Sozialstruktur und Parteiensystem in Deutschland 1912-1924

In nahezu allen historischen und modernen Wahl- und Parteienstudien gehen die Autoren von einem Zusammenhang zwischen der Sozialstruktur und dem Wahlverhalten bzw. der Entwicklung des Parteiensystems aus. Der vorliegende Beitrag versucht hier ein Lücke zu schließen, indem die Entwicklung der Parteienlandschaft in den Jahren von 1912 bis 1924 in Abhängigkeit von der Sozialstruktur rekonstruiert wird. Ein Vergleich der Wähleranteile mit sozialstatistischen Merkmalen zeigt, wie (in)stabil das deutsche Parteienwesen in dieser Umbruchsphase gewesen ist. Weiterhin wird gezeigt, in welchem Maße die strukturellen Größen Katholikenanteil, Industrialisierung, Verstädterung und Arbeiteranteil die Wählermobilisierung in diesem Zeitraum bestimmen. (pmb)'Since the industrial and democratic revolution the German parties were more or less anchored in the social structure. Following the leading interpretation, the German party system has been described as being determined by a remarkable degree of stability from 1871 to the end of the Weimar Republic. This article examines the relationship between the social structure and the German party system in the restless period from the Kaiserreich to the Weimar Republic and adduces some doubts on the general stability-hypothesis. Using stable aggregate data for about 300 territorial units the development of the Conservative, Catholic, Socialist and Liberal parties in Germany at elections throughout the Reich from 1912 to 1924 are systematically compared with the distribution of important statistical data describing the social structure. It is shown that socio-structural variables determined the German party system at the end of the Kaiserreich and at the beginning of the Weimar Republic to a large extent. On the transition from the Kaiserreich to the Republic the relationship between some socio-structural variable and the political parties were stable whereas others changed gradually or abrupt. Thus there is reason to believe that the German party system 1912 to 1924 was not as stable as most historians and social scientists assert.' (author's abstract

Politische Traditionen und Nationalsozialismus: der Einfluß der Wählertraditionen des deutschen Kaiserreichs auf den Aufstieg der NSDAP in der Weimarer Republik

"Der Aufsatz berichtet über eine Untersuchung der Frage, in welchem Zusammenhang die Wählerrekrutierung der NSDAP mit dem Wahlverhalten vor 1918 steht und stellt sich dem Problem, welche Rolle den politischen Traditionen in Erklärungsansätzen des Aufstiegs der nationalsozialistischen Bewegung zukommt. Der empirische Vergleich der Wahlergebnisse zwischen 1924 und 1932 mit denen im Kaiserreich zeigt, daß die NSDAP in erster Linie eine sozialstrukturell definierte Partei war. Für die Erfolge der Nationalsozialisten spielte die regionalspezifische Tradition, also ob eher liberal oder konservativ, keine entscheidende Rolle. Die regionale Streuung der NSDAP-Anteile geht vielmehr fast ausschließlich auf das Konto der Konfessionsverteilung und des Urbanisierungsgrades. Die Befunde widersprechen der Auffassung, die NSDAP habe die Liberalen beerbt." (Autorenreferat)"A virtual consensus prevailed over many decades that the Nazi constituency were overwhelmingly middle class. Postwar analysts explained the origins of Hitler's political breakthrough in terms of a radicalisation of the liberal milieu. During the last decades, however, it has become increasingly apparent that the National Socialist constituency at the end of Weimar was far more diverse than hitherto believed. However, no one doubts that the NSDAP owes its electoral success to the liberal voting tradition before 1914. In this article, I examine the electoral strength of National Socialism as a function of the social structure and the voting behaviour in the Kaiserreich. The empirical analysis shows that we are only in a slightly better position to forecast the Nazi Party's regional electoral performance if we know not only the social composition of the regional electorate but its voting traditions." (author's abstract

Two-dimensional hole precession in an all-semiconductor spin field effect transistor

We present a theoretical study of a spin field-effect transistor realized in a quantum well formed in a p--doped ferromagnetic-semiconductor- nonmagnetic-semiconductor-ferromagnetic-semiconductor hybrid structure. Based on an envelope-function approach for the hole bands in the various regions of the transistor, we derive the complete theory of coherent transport through the device, which includes both heavy- and light-hole subbands, proper modeling of the mode matching at interfaces, integration over injection angles, Rashba spin precession, interference effects due to multiple reflections, and gate-voltage dependences. Numerical results for the device current as a function of externally tunable parameters are in excellent agreement with approximate analytical formulae.Comment: 9 pages, 11 figure

