Zur Entstehung und Bedeutung des Epochenbegriffs ‚Völkerwanderung‘ bis ins 19. Jahrhundert

Die Spätantike und das frühe Mittelalter hatten keine Vorstellung von einem ‚Wandern der Völker‘, und auch die Epochengrenzen zwischen Altertum und Mittelalter sind eine gelehrte Konstruktion der Frühen Neuzeit. Seit dem frühen 16. Jahrhundert entstanden sowohl das zugrunde liegende Geschichtsbild als auch die Begriffe migratio gentium und später ‚Völkerwanderung‘. Der frühneuzeitliche Völkerwanderungsbegriff hatte wiederum vielerlei Bezüge zur antiken Literatur und deren Vorstellung von Wanderung und Sesshaftigkeit.Throughout Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages no scholar developed a concept of Barbarian Invasions or a Migration period. Contemporary historical perceptions derive from early modern learned concepts. The same applies to the traditional division of Western history, separating antiquity and the Middle Ages. On the other hand early modern concepts are densely connected to literary patterns of classcial literature

“A Man with a Wide Horizon : The Postwar Professional Journey of SS Officer Karl Nicolussi-Leck

In his biography of SS Obergruppenführer Werner Best, the German historian Ulrich Herbert coined the phrase Ausgrenzung in den Wohlstand, or exclusion into prosperity. According to Herbert, for those excluded from politics and public service, there remained the liberal professions and business, mostly provided by old contacts, some dating from their student days.”1 Yet there are few studies on the postwar professional lives of former high-ranking Nazis and SS officers. Among them are Norbert Frei\u27s edited volume Karrieren im Zwielicht (Careers in the twilight) and a dozen or so biographical studies, such as Herbert\u27s work on Best.2 Former SS officer Karl Nicolussi-Leck and his post-1945 network of comrades —business associates and friends—exemplify Herbert\u27s assertion that former Nazis and SS men reinvented themselves after 1945, transforming from political actors into successful apolitical businessmen. Nicolussi-Leck and his circle provide excellent examples of the postwar careers of former midlevel SS officers and Nazi officials, many of whom managed to start new careers in the private sector, especially with big German companies in the Rhine-Ruhr region. This traditional heartland of German industry started to boom again in the 1950s, and with it many careers took off too. Indeed, it is striking how swiftly and easily former SS officers reintegrated into German and Austrian social and economic life. By no means an exception, Nicolussi-Leck\u27s career was a product of the Cold War-era economic and political climate, and as such it is a telling case. It was not until the late 1980s that hard questions about former Nazi officials began to be asked: To what degree were they involved with the crimes of the Hitler regime? Did they bear any legal or moral responsibility for these crimes? What did they do after the war? While researching Nicolussi-Leck\u27s postwar career, I came across a number of similar cases that can only be touched upon here. Given the scarce research on the postwar careers of former Nazis with major German companies, this chapter seeks to raise awareness of this understudied topic and begin to fill in the gap in scholarship.

Transient simulations of the carbon and nitrogen dynamics in northern peatlands: from the Last Glacial Maximum to the 21st century

The development of northern high-latitude peatlands played an important role in the carbon (C) balance of the land biosphere since the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). At present, carbon storage in northern peatlands is substantial and estimated to be 500 ± 100 Pg C (1 Pg C = 1015 g C). Here, we develop and apply a peatland module embedded in a dynamic global vegetation and land surface process model (LPX-Bern 1.0). The peatland module features a dynamic nitrogen cycle, a dynamic C transfer between peatland acrotelm (upper oxic layer) and catotelm (deep anoxic layer), hydrology- and temperature-dependent respiration rates, and peatland specific plant functional types. Nitrogen limitation down-regulates average modern net primary productivity over peatlands by about half. Decadal acrotelm-to-catotelm C fluxes vary between −20 and +50 g C m−2 yr−1 over the Holocene. Key model parameters are calibrated with reconstructed peat accumulation rates from peat-core data. The model reproduces the major features of the peat core data and of the observation-based modern circumpolar soil carbon distribution. Results from a set of simulations for possible evolutions of northern peat development and areal extent show that soil C stocks in modern peatlands increased by 365–550 Pg C since the LGM, of which 175–272 Pg C accumulated between 11 and 5 kyr BP. Furthermore, our simulations suggest a persistent C sequestration rate of 35–50 Pg C per 1000 yr in present-day peatlands under current climate conditions, and that this C sink could either sustain or turn towards a source by 2100 AD depending on climate trajectories as projected for different representative greenhouse gas concentration pathways

