A transient presence: black visitors and sojourners in Imperial Germany, 1884-1914

The onset of German colonial rule in Africa brought increasing numbers of Black men and women to Germany. Pre-1914 the vast majority of these Africans can best be described as visitors or sojourners and the Black population as a whole was a transient one. This makes recovering their presence in the archival record exceptionally difficult and it is not surprising that the existing historiography almost exclusively focuses on individual biographies of well documented lives. Through utilising a number of newly digitised archival materials, particularly the Hamburg Passenger Lists, this article draws upon a database with information on 1092 individuals from sub-Saharan Africa who spent time in Germany over the period 1884-1914 in order to add considerable bread and depth to our understanding of the Black presence as a whole. It provides increasing empirical detail about the make-up and character of this fluid population - where visitors came from, why they came to Germany, their age on arrival - as well as more accurate detail on the temporal and, to a lesser extent, spatial distribution of visitors

Zum Novellierungsbedarf der gesetzlichen Regelungen zur Lebendspende unter besonderer Berücksichtigung europäischer und internationaler Vorschriften

Softcover, 17x24, 111 S.: 22,00 €Softcover, 17x24Der stetige Fortschritt medizinischer und medizintechnischer Entwicklung führt zu immer neuen Möglichkeiten der Organtransplantation. Die gesetzlichen Vorschriften zur Lebendorganspende im deutschen Recht werden in der vorliegenden Arbeit mit denen anderer europäischer Länder verglichen. Dies beinhaltet neben einer rechtsvergleichenden Übersicht zur Lebendorganspende in Europa außerdem auch einen Überblick über die Bioethikkonventionen des Europarats, die Regelungen der WHO sowie die Richtlinie des Europäischen Parlaments und des Rats über Qualitäts- und Sicherheitsstandards für zur Transplantation bestimmte menschliche Organe. In diesem Zusammenhang werden auch die jüngst im Gesetzesentwurf der Bundesregierung zum Transplantationsgesetz vorgenommenen Änderungen diskutiert. Nach Würdigung der Ergebnisse einer verfassungsrechtlichen und rechtsvergleichenden Prüfung wird Bedarf einer Novellierung gesehen, für deren Umsetzung Regelungsvorschläge aufgezeigt werden

Inhibition of fat cell differentiation in 3T3-L1 pre-adipocytes by all-trans retinoic acid: Integrative analysis of transcriptomic and phenotypic data

The process of adipogenesis is controlled in a highly orchestrated manner, including transcriptional and post-transcriptional events. In developing 3T3-L1 pre-adipocytes, this program can be interrupted by all-trans retinoic acid (ATRA). To examine this inhibiting impact by ATRA, we generated large-scale transcriptomic data on the microRNA and mRNA level. Non-coding RNAs such as microRNAs represent a field in RNA turnover, which is very important for understanding the regulation of mRNA gene expression. High throughput mRNA and microRNA expression profiling was performed using mRNA hybridisation microarray technology and multiplexed expression assay for microRNA quantification. After quantitative measurements we merged expression data sets, integrated the results and analysed the molecular regulation of in vitro adipogenesis. For this purpose, we applied local enrichment analysis on the integrative microRNA-mRNA network determined by a linear regression approach. This approach includes the target predictions of TargetScan Mouse 5.2 and 23 pre-selected, significantly regulated microRNAs as well as Affymetrix microarray mRNA data. We found that the cellular lipid metabolism is negatively affected by ATRA. Furthermore, we were able to show that microRNA 27a and/or microRNA 96 are important regulators of gap junction signalling, the rearrangement of the actin cytoskeleton as well as the citric acid cycle, which represent the most affected pathways with regard to inhibitory effects of ATRA in 3T3-L1 preadipocytes. In conclusion, the experimental workflow and the integrative microRNA–mRNA data analysis shown in this study represent a possibility for illustrating interactions in highly orchestrated biological processes. Further the applied global microRNA–mRNA interaction network may also be used for the pre-selection of potential new biomarkers with regard to obesity or for the identification of new pharmaceutical targets

Pulse-Controlled Amplification-A new powerful tool for on-site diagnostics under resource limited conditions.

