Information structure and the referential status of linguistic expression : workshop as part of the 23th annual meetings of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Sprachwissenschaft in Leipzig, Leipzig, February 28 - March 2, 2001

This volume comprises papers that were given at the workshop Information Structure and the Referential Status of Linguistic Expressions, which we organized during the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Sprachwissenschaft (DGfS) Conference in Leipzig in February 2001. At this workshop we discussed the connection between information structure and the referential interpretation of linguistic expressions, a topic mostly neglected in current linguistics research. One common aim of the papers is to find out to what extent the focus-background as well as the topic-comment structuring determine the referential interpretation of simple arguments like definite and indefinite NPs on the one hand and sentences on the other

Germany and the United States, From the Marshall Plan to the Iraq War: A Transatlantic Dialogue Then and Now

Streaming video requires RealPlayer to view.The University Archives has determined that this item is of continuing value to OSU's history.The relationship between Germany and the United States has undergone many changes in the last century. For Klaus Schwabe, who has experienced these changes first-hand as a German and a frequent visitor to the United States, German-American relations in the 20 th century divide into three distinct periods. Schwabe describes these periods as three images impressed upon him through his experiences.Ohio State University. Mershon Center for International Security StudiesEvent webpage, streaming video, photos, lecture summar

The operating regime of local computations in primary visual cortex

[Abstract] In V1, local circuitry depends on the position in the orientation map: close to pinwheel centers, recurrent inputs show variable orientation preferences; within iso-orientation domains, inputs are relatively uniformly tuned. Physiological properties such as cell's membrane potentials, spike outputs, and temporal characteristics change systematically with map location. We investigate in a firing rate and a Hodgkin–Huxley network model what constraints these tuning characteristics of V1 neurons impose on the cortical operating regime. Systematically varying the strength of both recurrent excitation and inhibition, we test a wide range of model classes and find the likely models to account for the experimental observations. We show that recent intracellular and extracellular recordings from cat V1 provide the strongest evidence for a regime where excitatory and inhibitory recurrent inputs are balanced and dominate the feed-forward input. Our results are robust against changes in model assumptions such as spatial extent and strength of lateral inhibition. Intriguingly, the most likely recurrent regime is in a region of parameter space where small changes have large effects on the network dynamics, and it is close to a regime of “runaway excitation,” where the network shows strong self-sustained activity. This could make the cortical response particularly sensitive to modulation

Die Kleinschmetterlinge (Microlepidoptera) der Diluviallandschaften um Eberswalde

Mikrolepidopteren gehörten seit der ersten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts zum Gegenstand entomologischer Forschung in Eberswalde. Zentren der Forschung waren zunächst die Forstlichen Lehranstalten und Institute, später auch das Deutsche Entomologische Institut. Außerdem war die Eberswalder Gegend stets Anziehungspunkt für viele Mikrolepidopteren-Spezialisten, die nicht an einschlägigen wissenschaftlichen Instituten arbeiteten.In der vorgelegten Arbeit werden die Forschungsergebnisse aus der Vergangenheit regionalfaunistisch ausgewertet und durch Ergebnisse aktueller faunistischer Forschungen zu einem Verzeichnis der Microlepidoptera der Diluviallandschaften um Eberswalde ergänzt. Das Verzeichnis umfasst mit 863 Arten aus 47 Familien 57 % der im Land Brandenburg nachgewiesenen Mikrolepidopteren-Arten, darunter ein Neufund für Deutschland: Clepsis coriacanus; 13 Neufunde für das Land Brandenburg: Coleophora adjectella, Colephora sylvaticella, Coleophora ramosella, Mompha terminella, Monochroa arundinetella, Bryotropha umbrosella, Anarsia innoxiella, Telephila schmidtiellus, Cydia gemmiferana, Acrobasis legatea, Pammene herrichiana, Pammene ignorata, Schreckensteinia festaliella; und 45 Wiederfunde im Land Brandenburg. Die Autoren konnten 332 Arten erstmals im Eberswalder Raum nachweisen. Für 531 Arten wurden ältere/historische Nachweise ausgewertet. Das Vorkommen von 408 dieser Arten konnte bestätigt werden.Die Funddaten sind tabellarisch dargestellt und sowohl Naturräumen des Gebietes als auch Messtischblättern zugeordnet.Microlepidoptera have been the subject of entomological research in Eberswalde since the first half of the 19th Century. Centres of research were at first the forestry colleges and institutes, later also the German Entomological Institute. Furthermore, the Eberswalde area has always been a magnet for many Microlepidoptera specialists who did not work at scientific institutes.In this paper the results of past research are evaluated faunistically at the regional level and supplemented by data obtained during recent research. The result is a list of Microlepidoptera of the diluvial landscapes around Eberswalde. Comprising 863 species in 47 families, the inventory includes 57 % of the Microlepidoptera species found in the state of Brandenburg, including a species not previously recorded in Germany: Clepsis coriacanus; 13 new finds for the state of Brandenburg: Coleophora adjectella, Colephora sylvaticella, Coleophora ramosella, Mompha terminella, Monochroa arundinetella, Bryotropha umbrosella, Anarsia innoxiella, Telephila schmidtiellus, Cydia gemmiferana, Acrobasis legatea, Pammene herrichiana, Pammene ignorata, Schreckensteinia festaliella; and 45 rediscoveries for the State of Brandenburg. The authors were able to record 332 species for the first time in the Eberswalde area. For 531 species older/ historical evidence was evaluated. The occurrence of 408 of these species is confirmed.The record data are presented in tabular form and assigned both to the classification of natural areas of the region and to the map sheets of the ordinance survey

