Combating the Hydra: Violence and Resistance in the Habsburg Empire, 1500–1900

Combating the Hydra explores structural as well as occasion-specific state violence committed by the early modern Habsburg Empire. The book depicts and analyzes attacks on marginalized people “maladjusted” of all sorts, women “of ill repute,” “heretic” Protestants, and “Gypsies.” Previously uncharted archival records reveal the use of arbitrary imprisonment, coerced labor, and deportation. The case studies presented provide insights into the origins of modern state power from varied techniques of population control, but are also an investigation of resistance against oppression, persecution, and life-threatening assaults. The spectrum of fights against debasement is a touching attestation of the humanity of the outcasts; they range from mental and emotional perseverance to counterviolence. A conversation with the eminent historian Carlo Ginzburg concludes the collection by asking about the importance of memorizing horrors of the past.https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/ces/1002/thumbnail.jp

Rückkehr unerwünscht

"Rückkehr unerwünscht" (Return Undesired) is the first systematic study on deportation in the Habsburg empire. The measures taken against protestants, deviants and losers in the modernisation process are both delineated in detail and in their european contexts.Concerning the historiography of the Habsburg empire this volume is breaking new ground in respect of deportation. Whereas scholars in the field of Contemporary History tend to view them as merely epiphenomena of totalitarianism, a more closer reconstruction of its "protohistory" reveals it as an instrument of punishment, of demonstration of power and of population policies that were widely and in a rather "modern" way used in the Habsburg Monarchy as early as in the 18th century. The first chapters are focusing on a synoptic view of the major European powers of the Early Modern Period (Portugal, France, Spain, Russia, the Netherlands) and their attitudes towards deportation as well as on the sürgün-method in the Ottoman empire. The following chapters are dealing with all hitherto known deportations in the Habsburg realm of the Early Modern Era as well as with the rekindled debate on it around 1900. The notion that a country without colonies would be uninterested in deportations as well, is untenable. On the contrary, the Habsburg empire with its measures taken against protestants, deviants and losers in the modernisation process was just numerically ranking in a significant position. The study is grounded on intense archival research, which brought forth a multitude of essential documents that were hitherto unknown or looked over. Eight case studies comprise different regions of the empire and are situated amongst most diverse social strata. All in all they are intended to serve as major building blocks for a "History of Violence in the Habsburg Empire" yet to be written."Rückkehr unerwünscht" ist die erste systematische Studie zum Themenkomplex "Deportation" in der Habsburgermonarchie. Die Geschichte der verschiedensten Zwangsmaßnahmen, die sich vor allen Dingen gegen Protestanten, Deviante und Modernisierungsverweigerer richteten, wird sowohl im Detail minutiös rekonstriert als auch in einen europäischen Kontext eingebettet

Ultrafast band-gap renormalization and build-up of optical gain in monolayer MoTe2_2

The dynamics of band-gap renormalization and gain build-up in monolayer MoTe$_2$ is investigated by evaluating the non-equilibrium Dirac-Bloch equations with the incoherent carrier-carrier and carrier-phonon scattering treated via quantum-Boltzmann type scattering equations. For the case where an approximately $300$ fs-long high intensity optical pulse generates charge-carrier densities in the gain regime, the strong Coulomb coupling leads to a relaxation of excited carriers on a few fs time scale. The pump-pulse generation of excited carriers induces a large band-gap renormalization during the time scale of the pulse. Efficient phonon coupling leads to a subsequent carrier thermalization within a few ps, which defines the time scale for the optical gain build-up energetically close to the low-density exciton resonance.Comment: This is a post-peer-review version of an article published in Physical Review

Development of a prototype for the automated generation of timetable scenarios specified by the transport service intention

