In the Presence of the Past: ‘Third Generation’ Germans and the Cultural Memory of National Socialism and the Holocaust

This empirical study is based on interviews with 26 grandchildren of Nazi perpetrators, followers and Wehrmacht soldiers and examines how they remember their Nazi family histories and the Holocaust and the Third Reich more generally. Most studies of this ‘third generation’ are framed in the terms of purely constructivist theories of collective (Halbwachs [1925] 1992) or communicative and cultural memory (Assmann 1999) and thus cannot take account of present but unrecognized aspects of the past. In contrast, this thesis draws on the traumatic realism of Dominick LaCapra and others to examine questions concerning the memory and representation of extreme events and makes use of the psychoanalytic notions of working-through and acting-out/mourning and melancholia. It does so to distinguish between what is remembered and what remains dissociated, marginalized and excluded in the grandchildren’s accounts of their Nazi family pasts. It furthermore draws on this non-binary distinction to acknowledge the two interrelated dimensions that remembering the National Socialist past entails in ‘the double “post” of the postmodern and the post-Holocaust’ (Santner 1990: 18): 1) coming to terms with the absence of essential, unfractured and stable identities, i.e. with what Eric Santner and Dominick LaCapra term structural trauma and 2) mourning the suffering caused by the Nazis and countless ordinary Germans, i.e. what both theorists refer to as historical trauma. This study explores how these two dimensions intersect in the generation of the grandchildren to find that the structural dimension has been receding into the background since German unification. This implies that the cultural and official memory of the Holocaust is increasingly either used for the purposes of national identity building, and thus in a redemptive way, or rejected because it is considered to obstruct a return to an essential and pure national identity. In drawing on recent theories of shame, this thesis argues that efforts of ‘coming to terms’ with the NS past can only be ‘successful’ if working-through structural trauma is part of the process

A Publish-Subscribe Model of Genetic Networks

We present a simple model of genetic regulatory networks in which regulatory connections among genes are mediated by a limited number of signaling molecules. Each gene in our model produces (publishes) a single gene product, which regulates the expression of other genes by binding to regulatory regions that correspond (subscribe) to that product. We explore the consequences of this publish-subscribe model of regulation for the properties of single networks and for the evolution of populations of networks. Degree distributions of randomly constructed networks, particularly multimodal in-degree distributions, which depend on the length of the regulatory sequences and the number of possible gene products, differed from simpler Boolean NK models. In simulated evolution of populations of networks, single mutations in regulatory or coding regions resulted in multiple changes in regulatory connections among genes, or alternatively in neutral change that had no effect on phenotype. This resulted in remarkable evolvability in both number and length of attractors, leading to evolved networks far beyond the expectation of these measures based on random distributions. Surprisingly, this rapid evolution was not accompanied by changes in degree distribution; degree distribution in the evolved networks was not substantially different from that of randomly generated networks. The publish-subscribe model also allows exogenous gene products to create an environment, which may be noisy or stable, in which dynamic behavior occurs. In simulations, networks were able to evolve moderate levels of both mutational and environmental robustness

In the presence of the past : 'third generation' Germans and the cultural memory of National Socialism and the Holocaust

This empirical study is based on interviews with 26 grandchildren of Nazi perpetrators, followers and Wehrmacht soldiers and examines how they remember their Nazi family histories and the Holocaust and the Third Reich more generally. Most studies of this ‘third generation’ are framed in the terms of purely constructivist theories of collective (Halbwachs [1925] 1992) or communicative and cultural memory (Assmann 1999) and thus cannot take account of present but unrecognized aspects of the past. In contrast, this thesis draws on the traumatic realism of Dominick LaCapra and others to examine questions concerning the memory and representation of extreme events and makes use of the psychoanalytic notions of working-through and acting-out/mourning and melancholia. It does so to distinguish between what is remembered and what remains dissociated, marginalized and excluded in the grandchildren’s accounts of their Nazi family pasts. It furthermore draws on this non-binary distinction to acknowledge the two interrelated dimensions that remembering the National Socialist past entails in ‘the double “post” of the postmodern and the post-Holocaust’ (Santner 1990: 18): 1) coming to terms with the absence of essential, unfractured and stable identities, i.e. with what Eric Santner and Dominick LaCapra term structural trauma and 2) mourning the suffering caused by the Nazis and countless ordinary Germans, i.e. what both theorists refer to as historical trauma. This study explores how these two dimensions intersect in the generation of the grandchildren to find that the structural dimension has been receding into the background since German unification. This implies that the cultural and official memory of the Holocaust is increasingly either used for the purposes of national identity building, and thus in a redemptive way, or rejected because it is considered to obstruct a return to an essential and pure national identity. In drawing on recent theories of shame, this thesis argues that efforts of ‘coming to terms’ with the NS past can only be ‘successful’ if working-through structural trauma is part of the process.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Stacks: Building and Genotyping Loci De Novo From Short-Read Sequences