Need for nursing care support in cancer patients: Registry-linkage study in Germany

Aim: In Germany, very little is known about the need for assistance and nursing care support among cancer patients after hospitalization. The aim of this study was to describe nursing care support for cancer patients and to analyse whether these patients need more care assistance than other persons in need for care. Methods: This was a registry linkage study conducted in 2011. Cases were identified from the population-based cancer registry for the Muenster District in north-western Germany and in factually anonymised form linked by a semi-automatic probabilistic procedure (the standard procedure of the cancer registry) with medical examination records of patients applying for assistance and nursing care support from the regional statutory health insurance. The application records of 4,029 patients with colon, breast and prostate cancer were compared to a reference group of 13,104 non-cancer patients. Results: In only 41.7% of colon, 45.8% of breast and 37.4% of prostate cancer patients was the malignancy the main underlying diagnostic cause for the application of assistance and nursing care. These patients were on average younger (mean age 71.1 vs. 76.8 years) than the non-cancer reference group, required higher levels of support (79.5 vs. 58.1% “considerable” or higher level care need) and their applications were less likely to be rejected (odds ratios [ORs] 0.26, 0.28, and 0.31, respectively). By contrast, the proportion of successful applications and the level of support granted did not differ between multimorbid cancer patients with other main diagnoses as compared to non-cancer applicants. Conclusion: Patients with colon, breast or prostate cancer do not need per se more nursing care than non-cancer patients. Only if cancer is the main underlying diagnosis for nursing care support, higher levels of support are needed

Piwi-interacting RNAs as novel prognostic markers in clear cell renal cell carcinomas

Background Piwi-interacting RNAs (piRNAs) are small RNAs of 27–30 nucleotides mapping to transposons or clustering in repeat genomic regions. Preliminary studies suggest an important role in cancerogenesis. This study is the first one investigating their prognostic impact in clear cell renal cell cancer (ccRCC) patients. Methods Three piRNAs (piR-30924, piR-57125, and piR-38756) selected on the basis of initial piRNA microarray analyses were determined using RT-qPCR in non-metastatic (n = 76) and metastatic (n = 30) ccRCC tissue at the time of nephrectomy in comparison to normal renal tissue (n = 77) and tissue from distant ccRCC metastases (n = 13). Primary clinical end points were recurrence-free and overall survival. Results piR-57125 showed lower expression in metastatic than in non-metastatic tumors, whereas the expression of piR-30924 and piR-38756 increased in metastatic tumors. The higher expression of piR-30924 and piR-38756 as well as the lower expression of piR-57125 in metastatic primary tumors were significantly associated with tumor recurrence and overall survival. Multivariate Cox regression analyses revealed both piR-30924 and piR-57125 as independent prognostic predictors. This impact was even more pronounced in non-metastatic patients. Conclusions This study demonstrates that the expression levels of these piRNAs in primary non-metastatic and metastatic ccRCC tissue can serve as potential prognostic biomarkers in combination with clinicopathological factors

