Vom Rap zum Naschid: Religiöser Kampf und Märtyrertod in der Musik von Denis Cuspert

Denis Cuspert: der einstige Berliner Rapper mit dem Künstlernamen "Deso Dogg", der sich von der Rap-Szene abwandte und dem Islamischen Staat anschloss und sich Abu Talha al-Almani nannte. Die Autorinnen analysieren seine frühen und späteren Songtexte, in denen Cusperts Ausgrenzungs- und Rassismuserfahrungen sichtbar werden und letztlich seine Radikalisierung im djihadistisch-salafistischen Milieu

Alkaloids from the Sponge Stylissa carteri Present Prospective Scaffolds for the Inhibition of Human Immunodeficiency Virus 1 (HIV-1).

The sponge Stylissa carteri is known to produce a number of secondary metabolites displaying anti-fouling, anti-inflammatory, and anti-cancer activity. However, the anti-viral potential of metabolites produced by S. carteri has not been extensively explored. In this study, an S. carteri extract was HPLC fractionated and a cell based assay was used to evaluate the effects of HPLC fractions on parameters of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV-1) infection and cell viability. Candidate HIV-1 inhibitory fractions were then analyzed for the presence of potential HIV-1 inhibitory compounds by mass spectrometry, leading to the identification of three previously characterized compounds, i.e., debromohymenialdisine (DBH), hymenialdisine (HD), and oroidin. Commercially available purified versions of these molecules were re-tested to assess their antiviral potential in greater detail. Specifically, DBH and HD exhibit a 30%-40% inhibition of HIV-1 at 3.1 μM and 13 μM, respectively; however, both exhibited cytotoxicity. Conversely, oroidin displayed a 50% inhibition of viral replication at 50 μM with no associated toxicity. Additional experimentation using a biochemical assay revealed that oroidin inhibited the activity of the HIV-1 Reverse Transcriptase up to 90% at 25 μM. Taken together, the chemical search space was narrowed and previously isolated compounds with an unexplored anti-viral potential were found. Our results support exploration of marine natural products for anti-viral drug discovery

Wearable Cardiorespiratory Monitoring Employing a Multimodal Digital Patch Stethoscope: Estimation of ECG, PEP, LVET and Respiration Using a 55 mm Single-Lead ECG and Phonocardiogram

Cardiovascular diseases are the main cause of death worldwide, with sleep disordered breathing being a further aggravating factor. Respiratory illnesses are the third leading cause of death amongst the noncommunicable diseases. The current COVID-19 pandemic, however, also highlights the impact of communicable respiratory syndromes. In the clinical routine, prolonged postanesthetic respiratory instability worsens the patient outcome. Even though early and continuous, long-term cardiorespiratory monitoring has been proposed or even proven to be beneficial in several situations, implementations thereof are sparse. We employed our recently presented, multimodal patch stethoscope to estimate Einthoven electrocardiogram (ECG) Lead I and II from a single 55 mm ECG lead. Using the stethoscope and ECG subsystems, the pre-ejection period (PEP) and left ventricular ejection time (LVET) were estimated. ECG-derived respiration techniques were used in conjunction with a novel, phonocardiogram-derived respiration approach to extract respiratory parameters. Medical-grade references were the SOMNOmedics SOMNO HDTM and Osypka ICON-CoreTM. In a study including 10 healthy subjects, we analyzed the performances in the supine, lateral, and prone position. Einthoven I and II estimations yielded correlations exceeding 0.97. LVET and PEP estimation errors were 10% and 21%, respectively. Respiratory rates were estimated with mean absolute errors below 1.2 bpm, and the respiratory signal yielded a correlation of 0.66. We conclude that the estimation of ECG, PEP, LVET, and respiratory parameters is feasible using a wearable, multimodal acquisition device and encourage further research in multimodal signal fusion for respiratory signal estimation.DFG, 414044773, Open Access Publizieren 2019 - 2020 / Technische Universität Berli

The Nma1 protein promotes long distance transport mediated by early endosomes in Ustilago maydis

Early endosomes (EEs) are part of the endocytic transport pathway and resemble the earliest class of transport vesicles between the internalization of extracellular material, their cellular distribution or vacuolar degradation. In filamentous fungi, EEs fulfill important functions in long distance transport of cargoes as mRNAs, ribosomes, and peroxisomes. Formation and maturation of early endosomes is controlled by the specific membrane-bound Rab-GTPase Rab5 and tethering complexes as CORVET (class C core vacuole/endosome tethering). In the basidiomycete Ustilago maydis, Rab5a is the prominent GTPase to recruit CORVET to EEs; in rab5a deletion strains, this function is maintained by the second EE-associated GTPase Rab5b. The tethering- and core-subunits of CORVET are essential, buttressing a central role for EE transport in U. maydis. The function of EEs in long distance transport is supported by the Nma1 protein that interacts with the Vps3 subunit of CORVET. The interaction stabilizes the binding of Vps3 to the CORVET core complex that is recruited to Rab5a via Vps8. Deletion of nma1 leads to a significantly reduced number of EEs, and an increased conversion rate of EEs to late endosomes. Thus, Nma1 modulates the lifespan of EEs to ensure their availability for the various long distance transport processes

