Rezension: Grünewald, Andreas; Noack-Ziegler, Sabrina; Tassinari, Maria Giovanna & Wieland, Katharina (Hrsg.) (2021): Fremdsprachendidaktik als Wissenschaft und Ausbildungsdisziplin. Festschrift für Daniela Caspari. Narr Francke Attempto Verlag, Tübingen.

Die heutige Auffassung der Fremdsprachendidaktik „als Sammelbegriff für Sprach-lehr- und Sprachlernforschung, für unterrichtsbezogene Zweitspracherwerbsfor-schung, für Fremdsprachenforschung und für Zweitsprachendidaktik“ (Caspari/Klippel/Legutke/Schramm 2016: 1) beinhaltet sowohl Elemente, die ins-gesamt als Wissenschaft bezeichnet werden können, als auch Facetten, die i.d.R. unter Praxis zusammengefasst werden. Andreas Grünewald, Sabrina Noack-Zieg-ler, Maria Giovanna Tassinari und Katharina Wieland betrachten in ihrem Sammel-band die Fremdsprachendidaktik aus diesen beiden Perspektiven – als Wissenschaft und als Ausbildungsdisziplin, jedoch nicht unabhängig voneinander, sondern als Symbiose im Rahmen der „anwendungsorientierten fremdsprachen-didaktischen Forschung“ (17–18). Das bedeutet, dass Themen, Gegenstände und Methoden, die in der Ausbildung relevant sind, auch in der Forschung bearbeitet werden und vice versa, sodass sich die Wissenschaft und die Lehrpraxis in einem sich gegenseitig anregenden und sich ergänzenden Verhältnis befinden

Розподіл епідемій вживання ін’єкційних наркотиків в Україні

АКТУАЛЬНІСТЬ. Україна досі належить до країн з концентрованою стадією епідемії ВІЛ-інфекції. Ключовим шляхом передачі ВІЛ в Україні лишається парентеральний, в основному через вживання ін’єкційних наркотиків. Існує багато свідчень на користь того, що епідемія вживання ін’єкційних наркотиків і, відповідно, епідемія поширення ВІЛ, в різних регіонах країни розпочалися в різний час, і тому прогноз стосовно цих епідемій може відрізнятися. В цьому дослідженні ми мали на меті вивчити розподіл вживання ін’єкційних наркотиків у часі та за областями України. МЕТОДИ. У дослідженні було використано дані крос-секційного опитування 4026 споживачів ін’єкційних наркотиків, проведеного в 2007 році за підтримки Міжнародного Альянсу з ВІЛ/СНІД в Україні. Залежною змінною в аналізі була тривалість вживання ін’єкційних наркотиків. Незалежними змінними були область, тип наркотику і деякі соціально-демографічні характеристики, такі як вік, стать і сімейний стан. Дані було проаналізовано методом узагальненої лінійної моделі у програмному забезпеченні SPSS. РЕЗУЛЬТАТИ. Тривалість вживання ін’єкційних наркотиків була пов’язана на статистично значущому рівні з областю, де мешкав респондент (най- довше вживали наркотики в Одеській і Миколаївській областях та в АР Крим; найменше - в Сумській області), віком (чим старшим був респондент, тим довше він вживав ін’єкційні наркотики), статтю (чоловіки мали тривалі- ший термін вживання, ніж жінки),сімейним станом (ті респонденти, які перебували у шлюбі, але не жили з чоловіком / дружиною, мали триваліший термін вживання ін’єкційних наркотиків) та типом наркотику (споживачі опіатів довше вживали наркотики, ніж споживачі стимуляторів). ВИСНОВКИ. Результати цього аналізу збігаються зі зробленими раніше спостереженнями про те, що епідемія вживання ін’єкційних наркотиків та ВІЛ-інфекції розпочалася в південних регіонах України та потім поширилася на решту областей України. Як і з іншими видами ризикованої поведінки, чоловіки почали вживати ін’єкційні наркотики раніше, ніж жінки. Вживання опіатів почалося раніше, ніж вживання стимуляторів. Зв’язок між тривалістю вживання ін’єкційних наркотиків та сімейним станом може бути пояснено тим, що чим довшим є вживання наркотиків, тим більше руйнуються соціальні зв’язки.BACKGROUND. Ukraine is an Eastern European country affected by the HIV/AIDS epidemic. From the beginning, the key HIV transmission route in Ukraine was parenteral, mostly due to the injection drug use (IDU). It is widely hypothesized that epidemics of IDU and consequently of HIV started in different parts of Ukraine at different points intime, and thus the prognosis of such epidemics may differ. So we aimed to study the distribution of IDU epidemics in time and by region of Ukraine. METHODS. The data were from 2007 survey of 4026 injection drug users commissioned by the International HIV/AIDS Alliance in Ukraine. The dependent variable was the duration of IDU. Independent variables included region, type of drug used, and such sociodemographic factors as age, gender, and marital status. The data were analyzed in SPSS software using generalized linear model. RESULTS. Duration of IDU showed statistically significant associations with region (with the longest duration in Odeska, Mykolayivska and Crimea regions; and the shortest in Sumska region), age (the older the respondent was, the longer duration of IDU was), gender (men had longer duration of IDU than women), marital status (those married but not living with their spouses had longer duration of IDU), and type of the drug used (opiate users had longer duration of drug use than stimulant users). CONCLUSIONS. Our analysis confirms earlier observations that IDU and HIV epidemics started in southern regions of Ukraine and then spread to other regions. As with other risky behaviors, men started injecting drugs earlier than women. Those who currently use opiates have started using drugs earlier than those who use stimulants. The association between the duration of IDU and the marital status may be due to the fact that the longer the use of drugs is, the more social connections get destroyed

