Der Deutsche Germanistenverband –: eine „Fachgenossenschaft“ im Zielkonflikt

Deutscher Germanistenverband: An Academic Association in a Conflict of Objectives From its inauguration in 1912 until 1933 the DGV resembled an ideological society successfully pursuing anti-modern nationalistic goals in the area of educational and school policy with modern methods. At best, it might be said to have only marginally fulfilled the role of an academic association for the field of study. While it did not actively seek to join the National Socialist movement, it did not resist it either. Only since its annually held conference in966 has the DGV started to deal with its past and subsequently reformed the association’s activities rigorously to become a modern academic association. What remains problematic today, is the fact that the DGV represents both the interests of German scholars from higher education and those of school teachers of German – which in fact frequently diverge from each other – and therefore, due to internal differentiation, is in danger of being reduced to being an umbrella association

Zwischen nationaler Selbstbehauptung und Kooperationssignalen: zur Einschätzung der neuen russischen Militärdoktrin

"Im Februar 2010 erschien die neue russische Militärdoktrin mit den politischen, strategischen und ökonomischen Leitlinien des russischen Militärs für die nächsten zehn bis fünfzehn Jahre. Sie wurde im Westen mit Spannung erwartet - und rief doch eher Enttäuschung hervor. Die NATO wird zur 'Hauptgefahr' für die russische Sicherheit deklariert, und Hinweise auf mögliche Verhandlungen über substrategische Kernwaffen fehlen völlig. Nach dem Kurswechsel der amerikanischen Außenpolitik unter Obama hatte man mehr Entgegenkommen erwartet. Die Autoren werfen einen genaueren Blick auf die Doktrin. Sie stoßen auf deutliche Signale der Kooperationsbereitschaft und entdecken mehr Übereinstimmungen mit westlichen Gefahren- und Risikoanalysen. Zudem enthält die Doktrin Hinweise auf interne Meinungsverschiedenheiten in der russischen Führung. Das könnte neue Verhandlungsspielräume eröffnen. Auch die Aufwertung des Instruments der Rüstungskontrolle und die Einschränkung möglicher nuklearer Einsatzszenarien im Vergleich zu vorangegangenen Doktrinen stützen die positivere Beurteilung der Autoren. Sie ermuntern die Bundesregierung ausdrücklich, sich im Bündnis auf der Basis der Doktrin für stärkere sicherheitspolitische Kooperation mit Russland einzusetzen." (Autorenreferat

Carbohydrate restricted diet in conjunction with metformin and liraglutide is an effective treatment in patients with deteriorated type 2 diabetes mellitus: Proof-of-concept study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Type 2 diabetes mellitus is a chronic progressive disease. During the course of the disease intensive treatment is often necessary resulting in multiple interventions including administration of insulin. Although dietary intervention is highly recommended, the clinical results of the widely prescribed diets with low fat content and high carbohydrates are disappointing. In this proof-of-concept study, we tested the effect of dietary carbohydrate-restriction in conjunction with metformin and liraglutide on metabolic control in patients with type 2 diabetes.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Forty patients with type 2 diabetes already being treated with two oral anti-diabetic drugs or insulin treatment and who showed deterioration of their glucose metabolism (i.e. HbA1c <it>></it>7.5), were treated. A carbohydrate-restricted diet and a combination of metformin and liraglutide were instituted, after stopping either insulin or oral anti-diabetic drugs (excluding metformin). After enrollment, the study patients were scheduled for follow-up visits at one, two, three and six months. Primary outcome was glycemic control, measured by HbA1c at six months. Secondary outcomes were body weight, lipid-profile and treatment satisfaction.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Thirty-five (88%) participants completed the study. Nearly all participating patients experienced a drop in HbA1c and body weight during the first three months, an effect which was maintained until the end of the study at six months. Seventy-one percent of the patients reached HbA1c values below 7.0%. The range of body weight at enrollment was extreme, reaching 165 kg as the highest initial value. The average weight loss after 6 months was 10%. Most patients were satisfied with this treatment. During the intervention no significant change of lipids was observed. Most patients who were on insulin could maintain the treatment without insulin with far better metabolic control.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Carbohydrate restriction in conjunction with metformin and liraglutide is an effective treatment option for patients with advanced diabetes who are candidates for instituting insulin or who are in need of intensified insulin treatment. This proof-of-principle study showed a significant treatment effect on metabolic control.</p

Auf dem Weg zu Global Zero? Die neue amerikanische Nuklearpolitik zwischen Anspruch und Wirklichkeit

