A Myth that Matters: Der amerikanische Exzeptionalismus und der Versuch einer Konzeptionalisierung der ideationalen liberalen Außenpolitiktheorie

Die Forschung zum amerikanischen Exzeptionalismus als Teil der kollektiven Identität der USA lässt eine systematische Einordnung der exzeptionellen Selbstzuschreibungen der USA im Kontext militärischer Interventionspolitik bisher weitgehend vermissen. Basierend auf den beiden grundlegenden Dimensionen einer exemplarischen und einer missionarischen Selbstzuschreibung werden in dieser Studie vier Idealtypen des amerikanischen Exzeptionalismus gebildet, die als ideationales Analyseraster der amerikanischen Interventionspolitik dienen können. Ausgehend von der Doppelfunktion des amerikanischen Exzeptionalismus als Movens außenpolitischer Präferenzen und als strategische Legitimationsgrundlage wird in einem historisch angeleiteten Vergleich gezeigt, dass Elemente dieser vier Idealtypen die außenpolitischen Traditionen der USA maßgeblich (mit)geprägt haben. Zur weiteren Einordnung des amerikanischen Exzeptionalismus in den außenpolitischen Präferenzbildungsprozess der USA wird in einem zweiten Schritt die ideationale Variante der liberalen Außenpolitiktheorie nach Andrew Moravcsik um den Faktor der politischen Kommunikation ergänzt. Der amerikanische Exzeptionalismus dient dem Präsidenten dabei als narrativer Diskursrahmen außenpolitischer Interpretations- und Deutungsangebote, mit denen er die Öffentlichkeit zu mobilisieren und den Kongress von seinen außenpolitischen Absichten zu überzeugen versucht. In diesem Zusammenhang gilt: Je kongruenter die außenpolitischen Deutungsangebote mit dem Narrativ des amerikanischen Exzeptionalismus, desto wirkmächtiger ihre Bedeutung für den gesellschaftlichen Diskurs der USA über Außenpolitik. Entgegen den Annahmen der liberalen Außenpolitiktheorie zeigt sich, dass der Präsident als Strategic Narrator des amerikanischen Exzeptionalismus die Öffentlichkeit nicht nur repräsentieren, sondern auch zu seinen Gunsten mobilisieren kann.Research on American exceptionalism as part of a national identity currently lacks a systematic clarification of the exceptional self-ascriptions of the United States and their ramifications on U.S. military interventions. Based on the dimensions of an exemplary and missionary self-ascription, this study develops four ideal types of American exceptionalism that serve as a template for further analyses of American exceptionalism and U.S. military interventions. Based on the twin function of American exceptionalism as a driving force of foreign policy preferences and as a strategic bedrock to legitimate American military interventions, a historically guided comparison shows that elements of these four ideal types crucially shaped the U.S. foreign policy traditions. To further clarify the role of American exceptionalism in the foreign policy preference formation process of the United States, this study attempts to conceptionalize the ideational variant of Andrew Moravcsik’s liberal theory. American exceptionalism serves as a narrative background for presidential framing processes in order to mobilize the public and to persuade Congress of his foreign policy intentions. It holds that the more congruent the foreign policy frame is with the narrative of American exceptionalism, the more powerful it becomes in the U.S. foreign policy discourse. In contrast to the assumptions of liberal theory, this study shows that the president as a Strategic Narrator of American exceptionalism not only represents, but also mobilizes the general public in terms of his own political goals

Pediatric Population Pharmacokinetic Modeling and Exposure-Response Analysis of Ambrisentan in Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension and Comparison With Adult Data.

This study aimed to develop a population pharmacokinetic (PK) model of ambrisentan in pediatric patients (8 to <18 years) with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) and compare pediatric ambrisentan systemic exposure with previously reported adult data. Association of ambrisentan exposure with efficacy (6-minute walking distance) and safety (adverse events) were exploratory analyses. A population PK model was developed using pediatric PK data. Steady-state systemic exposure metrics were estimated for the pediatric population and compared with previously reported data in adult patients with PAH and healthy subjects. No covariates had a significant effect on PK parameters; therefore, the final covariate model was the same as the base model. The pediatric population PK model was a 2-compartment model including the effect of body weight (allometric scaling), first-order absorption and elimination, and absorption lag time. Steady-state ambrisentan exposure was similar between the pediatric and adult population when accounting for body weight differences. Geometric mean area under the concentration-time curve at steady state in pediatric patients receiving ambrisentan low dose was 3% lower than in the adult population (and similar in both populations receiving high dose). Geometric mean maximum plasma concentration at steady state in pediatric patients receiving low and high doses was 11% and 18% higher, respectively, than in the adult population. There was no apparent association in the pediatric or adult population between ambrisentan exposure and change in 6-minute walking distance or incidence of ambrisentan-related adverse events in pediatric patients. The similar ambrisentan exposure and exposure-response profiles observed in pediatric and adult populations with PAH suggests appropriateness of body-weight-based dosing in the pediatric population with PAH

