Governance-Aspekte im österreichischen Emissionshandel

Governance - ursprünglich aus Institutionenökonomik und Politikwissenschaften kommend - findet in diversen Wissenschaftsfeldern Anwendung. Der theoretische Teil dieser Arbeit beschäftigte sich eingehend mit diesem Konzept. Im Zuge der umfassenden Behandlung von Governance wurde das Subkonzept der Adaptive Governance vorgestellt, welches häufig in naturwissenschaftlichen Spannungsfeldern operationalisiert wird. Das ausgewählte Fallbeispiel, der Emissionshandel in Österreich, wurde in dieser Arbeit vorgestellt. Der Fokus lag dabei auf jenen Institutionen, die für die Abwicklung des Emissionshandels in Österreich verantwortlich sind: Lebensministerium, Umweltbundesamt und ECRA. Diese drei Institutionen waren auch die Grundlage für den empirischen Teil. Mittels Literaturrecherche und Leitfadeninterviews mit Ansprechpartnern dieser drei Institutionen wurden so genannte Institutionslandkarten generiert, die als Abbild der nationalen Struktur für die Abwicklung des Emissionshandels inkl. den vorhandenen Verbindungen und Wechselwirkungen zwischen den Akteuren dienen sollte. In der anschließenden Auswertung wurden Governance-Aspekte in dem betrachteten System analysiert. Ziel dieser Arbeit war es, jene Governance-Aspekte zu identifizieren und sich mithilfe der Operationaliserung von Goverance an ein mögliches Idealbild anzunähern. Es hat sich gezeigt, dass die drei Institutionen gut aufgestellt sind. Allerdings wirken Akteure, die sich außerhalb des untersuchten Systems befinden, auf die Institutionen negativ ein. In wie weit man dieser Problemstellung mit der Operationalisierung von Governance begegnen könnte, wurde in Hinblick auf ein mögliches Idealbild diskutiert.Governance - originally coming from Institional Economics and political sciences - is positioned in various scientific fields. The theoretical part of this thesis deals with the governance-concept in-depth. In the course of a detailed analysis the subconcept of Adaptive Governance, which ist often operationalised in natural science fields, was introduced. The chosen case study, the Emissions Trading Scheme in Austria, was elucidated in this thesis.The focus was on those institutions, which are responsible for the clearing of emissions trading in Austria: Lebensministerium, Umweltbundesamt and ECRA. These three institutionen were the foundation of the empirical part. Using literature research and guided interviews with contact persons of these three institutions so called "Institutionslandkarten" were generated in order to provide a picture of the national clearing structure of emissions trading including existing connections and interdependencies between the players. In a subsequent examination governance-aspects within this system were analysed. Aim of this thesis was to identify governance-aspects and to approach a feasible ideal by means of operationalisation of governance. It was shown that the three institutions are well arranged. Though external players affect the analysed system negatively. To which extent this problem can be handled with an operationalisation of governance, was discussed with regard to a feasible ideal

Trauernormen: historische und gegenwärtige Perspektiven

"Ziel des Beitrags ist es, eine historische Perspektive auf die Trauer im westlichen Kulturraum zu entwickeln und die darin wirkenden Trauernormen zu verdeutlichen. Den theoretischen Rahmen bildet das Konzept der Gefühlsnormen von Arlie Hochschild. Mit einer Verlagerung von Trauer aus der Gemeinschaft und Öffentlichkeit in die Privatheit - weitgehend losgelöst von festgelegten Ritualen und Praktiken - lässt sich ein historischer Wandel von Verhaltensnormen hin zu Gefühlsnormen im Rahmen einer Emotionalisierung der Trauer feststellen. Empirische Befunde einer Online-Befragung in der Schweiz und Deutschland verdeutlichen die gegenwärtigen Trauernormen und individuellen Erfahrungen im Erleben der Trauer. Die Ergebnisse geben u. a. Hinweise auf die Kontrolle von Trauergefühlen, die Schwierigkeiten, mit anderen über die Trauer zu sprechen und eine Unsicherheit im sozialen Umgang mit Trauernden." (Autorenreferat)"The article adopts a historical perspective on grieving in Western culture and traces contemporary grieving norms. Arlie Hochschild's concept of feeling rules provides the theoretical framework. As grieving has shifted from the community and the public sphere to private sphere - where it is no longer embedded in set rituals and practices -, we can also observe a historical shift from behavioral norms to feeling norms in the course of an emotionalization of grieving. Empirical findings from an online survey in Switzerland and Germany elucidate contemporary grieving norms and illustrate individual experiences of grieving. The results indicate, among other things, how the emotions involved in grieving are controlled and what difficulties exist in verbalizing grief to others. They also point to insecurity in social interaction with those grieving." (author's abstract