Introduction to \u3ci\u3eAntisemitism on the Rise: The 1930s and Today\u3c/i\u3e

We live in uncertain and unsettling times. Tragically, today\u27s global culture is rife with violent bigotry, nationalism, and antisemitism. The rhetoric is not new; it is grounded in attitudes and values from the 1930s and the 1940s in Europe and the United States. Antisemitism on the Rise is a collection of essays by some of the world\u27s leading experts, including Joseph Bendersky, Jean Cahan, R. Amy Elman, Leonard Greenspoon, and Jurgen Matthaus, regarding two key moments in antisemitic history: the interwar period and today. Ari Kohen and Gerald J. Steinacher have collected important examples on this crucial topic to illustrate new research findings and learning techniques that have become increasingly vital with the recent rise of white supremacist movements, many of which have a firm root in antisemitism. Part 1 focuses on the antisemitic beliefs and ideas that were predominant during the 1930s and 1940s, while part 2 draws comparisons between this period and today, including examples of ways to teach others about contemporary antisemitism. The volume seeks to inform readers about the historical progression of antisemitism and in doing so asks readers to think about what is at stake and how to bridge the gap between research and teaching

The fission yeast FANCM ortholog directs non-crossover recombination during meiosis

Peer reviewedPostprin

Locally induced quantum interference in scanning gate experiments

We present conductance measurements of a ballistic circular stadium influenced by a scanning gate. When the tip depletes the electron gas below, we observe very pronounced and regular fringes covering the entire stadium. The fringes correspond to transmitted modes in constrictions formed between the tip-induced potential and the boundaries of the stadium. Moving the tip and counting the fringes gives us exquisite control over the transmission of these constrictions. We use this control to form a quantum ring with a specific number of modes in each arm showing the Aharonov-Bohm effect in low-field magnetoconductance measurements.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figure

Scanning-gate-induced effects and spatial mapping of a cavity

Tailored electrostatic potentials are the foundation of scanning gate microscopy. We present several aspects of the tip-induced potential on the two-dimensional electron gas. First, we give methods on how to estimate the size of the tip-induced potential. Then, a ballistic cavity is formed and studied as a function of the bias-voltage of the metallic top gates and probed with the tip-induced potential. It is shown how the potential of the cavity changes by tuning the system to a regime where conductance quantization in the constrictions formed by the tip and the top gates occurs. This conductance quantization leads to a unprecedented rich fringe pattern over the entire structure. Finally, the effect of electrostatic screening of the metallic top gates is discussed.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figure

Nonlinear Dynamics in Gene Regulation Promote Robustness and Evolvability of Gene Expression Levels

