Children as ‘organic capital’ of the state: Eugenisation of childhood in medical journalism 1900–1938

Eugenics aimed at a rationalisation of sexuality and reproduction in order to prevent the birth of children with ‘hereditary diseases’ or ‘genetic defects’. Therefore in a project of scientifical ‘social engineering’ ideas of health, well-beeing, quality of life and fitness were combined with sentences concerning social recognition and respect. In this paper I will analyse which conceptions of childhood were produced by the eugenic discours in the medical establishment during the first three decades of the 20th century. Which ideals of childhood were beeing quicked by the eugenic project of ‘quality instead of quantity’ and which consequences followed from this for those children, who were and are not in accordance with this ideals? The data for the analysis are drawn from an examination of articles published in the Wiener klinische Wochenschrift, the leading medical journal in Austria between 1900 and 1938.Eugenics aimed at a rationalisation of sexuality and reproduction in order to prevent the birth of children with ‘hereditary diseases’ or ‘genetic defects’. Therefore in a project of scientifical ‘social engineering’ ideas of health, well-beeing, quality of life and fitness were combined with sentences concerning social recognition and respect. In this paper I will analyse which conceptions of childhood were produced by the eugenic discours in the medical establishment during the first three decades of the 20th century. Which ideals of childhood were beeing quicked by the eugenic project of ‘quality instead of quantity’ and which consequences followed from this for those children, who were and are not in accordance with this ideals? The data for the analysis are drawn from an examination of articles published in the Wiener klinische Wochenschrift, the leading medical journal in Austria between 1900 and 1938

Eugenische Vernunft : Eingriffe in die reproduktive Kultur durch die Medizin 1900-2000

This is a study about the causes and consequences of the eugenic intrusions into our society´s reproductive culture by medicine over the course of the twentieth century. By the turn of the twenty-first century, such scientific intrusions through biotechnological selection at the very beginning of a human´s life have become socially acceptable and part of the task of family planning. Of intrinsic interest is the goal of subjecting the normative ideal images of family, motherhood, fatherhood and childhood - which through medical science have advanced eugenic intrusions into the social organization of the species "reproduction" - to a gender-sensitive analysis. This study also highlights how these ideal images are integrated into the development of the biotechnologies of conception and selection, and how these technologies in turn influence familiy planning. The issue are analyzed against the background of social and scientific developments which accompanied and made possible the rise of eugenic rationality in the twentieth century. The sources used for this analysis are medial studies published in the journal Wiener Klinische Wochenschrift between 1900 and 2000; the methodology applied is discourse analysis. The project was financed by a research grant (APART) under the auspices of the Austrian Academy of Science (ÖAW). This research demonstrates: which concepts of gender and generation within the families are inherent to the eugenic ideal images; which social transformation processes were integrated into these ideal images; how and why parenthood and childhood were scientiffically rationalized and modernized; the demands which have increasingly confronted parents over the past decades as regards successful instruction and education; the duties which emanated in the namen of the child´s well-being; and the reasons for which biotechnological selection at the very beginning of human life currently has a sweeping influence on motherhood and childhood. Finally, the study demonstrates that the existing reproductive culture in our society is infused by eugenic rationality. A further investigative dimension of the eugenic mainstream is also developed by virtue of the approach in which the focus consistently points to the scientific reorganization of the entire context of reproduction. And by virture of which the scientification of the reproductive culture is examined and analyzed by contextualizing Austria´s twentieth-century social and socio-political history. In addition, a profound and exemplary critiqu of science is elaborated by employing the approaches of the sociology of science as well as the history of science and drawing upon the Austrian example of (bio)medicine and bio(medical) technologies of conception and selection. Science is presented in its cultural and political entanglement as a bastion of hegemonic masculinity, staking a claim to the connection between science and responsibility

Approximation of event probabilities in noisy cellular processes

Molecular noise, which arises from the randomness of the discrete events in the cell, significantly influences fundamental biological processes. Discrete-state continuous-time stochastic models (CTMC) can be used to describe such effects, but the calculation of the probabilities of certain events is computationally expensive. We present a comparison of two analysis approaches for CTMC. On one hand, we estimate the probabilities of interest using repeated Gillespie simulation and determine the statistical accuracy that we obtain. On the other hand, we apply a numerical reachability analysis that approximates the probability distributions of the system at several time instances. We use examples of cellular processes to demonstrate the superiority of the reachability analysis if accurate results are required

Study of the Sorption Properties of Ge20Se80 Thin Films for NO2 Gas Sensing

In this study we investigated the sorption ability of Ge20Se80 thin films applied as active layers of quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) for NO2 gas sensing. To identify the chalcogenide system appropriate for gas sensing, we provided data for the packing fraction of a number of chalcogenide systems and discussed their suitability. We performed Raman spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and atom force microscopy (AFM) measurements on the thin films both before and after gas absorption, which showed that the introduced gas molecules interact electrostatically with the chalcogen atoms of the host material and initiate some degree of structural changes in it. The weight change due to NO2 gas absorption was measured by frequency change of the resonator. The absorbed mass increased monotonically with the thickness of chalcogenide films and the NO2 gas concentration. At the conditions of our experiment, up to 11.4 ng of the gas was absorbed into 200nm thick Ge20Se80 film at 5000 ppm NO2 concentration. The process of gas molecules absorption is found irreversible at the purging conditions.Comment: arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1204.044