Trauernormen: historische und gegenwärtige Perspektiven

"Ziel des Beitrags ist es, eine historische Perspektive auf die Trauer im westlichen Kulturraum zu entwickeln und die darin wirkenden Trauernormen zu verdeutlichen. Den theoretischen Rahmen bildet das Konzept der Gefühlsnormen von Arlie Hochschild. Mit einer Verlagerung von Trauer aus der Gemeinschaft und Öffentlichkeit in die Privatheit - weitgehend losgelöst von festgelegten Ritualen und Praktiken - lässt sich ein historischer Wandel von Verhaltensnormen hin zu Gefühlsnormen im Rahmen einer Emotionalisierung der Trauer feststellen. Empirische Befunde einer Online-Befragung in der Schweiz und Deutschland verdeutlichen die gegenwärtigen Trauernormen und individuellen Erfahrungen im Erleben der Trauer. Die Ergebnisse geben u. a. Hinweise auf die Kontrolle von Trauergefühlen, die Schwierigkeiten, mit anderen über die Trauer zu sprechen und eine Unsicherheit im sozialen Umgang mit Trauernden." (Autorenreferat)"The article adopts a historical perspective on grieving in Western culture and traces contemporary grieving norms. Arlie Hochschild's concept of feeling rules provides the theoretical framework. As grieving has shifted from the community and the public sphere to private sphere - where it is no longer embedded in set rituals and practices -, we can also observe a historical shift from behavioral norms to feeling norms in the course of an emotionalization of grieving. Empirical findings from an online survey in Switzerland and Germany elucidate contemporary grieving norms and illustrate individual experiences of grieving. The results indicate, among other things, how the emotions involved in grieving are controlled and what difficulties exist in verbalizing grief to others. They also point to insecurity in social interaction with those grieving." (author's abstract

Accessibility for repositories. An overview of technical and legal requirements

Der Beitrag soll einen Überblick über die technischen und rechtlichen Voraussetzungen für barrierefreie Repositorien geben. Hinweise und Links sollen zeigen, dass auch mit kleinen Schritten, wie etwa Texte zu strukturieren oder Bilder zu beschreiben, ein wichtiger Beitrag geleistet werden kann. Barrierefreiheit sollte eigentlich schon selbstverständlich sein, in der Praxis zeigt sich jedoch, dass wir in den meisten Fällen, was das System selbst, die Guidelines und Hilfstexte, sowie es die Inhalte selbst betrifft noch weit davon entfernt sind. Die Sammlungen an Links und Beispielen sollen helfen, diesem Ziel ein wenig näher zu kommen.This article is intended to provide an overview of the technical and legal requirements for the accessibilty of repositories. Hints and links should show that even small steps, such as structuring texts or describing images, can make an important contribution. Accessibility should actually should already be a given, but in practice it turns out that in most cases we are still far away from this matter of course, in terms of the system itself, the guidelines and help texts, and the content itself. The collection of links and examples should help to come a little closer to this goal

Nanotube Action between Human Mesothelial Cells Reveals Novel Aspects of Inflammatory Responses