This is the final version of the article. Available from Public Library of Science via the DOI in this record.Cellular phenotypes underpinned by regulatory networks need to respond to evolutionary pressures to allow adaptation, but at the same time be robust to perturbations. This creates a conflict in which mutations affecting regulatory networks must both generate variance but also be tolerated at the phenotype level. Here, we perform mathematical analyses and simulations of regulatory networks to better understand the potential trade-off between robustness and evolvability. Examining the phenotypic effects of mutations, we find an inverse correlation between robustness and evolvability that breaks only with nonlinearity in the network dynamics, through the creation of regions presenting sudden changes in phenotype with small changes in genotype. For genotypes embedding low levels of nonlinearity, robustness and evolvability correlate negatively and almost perfectly. By contrast, genotypes embedding nonlinear dynamics allow expression levels to be robust to small perturbations, while generating high diversity (evolvability) under larger perturbations. Thus, nonlinearity breaks the robustness-evolvability trade-off in gene expression levels by allowing disparate responses to different mutations. Using analytical derivations of robustness and system sensitivity, we show that these findings extend to a large class of gene regulatory network architectures and also hold for experimentally observed parameter regimes. Further, the effect of nonlinearity on the robustness-evolvability trade-off is ensured as long as key parameters of the system display specific relations irrespective of their absolute values. We find that within this parameter regime genotypes display low and noisy expression levels. Examining the phenotypic effects of mutations, we find an inverse correlation between robustness and evolvability that breaks only with nonlinearity in the network dynamics. Our results provide a possible solution to the robustness-evolvability trade-off, suggest an explanation for the ubiquity of nonlinear dynamics in gene expression networks, and generate useful guidelines for the design of synthetic gene circuits.This work was funded by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, grant number EP/I017445/1

Die historische Entwicklung der Politischen Bildung im Bereich der Volksschule

Politikverdrossenheit sowie sinkende Wahlbeteiligungen nahmen in den vergangenen Jahren kontinuierlich zu. Diese Phänomene lassen Fragen rund um eine Politische Bildung (an den Schulen) laut werden. Ab wann ist es denn „sinnvoll“, Politische Bildung den SchülerInnen näher zu bringen? Soll daraus ein „eigenes“ Fach entstehen? Was ist Politische Bildung überhaupt? Aus politikwissenschaftlicher Sicht ist dieser Bereich ein besonders bedeutender, denn die ersten Forderungen nach Bildung in diesem Bereich stammen bereits aus der Antike, derselben Zeit, als auch erste Staaten gegründet wurden. Mit Politischer Bildung verbinden jedoch die meisten Menschen zunächst einmal das Erlernen von Begriffen, das aber vor allem, und das soll diese Arbeit zeigen, in der Volksschule, das Erlernen von Definitionen eher im Hintergrund stehen sollte. Die vorliegende Arbeit soll einen historischen Überblick über die Politische Bildung in Bereich der Volksschule geben. Gegliedert ist diese Arbeit in drei wesentliche Teile, das erste Kapitel widmet sich den Definitionen sowie den Aspekten der Politischen Bildung. Der Hauptteil fasst die Reformen, Lehrplanänderungen sowie die Bildungsgeschichte an sich, seit dem Zeitpunkt der Allgemeinen Schulordnung unter Maria Theresia bis heute, zusammen. Der Fokus liegt hier auf der Zeit der Monarchie, der Zeit des Schulreformers Glöckel bis zur Politischen Bildung zur heutigen Zeit. Der Austrofaschismus sowie der Nationalsozialismus werden bewusst nur gestreift. Im letzten Teil, dem „praktischen Bereich“ wurden unterschiedlichste Zitate aus diesen Zeitabschnitten zusammengefasst und in zwei Kategorien geteilt. Mit diesen beiden Aspekten konnte belegt werden, seit welchem Zeitpunkt bereits Politische Bildung in der Volksschule möglich war. Die/der LeserIn wird recht rasch bemerken, dass Politische Bildung nicht nur rein das Erlernen von Politikbegriffen und ähnlichen Definitionen ist. Bereits in der Monarchie waren einige „ExpertInnen“ bemüht, Kindern mehr mitzugeben, als das Wissen rund um das Kaiserreich. Politische Bildung ist daher als Teil der Gesamterziehung zu verstehen und soll die SchülerInnen zu demokratische Menschen „erziehen“, die sich schließlich in der Gesellschaft zurechtfinden sollen. Es ist die Mitgestaltung jedes einzelnen, daher ist die Erziehung zur Selbstständigkeit, die Grundlage. Dieser Weg zur Demokratisierung ist – und so geht es auch aus dieser Arbeit hervor - das Hauptziel in diesem Bereich