Perceptions of ecosystem services : Comparing socio-cultural and environmental influences

Ecosystem services such as food provisioning, climate regulation, nutrient cycling, or recreation in open landscapes underpin human wellbeing. They are highly dependent on land use, land cover and utilization pattern as well as environmental factors like climate, topography and soil. In consequence, ecosystem services supply shows a high spatial variability. However, it is less clear if the perception of the importance of ecosystem services is similarly heterogeneous in space and amongst societal actors. The aim of this large-scale study was to explore whether land cover and climate gradients as well as socio-cultural factors influence the perceptions of ecosystem services of four groups of societal actors: citizens, farmers, foresters and nature managers. Spatially explicit survey data of 3018 respondents allowed to gain insight into the distribution of perceived importance of 21 ecosystem services in the federal state of Bavaria, Germany together with the respondents’ socio-cultural characterisation (e.g. gender, education and hobbies in nature). Responses were analysed through descriptive statistics, redundancy analysis, and Generalized Linear Models. Results reveal that the perceived importance of many ecosystem services was consistently high across groups, although perception differed for some ecosystem services (e.g. production of energy plants and timber as well as recreation in urban green space). Compared to other actor groups, farmers attributed slightly lower importance to all ES except provisioning services. Socio-cultural factors better explained variability in perceived importance of ecosystem services than land cover and climate gradients. This might be either explained by the fact that the environmental gradients vary not strong enough in our case study or that they do not shape the perceptions of respondents. A limitation of the study is that the sample of respondents obtained is not representative for the population, but biased towards persons interested in the topics of the survey. Still the consensus indicated by the overall positive perception of ecosystem services among respondents highlights the integrative potential of ecosystem services when included in decision-making

Engaging with terminology in the multilingual classroom:Teachers’ practices for bridging the gap between L1 lectures and English reading

In some academic settings where English is not the first language it is nonetheless common for reading to be assigned in English, and the expectation is often that students will acquire subject terminology incidentally in the first language as well as in English as a result of listening and reading. It is then a prerequisite that students notice and engage with terminology in both languages. To this end, teachers’ classroom practices for making students attend to and engage with terms are crucial for furthering students’ vocabulary competence in two languages. Using transcribed video recordings of eight undergraduate lectures from two universities in such a setting, this paper provides a comprehensive picture of what teachers ‘do’ with terminology during a lecture, i.e., how terms are allowed to feature in the classroom discourse. It is established, for example, that teachers nearly always employ some sort of emphatic practice when using a term in a lecture. However, the repertoire of such practices is limited. Further, teachers rarely adapt their repertoires to cater to the special needs arguably required in these settings, or to exploit the affordances of multilingual environments

The political import of deconstruction—Derrida’s limits?: a forum on Jacques Derrida’s specters of Marx after 25 Years, part I

Jacques Derrida delivered the basis of The Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning, & the New International as a plenary address at the conference ‘Whither Marxism?’ hosted by the University of California, Riverside, in 1993. The longer book version was published in French the same year and appeared in English and Portuguese the following year. In the decade after the publication of Specters, Derrida’s analyses provoked a large critical literature and invited both consternation and celebration by figures such as Antonio Negri, Wendy Brown and Frederic Jameson. This forum seeks to stimulate new reflections on Derrida, deconstruction and Specters of Marx by considering how the futures past announced by the book have fared after an eventful quarter century. Maja Zehfuss, Antonio Vázquez-Arroyo and Dan Bulley and Bal Sokhi-Bulley offer sharp, occasionally exasperated, meditations on the political import of deconstruction and the limits of Derrida’s diagnoses in Specters of Marx but also identify possible paths forward for a global politics taking inspiration in Derrida’s work of the 1990s

The relationship between external knee moments and muscle co-activation in subjects with medial knee osteoarthritis

Purpose: External knee moments are reliable to measure knee load but it does not take into account muscle activity. Considering that muscle co-activation increases compressive forces at the knee joint, identifying relationships between muscle co-activations and knee joint load would complement the investigation of the knee loading in subjects with knee osteoarthritis. The purpose of this study was to identify relationships between muscle coactivation and external knee moments during walking in subjects with medial knee osteoarthritis. Methods: 19 controls (11 males, aged 56.6 ±5, and BMI 25.2 ± 3.3) and 25 subjects with medial knee osteoarthritis (12 males, aged 57.3 ± 5.3, and BMI 28.2 ± 4) were included in this study. Knee adduction and flexion moments, and co-activation (ratios and sums of quadriceps, hamstring, and gastrocnemius) were assessed during walking and compared between groups. The relationship between knee moments and co-activation was investigated in both groups. Findings: subjects with knee osteoarthritis presented a moderate and strong correlation between co-activation (ratios and sums) and knee moments. Interpretation: Muscle co-activation should be used to measure the contribution of quadriceps, hamstring, and gastrocnemius on knee loading. This information would cooperate to develop a more comprehensive approach of knee loading in this population