The Impact of Pollution on Children's Health: A Call for Global Accountability and Enforcement

Environmental pollution in large industrial centers has had a negative impact on the population's health, specifically among children. Our objective is to provide a systematic review of the literature, focusing on the impact of environmental pollutants from urban and metropolitan areas on pediatric health. Disregard for the Earth's atmosphere can negatively impact our fragile ecosystem and create a global toxicity. The impact of industrial growth and economic development has become paramount to modern society. Unfortunately, futuregenerations will pay the consequences of the world's failure to implement regulations to secure a safe environment for our children's health and development. Pollutants penetrate an organism through different routes and change physiological processes, which leads to a decrease in microbial resistance by weakening the child's immune system. The major contaminants are: polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, lead, manganese, sulfur dioxide, airborne fine particles, and nitrogen dioxide. Xenobiotics negatively affect the morphological, functional, biochemical parameters, genetics, and epigenetics of the body. It is well documented that the physical development and psychological well-being of children is adversely affected by pollution. The accumulation of heavy metals and other contaminants adversely affected a child's health has been found in the pediatric population. An effort has been made to develop detoxicant remedies, in particular, some enterosorbents and natural adaptogens. Research is ongoing to improve medical rehabilitation of children, who already are affected. Public education and regulations regarding emerging non-pollutant industrial technologies is called for. A global system of accountability and enforcement regarding environmental protection needs to be implemented

Locally adaptive Bayesian birth-death model successfully detects slow and rapid rate shifts