BackgroundMolecular diagnostics has become essential in the identification of many infectious and neglected diseases, and the detection of nucleic acids often serves as the gold standard technique for most infectious agents. However, established techniques like polymerase chain reaction (PCR) are time-consuming laboratory-bound techniques while rapid tests such as Lateral Flow Immunochromatographic tests often lack the required sensitivity and/or specificity.Methods/principle findingsHere we present an affordable, highly mobile alternative method for the rapid identification of infectious agents using pulse-controlled amplification (PCA). PCA is a next generation nucleic acid amplification technology that uses rapid energy pulses to heat microcyclers (micro-scale metal heating elements embedded directly in the amplification reaction) for a few microseconds, thus only heating a small fraction of the reaction volume. The heated microcyclers cool off nearly instantaneously, resulting in ultra-fast heating and cooling cycles during which classic amplification of a target sequence takes place. This reduces the overall amplification time by a factor of up to 10, enabling a sample-to-result workflow in just 15 minutes, while running on a small and portable prototype device. In this proof of principle study, we designed a PCA-assay for the detection of Yersinia pestis to demonstrate the efficacy of this technology. The observed detection limits were 434 copies per reaction (purified DNA) and 35 cells per reaction (crude sample) respectively of Yersinia pestis.Conclusions/significancePCA offers fast and decentralized molecular diagnostics and is applicable whenever rapid, on-site detection of infectious agents is needed, even under resource limited conditions. It combines the sensitivity and specificity of PCR with the rapidness and simplicity of hitherto existing rapid tests

Chondroitin sulfate disaccharide stimulates microglia to adopt a novel regulatory phenotype

A disaccharide degradation product of chondrotin sulfate proteoglycan-disaccharide (CSPG-DS) has been implicated previously in the inhibition of neurodegeneration by influencing microglia activation. In this study, genome-wide microarray analysis was used to identify specific gene expression profiles of CSPG-DS-stimulated BV-2 microglia-like cells. Gene products involved in phagocytosis, detoxification, migration, immune regulation, and antigen presentation were found to be altered significantly. These findings were replicated and compared with IFN-gamma-stimulated primary microglia using real-time quantitative RT-PCR validation. Importantly, a unique transcriptional phenotype with anti-inflammatory and IFN-gamma counter-regulatory properties partially related to alternatively activated macrophages was identified. Using functional cell assays, we found that CSPG-DS-stimulated microglia possess increased phagocytic capacity but lack direct cytotoxic effects such as secretion of NO. Furthermore, conditioned media from CSPG-DS-treated microglia did not diminish the viability or cause apoptosis of cultured photoreceptor cells and partially rescued these cells from IFN-gamma-induced apoptosis. Taken together, our data provide a unique transcript dataset and important in vitro findings about the functional properties of CSPG-DS-activated microglia. These might be starting points to explore the in vivo role of CSPG-DS as a bioactive microglia regulator and its potential, therapeutic application in immune-related, neurodegenerative disorders

Human Remains in Museums and Collections

For decades, the rights of museums to house, exhibit, and research human remains, in particular those from Indigenous peoples collected during colonial times, has been questioned in many parts of the world. This debate has also reached the German museum community. In 2013, the German Museums Association (Deutscher Museumsbund, DMB) published the “Recommendations for the Care of Human Remains in Museums and Collections”. At the end of that year, Larissa Förster and Sarah Fründt convened an interdisciplinary workshop to critically discuss these “recommendations”. The results were later published, together with additional statements by international stakeholders

Nitrite-driven anaerobic methane oxidation by oxygenic bacteria

Only three biological pathways are known to produce oxygen: photosynthesis, chlorate respiration and the detoxification of reactive oxygen species. Here we present evidence for a fourth pathway, possibly of considerable geochemical and evolutionary importance. The pathway was discovered after metagenomic sequencing of an enrichment culture that couples anaerobic oxidation of methane with the reduction of nitrite to dinitrogen. The complete genome of the dominant bacterium, named ĝ€̃ Candidatus Methylomirabilis oxyferaĝ€™, was assembled. This apparently anaerobic, denitrifying bacterium encoded, transcribed and expressed the well-established aerobic pathway for methane oxidation, whereas it lacked known genes for dinitrogen production. Subsequent isotopic labelling indicated that ĝ€̃ M. oxyferaĝ€™ bypassed the denitrification intermediate nitrous oxide by the conversion of two nitric oxide molecules to dinitrogen and oxygen, which was used to oxidize methane. These results extend our understanding of hydrocarbon degradation under anoxic conditions and explain the biochemical mechanism of a poorly understood freshwater methane sink. Because nitrogen oxides were already present on early Earth, our finding opens up the possibility that oxygen was available to microbial metabolism before the evolution of oxygenic photosynthesis