"Präsident Obama hat sich ausdrücklich zum Ziel einer kernwaffenfreien Welt bekannt und seiner Ankündigung prompt Taten folgen lassen: Die neue Nukleardoktrin, der NSTART-Vertrag, das Plutoniumabkommen und die einseitigen Transparenzmaßnahmen sind lange vermisste erste Schritte. Aber leiten sie tatsächlich einen Paradigmenwechsel ein? Die vier Autoren unterziehen die Verträge und Maßnahmen einer kritischen Prüfung und bewerten ihre Zukunftsfähigkeit. Der weitere Erfolg von Obamas ehrgeizigem Vorhaben wird sich nicht zuletzt im amerikanischen Senat entscheiden. Viel wird davon abhängen, wie weit es Obama gelingen wird, moderate Konservative von seinem Kurs zu überzeugen. Diese haben für die Gefahren eines möglichen nuklearen Terrorismus durchaus ein offenes Ohr, befürchten aber den möglichen Sicherheitsverlust, wenn auf nukleare Abschreckung verzichtet wird. Obama versucht, diese Besorgnisse durch konventionelle Aufrüstung zu entkräften. Das ist riskant, passen doch nukleare Abrüstung und konventionelle Dominanz nicht zusammen. Zudem gibt es durch die Wirtschaftskrise kaum finanzielle Spielräume für ehrgeizige Aufrüstungsvorhaben. Der Bundesregierung empfehlen die Autoren, im Bündnis weiterhin auf den Abzug der substrategischen Nuklearwaffen aus Deutschland zu drängen, das heißt für Bedingungen einzutreten, die das Sicherheitsbedürfnis der osteuropäischen Partner ernst nehmen, aber auch Russland erlauben, die Rolle seiner substrategischen Waffen zu reduzieren. Das könnte zum Beispiel durch die Ratifizierung des angepassten KSE-Vertrags und den Verzicht auf eine weitere Osterweiterung der NATO geschehen." (Autorenreferat

A new and reliable culture system for superficial low-grade urothelial carcinoma of the bladder

Several bladder cancer culture systems have been developed in recent years. However, reports about successful primary cultures of superficial urothelial carcinomas (UC) are sparse. Based on the specific growth requirements of UC described previously, we developed a new and reliable culture system for superficial low-grade UC. Between November 2002 and April 2006, 64 primary cultures of bladder cancer specimens were performed. After incubating the specimens overnight in 0.1% ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid solution, tumour cells could easily be separated from the submucosal tissue. Subsequently, cells were seeded in a low-calcium culture medium supplemented with 1% serum, growth factors, non-essential amino acids and glycine. The malignant origin of the cultured cells was demonstrated by spectral karyotyping. Overall culture success rate leading to a homogenous tumour cell population without fibroblast contamination was 63%. Culture success could be remarkably enhanced by the addition of glycine to the culture medium. Interestingly, 86.4% of pTa tumours were cultured successfully compared to only 50% of the pT1 and 38% of advanced stage tumours, respectively. G1 and G2 tumours grew significantly better than G3 tumours (86, 73 and 41%, respectively). Up to three passages of low-grade UC primary cultures were possible. We describe a new and reliable culture system, which is highly successful for primary culture and passage of low-grade UC of the bladder. Therefore, this culture system can widely be used for functional experiments on early stage bladder cance

A new multi-dimensional general relativistic neutrino hydrodynamics code for core-collapse supernovae. I. Method and code tests in spherical symmetry

We present a new general relativistic (GR) code for hydrodynamic supernova simulations with neutrino transport in spherical and azimuthal symmetry (1D/2D). The code is a combination of the CoCoNuT hydro module, which is a Riemann-solver based, high-resolution shock-capturing method, and the three-flavor, energy-dependent neutrino transport scheme VERTEX. VERTEX integrates the neutrino moment equations with a variable Eddington factor closure computed from a model Boltzmann equation and uses the ray-by-ray plus approximation in 2D, assuming the neutrino distribution to be axially symmetric around the radial direction, and thus the neutrino flux to be radial. Our spacetime treatment employs the ADM 3+1 formalism with the conformal flatness condition for the spatial three-metric. This approach is exact in 1D and has been shown to yield very accurate results also for rotational stellar collapse. We introduce new formulations of the energy equation to improve total energy conservation in relativistic and Newtonian hydro simulations with Eulerian finite-volume codes. Moreover, a modified version of the VERTEX scheme is developed that simultaneously conserves energy and lepton number with better accuracy and higher numerical stability. To verify our code, we conduct a series of tests, including a detailed comparison with published 1D results for stellar core collapse. Long-time simulations of proto-neutron star cooling over several seconds both demonstrate the robustness of the new CoCoNuT-VERTEX code and show the approximate treatment of GR effects by means of an effective gravitational potential as in PROMETHEUS-VERTEX to be remarkably accurate in 1D. (abridged)Comment: 36 pages, 19 eps figures; submitted to ApJS (minor revisions; some typos corrected

Whole genome sequencing data used for surveillance of Campylobacter infections:detection of a large continuous outbreak, Denmark, 2019

BACKGROUND: Campylobacter is one of the most frequent causes of bacterial gastroenteritis. Campylobacter outbreaks are rarely reported, which could be a reflection of a surveillance without routine molecular typing. We have previously shown that numerous small outbreak-like clusters can be detected when whole genome sequencing (WGS) data of clinical Campylobacter isolates was applied. AIM: Typing-based surveillance of Campylobacter infections was initiated in 2019 to enable detection of large clusters of clinical isolates and to match them to concurrent retail chicken isolates in order to react on ongoing outbreaks. METHODS: We performed WGS continuously on isolates from cases (n = 701) and chicken meat (n = 164) throughout 2019. Core genome multilocus sequence typing was used to detect clusters of clinical isolates and match them to isolates from chicken meat. RESULTS: Seventy-two clusters were detected, 58 small clusters (2–4 cases) and 14 large clusters (5–91 cases). One third of the clinical isolates matched isolates from chicken meat. One large cluster persisted throughout the whole year and represented 12% of all studied Campylobacter cases. This cluster type was detected in several chicken samples and was traced back to one slaughterhouse, where interventions were implemented to control the outbreak. CONCLUSION: Our WGS-based surveillance has contributed to an improved understanding of the dynamics of the occurrence of Campylobacter strains in chicken meat and the correlation to clusters of human cases