Birth-death processes have given biologists a model-based framework to answer questions about changes in the birth and death rates of lineages in a phylogenetic tree. Therefore birth-death models are central to macroevolutionary as well as phylodynamic analyses. Early approaches to studying temporal variation in birth and death rates using birth-death models faced difficulties due to the restrictive choices of birth and death rate curves through time. Sufficiently flexible time-varying birth-death models are still lacking. We use a piecewise-constant birth-death model, combined with both Gaussian Markov random field (GMRF) and horseshoe Markov random field (HSMRF) prior distributions, to approximate arbitrary changes in birth rate through time. We implement these models in the widely used statistical phylogenetic software platform RevBayes, allowing us to jointly estimate birth-death process parameters, phylogeny, and nuisance parameters in a Bayesian framework. We test both GMRF-based and HSMRF-based models on a variety of simulated diversification scenarios, and then apply them to both a macroevolutionary and an epidemiological dataset. We find that both models are capable of inferring variable birth rates and correctly rejecting variable models in favor of effectively constant models. In general the HSMRF-based model has higher precision than its GMRF counterpart, with little to no loss of accuracy. Applied to a macroevolutionary dataset of the Australian gecko family Pygopodidae (where birth rates are interpretable as speciation rates), the GMRF-based model detects a slow decrease whereas the HSMRF-based model detects a rapid speciation-rate decrease in the last 12 million years. Applied to an infectious disease phylodynamic dataset of sequences from HIV subtype A in Russia and Ukraine (where birth rates are interpretable as the rate of accumulation of new infections), our models detect a strongly elevated rate of infection in the 1990s. Author summary Both the growth of groups of species and the spread of infectious diseases through populations can be modeled as birth-death processes. Birth events correspond either to speciation or infection, and death events to extinction or becoming noninfectious. The rates of birth and death may vary over time, and by examining this variation researchers can pinpoint important events in the history of life on Earth or in the course of an outbreak. Time-calibrated phylogenies track the relationships between a set of species (or infections) and the times of all speciation (or infection) events, and can thus be used to infer birth and death rates. We develop two phylogenetic birth-death models with the goal of discerning signal of rate variation from noise due to the stochastic nature of birth-death models. Using a variety of simulated datasets, we show that one of these models can accurately infer slow and rapid rate shifts without sacrificing precision. Using real data, we demonstrate that our new methodology can be used for simultaneous inference of phylogeny and rates through time

GANAB and PKD1 Variations in a 12 Years Old Female Patient With Early Onset of Autosomal Dominant Polycystic Kidney Disease

Autosomal Dominant Polycystic Kidney Disease (ADPKD) typically results from a mutation in the PKD1 and PKD2 genes, which code for polycystin-1 (PC1) and polycystin-2 (PC2), respectively. Mutations in these genes promote renal cystic dysplasia and are a significant cause of End-Stage Kidney Disease (ESKD). Polycystic kidney disease-3 (PKD3), another form of ADPKD, is caused by mutations in glucosidase II alpha subunit (GANAB) gene and present in mid- and late adulthood. We report a description of an ADPKD case in a 12-year-old female presented bilateral renal cysts in adolescence. Two mutations in two genes PKD1 and GANAB were identified by targeted capture and next-generation sequencing (NGS) on an Illumina sequencing system. The identified PKD1 mutation p.Pro61Leu: c.182C > T (CCC > CTC) a missense type of uncertain clinical significance. However, the identified PKD1 mutation can alter transcription factors motifs and consequently disturb the transcription process. The second mutation identified in GANAB locus, p.Arg61Ter: c.181C > T, a nonsense type, CGA > TGA. The mutation is unreported pathogenic variant can cause loss of the glucosidase II alpha subunit normal protein function. Both the patient father and paternal grandmother had a history of ADPKD but never were tested. This case is the first case of combine presentation on PKD1 and PKD3 in a pediatric patient with nephrolithiasis

HIV and hepatitis C Virus in internally displaced people with and without injection drug use experience in the region of Shida Kartli, Georgia

Objective: Internally displaced persons (IDPs) can have limited access to HIV and hepatitis C Virus (HCV) treatment and prevention. IDPs comprise > 7% of Georgian population but prevalence and levels of HIV and HCV knowledge in this population remain unknown. We tested 100 IDPs in Georgia for HIV and HCV, many of whom had drug injecting experience, and interviewed them about their migration experience, sexual and drug injecting practices, and HIV/HCV transmission knowledge. Results: The average age of participants was 37.5 years (range 18–63); 31% were women. Almost half (N = 48) of participants reported ever injecting drugs; 17% of those (N = 8) started injecting drugs within the last year. Anti-HCV and HIV prevalence was 11% and 0%, respectively. Fewer people without drug use experience compared to people who inject drugs correctly answered all questions on the HIV knowledge test (13% vs. 35%, p = 0.015) or knew where to get tested for HIV (67% vs 98%, p < 0.001). There was no difference in HCV knowledge between the two groups. HIV and HCV prevalence remains low among Georgian IDPs, but levels of HIV knowledge were much lower than levels of HCV knowledge