Within the next 5 to 10 years, public transport in Switzerland as well as in other European countries will experience major technological and organisational changes. However, changes will also take place on the customer side, resulting in different mobility behaviour and demand patterns. These changes will lead to additional challenges for transport service providers in private as well as public domains. Time to market will be a key success factor and it is unnecessary to mention that due to these factors the speed and flexibility of business processes in freight as well as in passenger transport industry have to be increased significantly. Within the railway value chain (line planning, timetabling and vehicle scheduling etc.) the coordination of the individual planning steps is a key success factor. SBB as the leading service provider in public transport in Switzerland has recognized this challenge and, together with various partners, initiated the strategic project Smart Rail 4.0. The ZHAW and especially the Institute for Data Analysis and Process Design (IDP) of the School of Engineering wants to be part of this transformation process and to contribute with research and educational activities. The IDP research therefore aims for the transformation of academic and scientific know-how to practical applicability. In a first step this concerns directly the current Smart Rail 4.0 TMS-PAS project activities, that concentrate on timetabling issues. The IDP project team considers the integration of the line planning and the timetabling process as crucial for practical applications. To address this in the current research project, we present an application concept that enables the integration of these two major process steps in the transport service value-chain. Although it turns out from our research, that the technical requirements for the integration of the process can be satisfied, rules and conditions for a closer cooperation of the involved business units, the train operating companies and the infrastructure operating company, have to be improved and to be worked out in more detail. In addition to a detailed application concept with use cases for the timetabling process we propose a methodology for computer aided timetable generation based on the central planning object known as ‘service intention’. The service intention can be used to iteratively develop the timetable relying on a ‘progressive feasibility assessment’, a feature that is requested in practice. Our proposed model is based on the ‘track-choice’ and line rotation extension of the commonly known method for the generation of periodic event schedules ‘PESP’. The extension makes use of the track infrastructure representation which is also used in the line planning and timetabling system Viriato. This system that is widely used by public transport planners and operators. With the help of Viriato, it is rather easy to configure the timetabling problem in sufficient detail. On the other side, the level of detail of the considered data is light enough to algorithmically solve practical timetabling problems of realistic sizes. Taking into consideration the technical and operational constraints given by rolling stock, station and track topology data on one hand, and the commercial requirements defined by a given line concept on the other, the method presented generates periodic timetables including train-track assignments. In the first step, the standardized data structure ‘service intention’ represents the line concept consisting of train paths and frequencies. Due to the utilization of infrastructure-based track capacities, we are also able to assess the feasibility of the line concept given. Additionally, the method allows for handling temporary resource restrictions (e.g. caused by construction sites or operational disturbances). In order to assess the performance of the resulting timetable we present a framework for performance measurement that addresses the customer convenience (in terms of start-to-end travel time) as well as operational stability requirements (in terms of delay sensitivity and critical relations)

Cerebral perfusion in sepsis-associated delirium

INTRODUCTION: The pathophysiology of sepsis-associated delirium is not completely understood and the data on cerebral perfusion in sepsis are conflicting. We tested the hypothesis that cerebral perfusion and selected serum markers of inflammation and delirium differ in septic patients with and without sepsis-associated delirium. METHODS: We investigated 23 adult patients with sepsis, severe sepsis, or septic shock with an extracranial focus of infection and no history of intracranial pathology. Patients were investigated after stabilisation within 48 hours after admission to the intensive care unit. Sepsis-associated delirium was diagnosed using the confusion assessment method for the intensive care unit. Mean arterial pressure (MAP), blood flow velocity (FV) in the middle cerebral artery using transcranial Doppler, and cerebral tissue oxygenation using near-infrared spectroscopy were monitored for 1 hour. An index of cerebrovascular autoregulation was calculated from MAP and FV data. C-reactive protein (CRP), interleukin-6 (IL-6), S-100beta, and cortisol were measured during each data acquisition. RESULTS: Data from 16 patients, of whom 12 had sepsis-associated delirium, were analysed. There were no significant correlations or associations between MAP, cerebral blood FV, or tissue oxygenation and sepsis-associated delirium. However, we found a significant association between sepsis-associated delirium and disturbed autoregulation (P = 0.015). IL-6 did not differ between patients with and without sepsis-associated delirium, but we found a significant association between elevated CRP (P = 0.008), S-100beta (P = 0.029), and cortisol (P = 0.011) and sepsis-associated delirium. Elevated CRP was significantly correlated with disturbed autoregulation (Spearman rho = 0.62, P = 0.010). CONCLUSION: In this small group of patients, cerebral perfusion assessed with transcranial Doppler and near-infrared spectroscopy did not differ between patients with and without sepsis-associated delirium. However, the state of autoregulation differed between the two groups. This may be due to inflammation impeding cerebrovascular endothelial function. Further investigations defining the role of S-100beta and cortisol in the diagnosis of sepsis-associated delirium are warranted. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT00410111