Advances in sequencing technology provide special opportunities for genotyping individuals with speed and thrift, but the lack of software to automate the calling of tens of thousands of genotypes over hundreds of individuals has hindered progress. Stacks is a software system that uses short-read sequence data to identify and genotype loci in a set of individuals either de novo or by comparison to a reference genome. From reduced representation Illumina sequence data, such as RAD-tags, Stacks can recover thousands of single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers useful for the genetic analysis of crosses or populations. Stacks can generate markers for ultra-dense genetic linkage maps, facilitate the examination of population phylogeography, and help in reference genome assembly. We report here the algorithms implemented in Stacks and demonstrate their efficacy by constructing loci from simulated RAD-tags taken from the stickleback reference genome and by recapitulating and improving a genetic map of the zebrafish, Danio rerio

Pushing the limits of whole genome amplification: successful sequencing of RADseq library from a single microhymenopteran (Chalcidoidea, Trichogramma)

A major obstacle to high-throughput genotyping of microhymenoptera is their small size. As species are difficult to discriminate, and because complexes may exist, the sequencing of a pool of specimens is hazardous. Thus, one should be able to sequence pangenomic markers (e.g., RADtags) from a single specimen. To date, whole genome amplification (WGA) prior to library construction is still a necessity as at most 10 ng of DNA can be obtained from single specimens (sometimes less). However, this amount of DNA is not compatible with manufacturer’s requirements for commercial kits. Here we test the accuracy of the GenomiPhi kit V2 on Trichogramma wasps by comparing RAD libraries obtained from the WGA of single specimens (F0 and F1 generation, about1 ng input DNA for the WGA (0.17–2.9 ng)) and a biological amplification of genomic material (the pool of the progeny of the F1 generation). Globally, we found that 99% of the examined loci (up to 48,189 for one of the crosses, 109 bp each) were compatible with the mode of reproduction of the studied model (haplodiploidy) and Mendelian inheritance of alleles. The remaining 1% (0.01% of the analysed nucleotides) could represent WGA bias or other experimental/analytical bias. This study shows that the multiple displacement amplification method on which the GenomiPhi kit relies, could also be of great help for the high-throughput genotyping of microhymenoptera used for biological control, or other organisms from which only a very small amount of DNA can be extracted, such as human disease vectors (e.g., sandflies, fleas, ticks etc.).© 2018 Cruaud et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited. The attached file is the published pdf

Hybridantrieb für den Ladekran einer Forstmaschine

Der Ladevorgang eines Kranrückezuges bietet aufgrund des hohen Zeitanteils am gesamten Arbeitsprozess ein nennenswertes Potential für Energieeinsparung. Dabei soll der mechanische Aufbau des Ladekranes nicht modifiziert werden, um weiter mit Kranen arbeiten zu können, die in größeren Stückzahlen hergestellt werden. Mit Hilfe von zwei Hydro-Transformatoren mit konstanter Übersetzung wird ein Hybridantrieb aufgebaut, der sowohl die Lageenergie des gesamten Armsystems rekuperiert, als auch bei der parallelen Bewegung von Hub- und Wipparm die Lageenergie des abgesenkten Arms in den gehobenen Arm regeneriert. Die Potentiale der Energieeinsparung während der vertikalen und der horizontalen Bewegung der Kranspitze werden in diesem Bericht untersucht und abgeschätzt

RADseq data reveal a lack of admixture in a mouse lemur contact zone contrary to previous microsatellite results

Despite being one of the most fundamental biological processes, the process of speciation remains poorly understood in many groups of organisms. Mouse lemurs are a species-rich genus of small primates endemic to Madagascar, whose diversity has only recently been uncovered using genetic data and is primarily found among morphologically cryptic, allopatric populations. To assess to what extent described species represent reproductively isolated entities, studies are needed in areas where mouse lemur taxa come into contact. Hybridization has previously been reported in a contact zone between two closely related mouse lemur species ( Microcebus murinus and M. griseorufus ) based on microsatellite data. Here, we revisit this system using RADseq data for populations in, near, and far from the contact zone, including many of the individuals that had previously been identified as hybrids. Surprisingly, we find no evidence for admixed nuclear ancestry in any of the individuals. Re-analyses of microsatellite data and simulations suggest that previously inferred hybrids were false positives and that the program NewHybrids can be particularly sensitive to erroneously inferring hybrid ancestry. Using coalescent-bases analyses, we also show an overall lack of recent gene flow between the two species, and low levels of ancestral gene flow. Combined with evidence for local syntopic occurrence, these data indicate that M. murinus and M. griseorufus are reproductively isolated. Finally, we estimate that they diverged less than a million years ago, suggesting that completion of speciation is relatively rapid in mouse lemurs. Future work should focus on the underpinnings of reproductive isolation in this cryptic primate radiation, which are mostly unknown. Our study also provides a cautionary tale for the inference of hybridization with microsatellite data