Further education course »German as a Second Language and Multilingualism« at the University of Paderborn

Eine Facette von Vielfalt im schulischen Kontext und damit einen Aspekt von Inklusion stellt migrationsbedingte Mehrsprachigkeit dar. Die weit verbreitete Diskussion um Deutsch als Zweitsprache und durchgängige Sprachbildung kann daher als Teil der Diskussion um Inklusion betrachtet werden und hat wie diese eine hohe Relevanz für Lehrkräfte.One of the aspects of diversity in the context of school and education and therefore a facet of inclusion is migration-related multilingualism. That is the reason why the professionalization of well-qualified teachers in the field of teaching multilingual learners is more important than ever

Developing a Research Mentorship Program: The American Society of Pediatric Nephrology's Experience

Background: Most pediatric nephrologists work in academia. Mentor-mentee relationships provide support and guidance for successful research career. Mentorship program implementation is valuable in medical fields for providing research opportunities to young faculty. Methods: The American Society of Pediatric Nephrology (ASPN) established a research mentorship program to (a) assist with matching of appropriate mentor-mentee dyads and (b) establish metrics for desirable mentor-mentee outcomes with two independent components: (1) the grants review workshop, a short-term program providing mentor feedback on grant proposals, and (2) the longitudinal program, establishing long-term mentor-mentee relationships. Regular surveys of both mentors and mentees were reviewed to evaluate and refine the program. Results: Twelve mentees and 17 mentors participated in the grant review workshop and 19 mentees were matched to mentors in the longitudinal program. A review of NIH RePORTER data indicated that since 2014, 13 NIH grants have been awarded. Mentees in the longitudinal program reported that the program helped most with identifying an outside mentor, improving grant research content, and with general career development. Mentors perceived themselves to be most helpful in assisting with overall career plans. Email communications were preferred over phone or face-to-face communications. Mentees endorsed strong interest in staying in touch with their mentors and 100% of mentors expressed their willingness to serve in the future. Conclusion: This mentorship program was initiated and supported by a relatively small medical society and has shown early success in cultivating mentoring relationships for a future generation of clinician-scientists

Social network approaches to locating people recently infected with HIV in Odessa, Ukraine

IntroductionThis paper examines the extent to which an intervention succeeded in locating people who had recently become infected with HIV in the context of the large-scale Ukrainian epidemic. Locating and intervening with people who recently became infected with HIV (people with recent infection, or PwRI) can reduce forward HIV transmission and help PwRI remain healthy.MethodsThe Transmission Reduction Intervention Project (TRIP) recruited recently-infected and longer-term infected seeds in Odessa, Ukraine, in 2013 to 2016, and asked them to help recruit their extended risk network members. The proportions of network members who were PwRI were compared between TRIP arms (i.e. networks of recently-infected seeds vs. networks of longer-term infected seeds) and to the proportion of participants who were PwRI in an RDS-based Integrated Biobehavioral Surveillance of people who inject drugs in 2013.ResultsThe networks of PwRI seeds and those of longer-term infected seeds had similar (2%) proportions who were themselves PwRI. This was higher than the 0.25% proportion in IBBS (OR&nbsp;=&nbsp;7.80; p&nbsp;=&nbsp;0.016). The odds ratio among the subset of participants who injected drugs was 11.17 (p&nbsp;=&nbsp;0.003). Cost comparison analyses using simplified ingredients-based methods found that TRIP spent no more than US $4513 per PwRI located whereas IBBS spent$11,924.ConclusionsFurther research is needed to confirm these results and improve TRIP further, but our findings suggest that interventions that trace the networks of people who test HIV-positive are a cost-effective way to locate PwRI and reduce HIV transmission and should therefore be implemented