Rüsen’s Response to the Crisis of Historicism

Although Rüsen only discusses the crisis of historicism explicitly in his work occasionally, his general perspective on historical knowledge can be interpreted as a response to the crisis. Different responses to the crisis of historicism correspond to different interpretations of its main problems. In order to specify Rüsen’s response, a number of aspects of his perspective are pointed out as solutions to such problems. Indirectly, the analysis discloses problems that any plausible attempt to come to terms with the crisis of historicism ought to handle. By identifying differences to other contemporary responses to the crisis of historicism, the continuing relevance of Rüsen’s approach is demonstrated

Keynote Reflections: The Public Governance Duty

Firms must take ever greater risks to try to innovate and create value in our increasingly competitive and complex global economy. Corporate governance law generally delegates control over excessive risk-taking to the firm’s investors, principally its risk-seeking shareholders. But this does not cover the type of risk-taking that led to the global financial crisis and that is becoming ever more common - risk-taking that could have systemic consequences to the financial system. I argue for a “public governance duty,” requiring managers of systemically important firms to assess the impact of risk-taking on the public as well as on investors, and to balance the costs and benefits using a precautionary principle to protect the public. I also analyze the extent to which managers performing this public governance duty should be protected by a business judgment rule

Além da racionalidade instrumental: sentido histórico e racionalidade na teoria da história de Jörn Rüsen

Meaning is a central concept in contemporary historical discourse. How meaning is understood has crucial consequences for the use of history, the possibilities of historical orientation and the risks of instrumentalizing history. This article explains the meaning of the concept of meaning in Jörn Rüsen’s theory of history, and argues that his perspective on meaning provides a more promising alternative than objectivism and relativist constructivism with regard to historical orientation and instrumentalism. In order to explain Rüsen’s concept of meaning, different concepts of meaning are distinguished. A significant distinction is made between meaning as constitution and meaning as representation. Several different aspects of Rüsen’s concept of meaning are then articulated. Against this background,the concept of rationality of meaning is explained and opposed both to constructivism and its inherenttendency to instrumentalism, and to the tendency to objectify meaning in empirical analyses of historicalconsciousness.O conceito de sentido é central no discurso histórico contemporâneo. A forma como o sentido é compreendido tem conseqüências cruciais para o uso da história, para as possibilidades de orientação histórica e para os riscos de sua instrumentalização. Este artigo explica o sentido do conceito de sentido na teoria da história de Jörn Rüsen, argumentando que sua perspectiva fornece, no que diz respeito aos temas da orientação e da instrumentalização, uma alternativa mais promissora do que o objetivismo e o construtivismo relativista. Com o objetivo de explicar o conceito de sentido em Rüsen, diferentes conceitos de sentido serão destacados. Uma distinção importante será feita entre sentido como constituição e sentido como representação. Em seguida, diferentes aspectos do conceito de sentido de Rüsen serão articulados. Nesse pano de fundo, o conceito de ‘racionalidade de sentido’ será analisado e oposto tanto ao construtivismo, em sua inerente tendência ao instrumentalismo, quanto à tendência a objetificar o sentido em análises empíricas da consciência histórica

In vitro models to study natural killer cell dynamics in the tumor microenvironment

Immunotherapy is revolutionizing cancer therapy. The rapid development of new immunotherapeutic strategies to treat solid tumors is posing new challenges for preclinical research, demanding novel in vitro methods to test treatments. Such methods should meet specific requirements, such as enabling the evaluation of immune cell responses like cytotoxicity or cytokine release, and infiltration into the tumor microenvironment using cancer models representative of the original disease. They should allow high-throughput and high-content analysis, to evaluate the efficacy of treatments and understand immune-evasion processes to facilitate development of new therapeutic targets. Ideally, they should be suitable for personalized immunotherapy testing, providing information for patient stratification. Consequently, the application of in vitro 3-dimensional (3D) cell culture models, such as tumor spheroids and organoids, is rapidly expanding in the immunotherapeutic field, coupled with the development of novel imaging-based techniques and -omic analysis. In this paper, we review the recent advances in the development of in vitro 3D platforms applied to natural killer (NK) cell-based cancer immunotherapy studies, highlighting the benefits and limitations of the current methods, and discuss new concepts and future directions of the field

Identification and characterization of the novel colonization factor CS30 based on whole genome sequencing in enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC).