Electron Beam Effects in Ge–Se Thin Films and Resistance Change Memory Devices

Chalcogenide glasses are the advanced materials of choice for the emerging nanoionic memory devices – conductive bridge random access memory (CBRAM). To understand the nature of the effects occurring in these devices under influence of electron-beam radiation, the interaction of blanked chalcogenide films and nanostructured films containing chalcogenide glass and silver (Ag) source are studied. Raman spectroscopy, energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction are used for establishing the structural and compositional effects occurring under radiation. They have strong compositional dependence with the stoichiometric compositions being most stable showing less structural changes after radiation. These effects are associated with the availability of lone-pair electrons, their participation in the bonding configurations and the coupling of electron states in the bandgap. They are further enhanced in the bilayers by silver diffusion in the chalcogenide matrix, as a result of interaction with electrons. These effects are used to interpret the electrical performance of CBRAM devices after radiation. The devices are characterized by their resistance states, threshold voltage and endurance. Those based on selenium-rich and stoichiometric composition undergo continuous parameters changes with increase in the radiation dose while in the devices based on germanium-rich composition a counter play of the structural changes and expulsion of silver occur

Chronic Hyperglycemia Drives Functional Impairment of Lymphocytes in Diabetic INSC94Y Transgenic Pigs

People with diabetes mellitus have an increased risk for infections, however, there is still a critical gap in precise knowledge about altered immune mechanisms in this disease. Since diabetic INSC94Y transgenic pigs exhibit elevated blood glucose and a stable diabetic phenotype soon after birth, they provide a favorable model to explore functional alterations of immune cells in an early stage of diabetes mellitus in vivo. Hence, we investigated peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) of these diabetic pigs compared to non-diabetic wild-type littermates. We found a 5-fold decreased proliferative response of T cells in INSC94Y tg pigs to polyclonal T cell mitogen phytohemagglutinin (PHA). Using label-free LC-MS/MS, a total of 3,487 proteins were quantified, and distinct changes in protein abundances in CD4(+) T cells of early-stage diabetic pigs were detectable. Additionally, we found significant increases in mitochondrial oxygen consumption rate (OCR) and higher basal glycolytic activity in PBMC of diabetic INSC94Y tg pigs, indicating an altered metabolic immune cell phenotype. Thus, our study provides new insights into molecular mechanisms of dysregulated immune cells triggered by permanent hyperglycemia

Do Organizational Culture and Climate Matter for Successful Client Outcomes?

Objectives: The existing literature on the impact of workplace conditions on client care suggests that good cultures and climates provide the best outcomes for clients. The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between organizational culture and climate and the proportion of children and youth successfully discharged from a large organization in New York State. Method: Thirty-three child and youth programs with existing culture and climate data evaluated outcome information from 1,336 clients exiting its services. Results: Programs reported as having bad culture and climate yielded superior client outcomes, measured as discharge to a lower level of care and successfully completing. Conclusion: This study and its conclusion point to a gap in knowledge concerning the relation between workplace culture and climate and the impact on client care and workers’ perceptions; this warrants further investigation in similar studies of agencies and their outcomes

Factors Influencing Worker Morale: Evaluating Provider Demographics, Workplace Environment and Using ESTs

Objectives: Mental health organizations are strongly encouraged to implement empirically supported treatments (ESTs), however little is known about their working environments. The present study investigated how provider demographics, workplace environment and whether ESTs were used affected the worker morale. Methods: Front-line workers (N = 1,273) from 55 different programs in a single, large organization completed a measure of organizational culture and climate (OCC) and worker morale. A multilevel regression analysis used worker demographics to predict worker morale at level 1 and EST use and OCC scales to predict program level worker morale. Results: Worker morale was significantly negatively correlated with EST use and significantly correlated with OCC dimensions. Regression results showed that culture and climate but not EST use predicted morale. Conclusions: Although EST use by programs in this agency had negative effects on both morale and OCC, separately, the effect on morale was subsumed by the effect on OCC

Probing the extragalactic fast transient sky at minute timescales with DECam

Searches for optical transients are usually performed with a cadence of days to weeks, optimised for supernova discovery. The optical fast transient sky is still largely unexplored, with only a few surveys to date having placed meaningful constraints on the detection of extragalactic transients evolving at sub-hour timescales. Here, we present the results of deep searches for dim, minute-timescale extragalactic fast transients using the Dark Energy Camera, a core facility of our all-wavelength and all-messenger Deeper, Wider, Faster programme. We used continuous 20s exposures to systematically probe timescales down to 1.17 minutes at magnitude limits $g > 23$ (AB), detecting hundreds of transient and variable sources. Nine candidates passed our strict criteria on duration and non-stellarity, all of which could be classified as flare stars based on deep multi-band imaging. Searches for fast radio burst and gamma-ray counterparts during simultaneous multi-facility observations yielded no counterparts to the optical transients. Also, no long-term variability was detected with pre-imaging and follow-up observations using the SkyMapper optical telescope. We place upper limits for minute-timescale fast optical transient rates for a range of depths and timescales. Finally, we demonstrate that optical $g$-band light curve behaviour alone cannot discriminate between confirmed extragalactic fast transients such as prompt GRB flashes and Galactic stellar flares.Comment: Published in MNRA