was shifted towards a later stage of Alzheimer's disease in patients with higher levels of left frontal cortex connectivity. Together, our findings suggest that higher resilience against the development of cognitive impairment throughout the early stages of Alzheimer's disease is at least partially attributable to higher left frontal cortex-hub connectivity