The ability to colonize the small intestine is essential for enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) to cause diarrhea. Although 22 antigenically different colonization factors (CFs) have been identified and characterized in ETEC at least 30% of clinical ETEC isolates lack known CFs. Ninety-four whole genome sequenced "CF negative" isolates were searched for novel CFs using a reverse genetics approach followed by phenotypic analyses. We identified a novel CF, CS30, encoded by a set of seven genes, csmA-G, related to the human CF operon CS18 and the porcine CF operon 987P (F6). CS30 was shown to be thermo-regulated, expressed at 37 °C, but not at 20 °C, by SDS-page and mass spectrometry analyses as well as electron microscopy imaging. Bacteria expressing CS30 were also shown to bind to differentiated human intestinal Caco-2 cells. The genes encoding CS30 were located on a plasmid (E873p3) together with the genes encoding LT and STp. PCR screening of ETEC isolates revealed that 8.6% (n = 13) of "CF negative" (n = 152) and 19.4% (n = 13) of "CF negative" LT + STp (n = 67) expressing isolates analyzed harbored CS30. Hence, we conclude that CS30 is common among "CF negative" LT + STp isolates and is associated with ETEC that cause diarrhea

Publisher Correction: Identification and characterization of the novel colonization factor CS30 based on whole genome sequencing in enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC).

A correction to this article has been published and is linked from the HTML and PDF versions of this paper. The error has been fixed in the paper

The impact of entrepreneurship research on other academic fields

The remarkable ascent of entrepreneurship witnessed as a scientific field over the last 4 decades has been made possible by entrepreneurship’s ability to absorb theories, paradigms, and methods from other fields such as economics, psychology, sociology, geography, and even biology. The respectability of entrepreneurship as an academic discipline is now evidenced by many other fields starting to borrow from the entrepreneurship view. In the present paper, seven examples are given from this “pay back” development. These examples were first presented during a seminar at the Erasmus Entrepreneurship Event called what has the entrepreneurship view to offer to other academic fields? This article elaborates on the core ideas of these presentations and focuses on the overarching question of how entrepreneurship research impacts the development of other academic fields. We found that entrepreneurship research questions the core assumptions of other academic fields and provides new insights into the antecedents, mechanisms, and consequences of their respective core phenomena. Moreover, entrepreneurship research helps to legitimize other academic fields both practically and academically.</p

Infection by a foliar endophyte elicits novel arabidopside-based plant defence reactions in its host, Cirsium arvense

Endophytic fungi live asymptomatically within plants. They are usually regarded as non-pathogenic or even mutualistic, but whether plants respond antagonistically to their presence remains unclear, particularly in the little-studied associations between endophytes and nong-raminoid herbaceous plants. We investigated the effects of the endophyte Chaetomium cochlioides on leaf chemistry in Cirsium arvense. Plants were sprayed with spores; leaf material from both subsequent new growth and the sprayed leaves was analysed 2 wk later. Infection frequency was 91% and63% for sprayed and new growth, respectively, indicating that C. cochlioides rapidly infects new foliage. Metabolomic analyses revealed marked changes in leaf chemistry with infection, especially in new growth. Changes in several novel oxylipin metabolites were detected, including arabi-dopsides reported here for the first time in a plant species other than Arabidopsis thaliana,and a jasmonate-containing galactolipid. The production of these metabolites in response to endophyte presence, particularly in newly infected foliage, suggests that endophytes elicit similar chemical responses in plants to those usually produced following wounding, herbivory and pathogen invasion. Whether en-dophytes benefit their hosts may depend on a complex series of chemically mediated interactions between the plant, the endophyte, other microbial colonists and natural enemies