Construction Of Reality: Symbolic And Social Practice Of Michael Kurzwelly’s Słubfurt And Nowa Amerika

My thesis is concerned with the analysis of two long-term community-based socially engaged art projects of German artist Michal Kurzwelly: “Słubfurt” (1999-2018) and “Nowa Amerika” (2010-2018). The research methodology for the analysis is drawn from the fields of art theory and criticism, and sociology. More specifically, in order to evaluate the social impact of long-term social art practices on the local community I borrow the criteria from the sociological discourse of bottom-up community development, while simultaneously, combining it with the insights from art criticism to discuss aesthetic dimensions of the work. I am arguing that Michael Kurzwelly’s projects are good examples of a successful long-term socially engaged project as they reconciles the antagonism between ethics and aesthetics, keeping both artistic and social critic in tension. I contend that the powerful imaginative component in combination with dedicated community work has led to the tangible social transformation of the local community, enabling its sustainable development through infrastructures of grassroots civil society and engagement in critical self-reflective dialogue. These social changes became possible due to the emancipatory potential of the mediated collective aesthetic experience that enabled the release of social imagination: the capacity to imagine better worlds, manifested in real action

Assays for DNA double-strand break repair by microhomology-based end-joining repair mechanisms.

DNA double stranded breaks (DSBs) are one of the most deleterious types of DNA lesions. The main pathways responsible for repairing these breaks in eukaryotic cells are homologous recombination (HR) and non-homologous end-joining (NHEJ). However, a third group of still poorly characterized DSB repair pathways, collectively termed microhomology-mediated end-joining (MMEJ), relies on short homologies for the end-joining process. Here, we constructed GFP reporter assays to characterize and distinguish MMEJ variant pathways, namely the simple MMEJ and the DNA synthesis-dependent (SD)-MMEJ mechanisms. Transfection of these assay vectors in Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells and characterization of the repaired DNA sequences indicated that while simple MMEJ is able to mediate relatively efficient DSB repair if longer microhomologies are present, the majority of DSBs were repaired using the highly error-prone SD-MMEJ pathway. To validate the involvement of DNA synthesis in the repair process, siRNA knock-down of different genes proposed to play a role in MMEJ were performed, revealing that the knock-down of DNA polymerase θ inhibited DNA end resection and repair through simple MMEJ, thus favoring the other repair pathway. Overall, we conclude that this approach provides a convenient assay to study MMEJ-related DNA repair pathways

Current rectification in molecular junctions produced by local potential fields

The transport properties of a octane-dithiol (ODT) molecule coupled to Au(001) leads are analyzed using density functional theory and non-equilibrium Green functions. It is shown that a symmetric molecule can turn into a diode under influence of a local electric field created by an external charged probe. The origin of the asymmetry of the current--voltage ($I-V$) dependence is traced back to the appearance of a probe induced quasi--local state in the pseudogap of the ODT molecule. The induced state affects electron transport, provided it is close to the Fermi level of the leads. An asymmetric placement of the charged probe along the alkane chain makes the induced quasi--local state in the energy gap very sensitive to the bias voltage and results in rectification of the current. The results based on DFT are supported by independent calculations using a simple one--particle model Hamiltonian.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figure