A well-known role of human peritoneal mesothelial cells (HPMCs), the resident cells of the peritoneal cavity, is the generation of an immune response during peritonitis by activation of T-cells via antigen presentation. Recent findings have shown that intercellular nanotubes (NTs) mediate functional connectivity between various cell types including immune cells - such as T-cells, natural killer (NK) cells or macrophages - by facilitating a spectrum of long range cell-cell interactions. Although of medical interest, the relevance of NT-related findings for human medical conditions and treatment, e.g. in relation to inflammatory processes, remains elusive, particularly due to a lack of appropriate in vivo data. Here, we show for the first time that primary cultures of patient derived HPMCs are functionally connected via membranous nanotubes. NT formation appears to be actin cytoskeleton dependent, mediated by the action of filopodia. Importantly, significant variances in NT numbers between different donors as a consequence of pathophysiological alterations were observable. Furthermore, we show that TNF-α induces nanotube formation and demonstrate a strong correlation of NT connectivity in accordance with the cellular cholesterol level and distribution, pointing to a complex involvement of NTs in inflammatory processes with potential impact for clinical treatment

Epigenetic Activation of SOX11 in Lymphoid Neoplasms by Histone Modifications

Recent studies have shown aberrant expression of SOX11 in various types of aggressive B-cell neoplasms. To elucidate the molecular mechanisms leading to such deregulation, we performed a comprehensive SOX11 gene expression and epigenetic study in stem cells, normal hematopoietic cells and different lymphoid neoplasms. We observed that SOX11 expression is associated with unmethylated DNA and presence of activating histone marks (H3K9/14Ac and H3K4me3) in embryonic stem cells and some aggressive B-cell neoplasms. In contrast, adult stem cells, normal hematopoietic cells and other lymphoid neoplasms do not express SOX11. Such repression was associated with silencing histone marks H3K9me2 and H3K27me3. The SOX11 promoter of non-malignant cells was consistently unmethylated whereas lymphoid neoplasms with silenced SOX11 tended to acquire DNA hypermethylation. SOX11 silencing in cell lines was reversed by the histone deacetylase inhibitor SAHA but not by the DNA methyltransferase inhibitor AZA. These data indicate that, although DNA hypermethylation of SOX11 is frequent in lymphoid neoplasms, it seems to be functionally inert, as SOX11 is already silenced in the hematopoietic system. In contrast, the pathogenic role of SOX11 is associated with its de novo expression in some aggressive lymphoid malignancies, which is mediated by a shift from inactivating to activating histone modifications

Monogenic variants in dystonia: an exome-wide sequencing study

Background Dystonia is a clinically and genetically heterogeneous condition that occurs in isolation (isolated dystonia), in combination with other movement disorders (combined dystonia), or in the context of multisymptomatic phenotypes (isolated or combined dystonia with other neurological involvement). However, our understanding of its aetiology is still incomplete. We aimed to elucidate the monogenic causes for the major clinical categories of dystonia. Methods For this exome-wide sequencing study, study participants were identified at 33 movement-disorder and neuropaediatric specialty centres in Austria, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Poland, Slovakia, and Switzerland. Each individual with dystonia was diagnosed in accordance with the dystonia consensus definition. Index cases were eligible for this study if they had no previous genetic diagnosis and no indication of an acquired cause of their illness. The second criterion was not applied to a subset of participants with a working clinical diagnosis of dystonic cerebral palsy. Genomic DNA was extracted from blood of participants and whole-exome sequenced. To find causative variants in known disorder-associated genes, all variants were filtered, and unreported variants were classified according to American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics guidelines. All considered variants were reviewed in expert round-table sessions to validate their clinical significance. Variants that survived filtering and interpretation procedures were defined as diagnostic variants. In the cases that went undiagnosed, candidate dystonia-causing genes were prioritised in a stepwise workflow. Findings We sequenced the exomes of 764 individuals with dystonia and 346 healthy parents who were recruited between June 1, 2015, and July 31, 2019. We identified causative or probable causative variants in 135 (19%) of 728 families, involving 78 distinct monogenic disorders. We observed a larger proportion of individuals with diagnostic variants in those with dystonia (either isolated or combined) with coexisting non-movement disorder-related neurological symptoms (100 [45%] of 222;excepting cases with evidence of perinatal brain injury) than in those with combined (19 [19%] of 98) or isolated (16 [4%] of 388) dystonia. Across all categories of dystonia, 104 (65%) of the 160 detected variants affected genes which are associated with neurodevelopmental disorders. We found diagnostic variants in 11 genes not previously linked to dystonia, and propose a predictive clinical score that could guide the implementation of exome sequencing in routine diagnostics. In cases without perinatal sentinel events, genomic alterations contributed substantively to the diagnosis of dystonic cerebral palsy. In 15 families, we delineated 12 candidate genes. These include IMPDH2, encoding a key purine biosynthetic enzyme, for which robust evidence existed for its involvement in a neurodevelopmental disorder with dystonia. We identified six variants in IMPDH2, collected from four independent cohorts, that were predicted to be deleterious de-novo variants and expected to result in deregulation of purine metabolism. Interpretation In this study, we have determined the role of monogenic variants across the range of dystonic disorders, providing guidance for the introduction of personalised care strategies and fostering follow-up pathophysiological explorations