Tunneling-induced renormalization in interacting quantum dots

We analyze tunneling-induced quantum fluctuations in a single-level quantum dot with arbitrarily strong onsite Coulomb interaction, generating cotunneling processes and renormalizing system parameters. For a perturbative analysis of these quantum fluctuations, we remove off-shell parts of the Hamiltonian via a canonical transformation. We find that the tunnel couplings for the transitions connecting empty and single occupation and connecting single and double occupation of the dot renormalize with the same magnitude but with opposite signs. This has an important impact on the shape of the renormalization extracted for example from the conductance. Finally, we verify the compatibility of our results with a systematic second-order perturbation expansion of the linear conductance performed within a diagrammatic real-time approach.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, published versio

Accumulation of oligomer-prone α-synuclein exacerbates synaptic and neuronal degeneration in vivo

The toxicity of α-synuclein invivo is not well understood. Rockenstein etal. describe an α-synuclein transgenic model expressing the E57K mutant that forms stable oligomers. They show that oligomers accumulate at synapses and that the mutation interferes with synaptic vesicles and is associated with behavioural deficits and neurodegeneratio

Radioactive 26Al and massive stars in the Galaxy

Gamma-rays from radioactive 26Al (half life ~7.2 10^5 yr) provide a 'snapshot' view of ongoing nucleosynthesis in the Galaxy. The Galaxy is relatively transparent to such gamma-rays, and emission has been found concentrated along the plane of the Galaxy. This led to the conclusion1 that massive stars throughout the Galaxy dominate the production of 26Al. On the other hand, meteoritic data show locally-produced 26Al, perhaps from spallation reactions in the protosolar disk. Furthermore, prominent gamma-ray emission from the Cygnus region suggests that a substantial fraction of Galactic 26Al could originate in localized star-forming regions. Here we report high spectral resolution measurements of 26Al emission at 1808.65 keV, which demonstrate that the 26Al source regions corotate with the Galaxy, supporting its Galaxy-wide origin. We determine a present-day equilibrium mass of 2.8 (+/-0.8) M_sol of 26Al. We use this to estimate that the frequency of core collapse (i.e. type Ib/c and type II) supernovae to be 1.9(+/- 1.1) events per century.Comment: accepted for publication in Nature, 24 pages including Online Supplements, 11 figures, 1 tabl

Identification and characterization of novel rapidly mutating Y-chromosomal short tandem repeat markers

Short tandem repeat polymorphisms on the male‐specific part of the human Y‐chromosome (Y‐STRs) are valuable tools in many areas of human genetics. Although their paternal inheritance and moderate mutation rate (~10−3 mutations per marker per meiosis) allow detecting paternal relationships, they typically fail to separate male relatives. Previously, we identified 13 Y‐STR markers with untypically high mutation rates (>10−2 ), termed rapidly mutating (RM) Y‐STRs, and showed that they improved male relative differentiation over standard Y‐STRs. By applying a newly developed in silico search approach to the Y‐chromosome reference sequence, we identified 27 novel RM Y‐STR candidates. Genotyping them in 1,616 DNA‐confirmed father–son pairs for mutation rate estimation empirically highlighted 12 novel RM Y‐STRs. Their capacity to differentiate males related by 1, 2, and 3 meioses was 27%, 47%, and 61%, respectively, while for all 25 currently known RM Y‐STRs, it was 44%, 69%, and 83%. Of the 647 Y‐STR mutations o

Controlled feeding experiments with diets of different abrasiveness reveal slow development of mesowear signal in goats (Capra aegagrus hircus)

Dental mesowear is applied as a proxy to determine the general diet of mammalian herbivores based on tooth-cusp shape and occlusal relief. Low, blunt cusps are considered typical of grazers and high, sharp cusps typical of browsers. However, how internal or external abrasives impact mesowear, and the time frame the wear signature takes to develop, still need to be explored. Four different pelleted diets of increasing abrasiveness (lucerne, grass, grass and rice husks, and grass, rice husks and sand) were fed to four groups of a total of 28 adult goats in a controlled feeding experiment over a 6-month period. Tooth morphology was captured by medical CT scans at the beginning and end of the experiment. These scans, as well as the crania obtained post mortem, were scored using the mesowear method. Comparisons between diet groups showed few significant differences after 6 months, irrespective of whether CT scans or the real teeth were scored. Only when assessing the difference in signal between the beginning and the end of the experiment did relevant, significant diet-specific effects emerge. Diets containing lower phytolith content caused a more pronounced change inmesowear towards sharper cusps/higher reliefs, while the feed containing sand did not result in more extreme changes in mesowear when compared with the same feed without sand. Our experiment suggests that the formation of a stable and hence reliable mesowear signal requires more time to develop than 6 months