Need for nursing care support in cancer patients: Registry-linkage study in Germany

Aim: In Germany, very little is known about the need for assistance and nursing care support among cancer patients after hospitalization. The aim of this study was to describe nursing care support for cancer patients and to analyse whether these patients need more care assistance than other persons in need for care.Methods: This was a registry linkage study conducted in 2011. Cases were identified from the population-based cancer registry for the Muenster District in north-western Germany and in factually anonymised form linked by a semi-automatic probabilistic procedure (the standard procedure of the cancer registry) with medical examination records of patients applying for assistance and nursing care support from the regional statutory health insurance. The application records of 4,029 patients with colon, breast and prostate cancer were compared to a reference group of 13,104 non-cancer patients.Results: In only 41.7% of colon, 45.8% of breast and 37.4% of prostate cancer patients was the malignancy the main underlying diagnostic cause for the application of assistance and nursing care. These patients were on average younger (mean age 71.1 vs. 76.8 years) than the non-cancer reference group, required higher levels of support (79.5 vs. 58.1% “considerable” or higher level care need) and their applications were less likely to be rejected (odds ratios [ORs] 0.26, 0.28, and 0.31, respectively). By contrast, the proportion of successful applications and the level of support granted did not differ between multimorbid cancer patients with other main diagnoses as compared to non-cancer applicants.Conclusion: Patients with colon, breast or prostate cancer do not need per se more nursing care than non-cancer patients. Only if cancer is the main underlying diagnosis for nursing care support, higher levels of support are needed.

Adaptation and Selective Information Transmission in the Cricket Auditory Neuron AN2

Sensory systems adapt their neural code to changes in the sensory environment, often on multiple time scales. Here, we report a new form of adaptation in a first-order auditory interneuron (AN2) of crickets. We characterize the response of the AN2 neuron to amplitude-modulated sound stimuli and find that adaptation shifts the stimulus–response curves toward higher stimulus intensities, with a time constant of 1.5 s for adaptation and recovery. The spike responses were thus reduced for low-intensity sounds. We then address the question whether adaptation leads to an improvement of the signal's representation and compare the experimental results with the predictions of two competing hypotheses: infomax, which predicts that information conveyed about the entire signal range should be maximized, and selective coding, which predicts that “foreground” signals should be enhanced while “background” signals should be selectively suppressed. We test how adaptation changes the input–response curve when presenting signals with two or three peaks in their amplitude distributions, for which selective coding and infomax predict conflicting changes. By means of Bayesian data analysis, we quantify the shifts of the measured response curves and also find a slight reduction of their slopes. These decreases in slopes are smaller, and the absolute response thresholds are higher than those predicted by infomax. Most remarkably, and in contrast to the infomax principle, adaptation actually reduces the amount of encoded information when considering the whole range of input signals. The response curve changes are also not consistent with the selective coding hypothesis, because the amount of information conveyed about the loudest part of the signal does not increase as predicted but remains nearly constant. Less information is transmitted about signals with lower intensity

Invariant computations in local cortical networks with balanced excitation and inhibition

[Abstract] Cortical computations critically involve local neuronal circuits. The computations are often invariant across a cortical area yet are carried out by networks that can vary widely within an area according to its functional architecture. Here we demonstrate a mechanism by which orientation selectivity is computed invariantly in cat primary visual cortex across an orientation preference map that provides a wide diversity of local circuits. Visually evoked excitatory and inhibitory synaptic conductances are balanced exquisitely in cortical neurons and thus keep the spike response sharply tuned at all map locations. This functional balance derives from spatially isotropic local connectivity of both excitatory and inhibitory cells. Modeling results demonstrate that such covariation is a signature of recurrent rather than purely feed-forward processing and that the observed isotropic local circuit is sufficient to generate invariant spike tuning