Nano: Governance Through Dialogue (NanoTrust Dossier No. 038en – May 2013)

In the last years, dialogues have become increasingly important for politics and science as well as scientific communication. More and more, they serve as an important feature for the responsible handling of nanotechnology at the national and European level. German speaking states have therefore laid emphasis on dialogues as a tool for communication and information in their nanotechnology action plans.The projects described in the following were largely initiated by the respective authorities as implementation measures of the national nanotechnology action plans. With the exception of the information meetings, these measures in general took place between experts and decision makers in camera. For example, with regard to Austria the experts’ group Nanotechnologie-Informations-Plattform is described.Very seldom have decision makers initiated any public dialogues. One unique dialogue process with citizens is described, namely publifocus events in Switzerland, where the results had a direct influence on policy development. In addition to those dialogues which contributed to the national political process, occasionally also smaller dialogue events took place in the context of research projects, for example the focus groups in Germany and Austria of the project NanoSafety for the EU Parliament

Nano-Governance durch Dialoge (NanoTrust-Dossier Nr. 038 – März 2013)

Dialoge haben in den letzten Jahren für Politik und Wissenschaft bzw. Wissenschaftskommunikation zunehmend an Bedeutung gewonnen: Sie kommen vermehrt als Gestaltungselemente für einen verantwortungsvollen Umgang mit Nanotechnologien auf nationalstaatlicher sowie auf europäischer Ebene zum Einsatz. Die deutschsprachigen Länder haben in ihren Nano-Aktionsplänen einen Schwerpunkt auf Dialoge als Kommunikations- und Informationstool gelegt.Die hier beschriebenen Veranstaltungen wurden großteils als Umsetzungsmaßnahmen der nationalen Nano-Aktionspläne von den verantwortlichen Behörden initiiert. Diese Maßnahmen fanden – mit Ausnahme von Informationsveranstaltungen – zumeist zwischen ExpertIn- nen und EntscheidungsträgerInnen un- ter Ausschluss der Öffentlichkeit statt. Für Österreich wird hierzu etwa die ExpertInnenrunde Nanotechnologie-Informations-Plattform beschrieben. Von der Politik initiierte Dialoge mit BürgerInnen fanden kaum statt. Als bislang einzigartiger Dialogprozess mit BürgerInnen, dessen Ergebnisse direkt zur Politikgestaltung beitrugen, werden die publifocus-Veranstaltungen in der Schweiz vorgestellt. Neben Dialogen, die zum nationalen politischen Prozess beitrugen, fanden vereinzelt kleinere Dialogveranstaltungen im Rahmen von Forschungsprojekten statt, beispielsweise die Fokusgruppen in Deutschland und Österreich des Projekts NanoSafety für das EU-Parlament

Nanotechnology in the media – On the reporting in representative daily newspapers in Austria, Germany and Switzerland (NanoTrust Dossier No. 037en – October 2012)

The media play an important role in the formation of society's opinion by drawing attention to selected topics and bringing them closer to the public. This applies in particular to areas with which a large percentage of the population would otherwise have no direct points of contact, such as nanotechnology. The current study of selected print media in the German-speaking countries now reveals the general picture of nanotechnology in the media, what topics are given significant treatment, which actors are consulted, and explains that (at least as yet) there is no need for any concerns about risk-centred controversial reporting on this technology