Near-Infrared Spectroscopy can Monitor Dynamic Cerebral Autoregulation in Adults

Objective: To study the correlation between a dynamic index of cerebral autoregulation assessed with blood flow velocity (FV) using transcranial Doppler, and a tissue oxygenation index (TOI) recorded with near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). Methods: Twenty-three patients with sepsis, severe sepsis, or septic shock were monitored daily on up to four consecutive days. FV, TOI, and mean arterial blood pressure (ABP) were recorded for 60min every day. An index of autoregulation (Mx) was calculated as the moving correlation coefficient between 10-s averaged values of FV and ABP over moving 5min time-windows. The index Tox was evaluated as the correlation coefficient between TOI and ABP in the same way. The indices Mx and Tox, ABP and arterial partial pressure of CO2 were averaged for each patient. Results: Synchronized slow waves, presenting with periods from 20s to 2min, were seen in the TOI and FV of most patients, with a reasonable coherence between the signals in this bandwidth (coherence >0.5). The indices, Mx and Tox, demonstrated good correlation with each other (R=0.81; P<0.0001) in the whole group of patients. Both indices showed a significant (P<0.05) tendency to indicate weaker autoregulation in the state of vasodilatation associated with greater values of arterial partial pressure of CO2 or lower values of ABP. Conclusion: NIRS shows promise for the continuous assessment of cerebral autoregulation in adult

Seroprevalence of Toxoplasma gondii and Salmonella in Hunted Wild Boars from Two Different Regions in Switzerland

Toxoplasma gondii and Salmonella are zoonotic foodborne pathogens that may be transmitted to humans through the consumption of raw or undercooked meat, including game. The aim of this study was to determine the seroprevalence of T. gondii and Salmonella antibodies in wild boars in two different regions in Switzerland. During the hunting season of 2020, a total of 126 diaphragm muscle samples of hunted wild boars were collected and the meat juice of these samples was analysed for pathogen-specific IgG antibodies using commercial enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) kits. The overall seroprevalences were 35% for T. gondii and 17% for Salmonella, respectively. In general, seropositivity increased with the age of the animals. Seroprevalences of T. gondii were similar for animals from the northern region (29%) to those from the southern region (36.8%), indicating that T. gondii is widespread in the sylvestrian environment. By contrast, Salmonella seropositivity was remarkably higher in wild boars from the north (52%) compared with those from the south (5.3%). The high occurrence of Salmonella may represent a risk of transmission to compatriot domestic animals such free-range farmed pigs as well as to humans. Further, meat of hunted wild boars may present a source of human toxoplasmosis or salmonellosis

Half-Sandwich Ir(III) and Os(II) Complexes of Pyridyl-Mesoionic Carbenes as Potential Anticancer Agents

A series of cationic chlorido arene-iridium(III) and arene-osmium(II) complexes with bidentate pyridyl functionalized mesoionic carbenes (MIC) of the 1,2,3-triazol-5-ylidene type have been prepared. The variations in the ligand structures include the position of the pyridyl substituent relative to the triazolylidene ring (N-wingtip vs C-wingtip), phenyl versus ethyl substituents, and incorporation of several functional groups at the phenyl substituents. Five complexes have been characterized by X-ray structural analysis. All complexes, including osmium(II) and ruthenium(II) analogues having a pyrimidyl in place of the pyridyl group, have been studied for their cytotoxic activity on a human cervical carcinoma HeLa cell line. Two of the compounds, Ir5 and Ir9, were the most cytotoxic with IC50 values of 7.33 μM and 2.01 μM, respectively. Examination of their cytotoxic effect on different cell lines revealed that they preferentially kill cancer over normal cells. The Ir5 and Ir9 compounds arrested cells in G2 and induced a dose-dependent increase in SubG0/G1 cell population. Apoptosis, as the primary mode of cell death, was confirmed by Annexin V/PI staining, detection of cleaved PARP, and caspases 3 and 7 activity upon treatment of HeLa cells with both compounds. The higher toxicity of Ir9 is probably due to its increased accumulation in the cells compared to Ir5. The role of glutathione (GSH) in the protection of cells against Ir5 and Ir9 cytotoxicity was confirmed by pretreatment of cells either with buthionine sulfoximine (inhibitor of GSH synthesis) or N-acetyl-cysteine (precursor in GSH synthesis)