M-theory resolution of four-dimensional cosmological singularities via U-duality

We consider cosmological solutions of string and M-theory compactified to four dimensions by giving a general prescription to construct four-dimensional modular cosmologies with two commuting Killing vectors from vacuum solutions. By lifting these solutions to higher dimensions we analyze the existence of cosmological singularities and find that, in the case of non-closed Friedmann-Robertson-Walker universes, singularities can be removed from the higher-dimensional model when only one of the extra dimensions is time-varying. By studying the moduli space of compactifications of M-theory resulting in homogeneous cosmologies in four dimensions we show that U-duality transformations map singular cosmologies into non-singular ones.Comment: 21 pages, harvmac. No figures. Minor changes. Typos corrected, a footnote added in Sec. 3 and two words added to the title. Final version to appear in Nuclear Physics

Radion and moduli stabilization from induced brane actions in higher-dimensional brane worlds

We consider a 4+N-dimensional brane world with 2 co-dimension 1 branes in an empty bulk. The two branes have N-1 of their extra dimensions compactified on a sphere S^(N-1), whereas the ordinary 4 spacetime directions are Poincare invariant. An essential input are induced stress-energy tensors on the branes providing different tensions for the spherical and flat part of the branes. The junction conditions - notably through their extra dimensional components - fix both the distance between the branes as well as the size of the sphere. As a result, we demonstrate, that there are no scalar Kaluza-Klein states at all (massless or massive), that would correspond to a radion or a modulus field of S^(N-1). We also discuss the effect of induced Einstein terms on the branes and show that their coefficients are bounded from above, otherwise they lead to a graviton ghost.Comment: 23 pages, no figures, references added, typos correcte

Brane-induced supersymmetry breaking

We study spontaneous supersymmetry breaking induced by brane-localized dynamics in five-dimensional supergravity compactified on S^1/Z_2. We consider a model with gravity in the bulk and matter localized on tensionless branes at the orbifold fixed points. We assume that the brane dynamics give rise to effective brane superpotentials that trigger the supersymmetry breaking. We analyze in detail the super-Higgs effect. We compute the full spectrum and show that the symmetry breaking is spontaneous but nonlocal in the fifth dimension. We demonstrate that the model can be interpreted as a new, non-trivial implementation of a coordinate-dependent Scherk-Schwarz compactification.Comment: 15 pages. v2: improved treatment of brane actions, relation with conventional Scherk-Schwarz mechanism clarified, version to be published in JHE

A kinesin-based approach for inducing chromosome-specific mis-segregation in human cells

Various cancer types exhibit characteristic and recurrent aneuploidy patterns. The origins of these cancer type-specific karyotypes are still unknown, partly because introducing or eliminating specific chromosomes in human cells still poses a challenge. Here, we describe a novel strategy to induce mis-segregation of specific chromosomes in different human cell types. We employed Tet repressor or nuclease-dead Cas9 to link a microtubule minus-end-directed kinesin (Kinesin14VIb) from Physcomitrella patens to integrated Tet operon repeats and chromosome-specific endogenous repeats, respectively. By live- and fixed-cell imaging, we observed poleward movement of the targeted loci during (pro)metaphase. Kinesin14VIb-mediated pulling forces on the targeted chromosome were counteracted by forces from kinetochore-attached microtubules. This tug-of-war resulted in chromosome-specific segregation errors during anaphase and revealed that spindle forces can heavily stretch chromosomal arms. By single-cell whole-genome sequencing, we established that kinesin-induced targeted mis-segregations predominantly result in chromosomal arm aneuploidies after a single cell division. Our kinesin-based strategy opens the possibility to investigate the immediate cellular responses to specific aneuploidies in different cell types; an important step toward understanding how tissue-specific aneuploidy patterns evolve.</p

SUSY flavor structure of generic 5D supergravity models

We perform a comprehensive and systematic analysis of the SUSY flavor structure of generic 5D supergravity models on $S^1/Z_2$ with multiple $Z_2$-odd vector multiplets that generate multiple moduli. The SUSY flavor problem can be avoided due to contact terms in the 4D effective K\"ahler potential peculiar to the multi-moduli case. A detailed phenomenological analysis is provided based on an illustrative model.Comment: 37 pages, 7 figures, Sec.4 is modifie

Scalar brane backgrounds in higher order curvature gravity

We investigate maximally symmetric brane world solutions with a scalar field. Five-dimensional bulk gravity is described by a general lagrangian which yields field equations containing no higher than second order derivatives. This includes the Gauss-Bonnet combination for the graviton. Stability and gravitational properties of such solutions are considered, and we particularily emphasise the modifications induced by the higher order terms. In particular it is shown that higher curvature corrections to Einstein theory can give rise to instabilities in brane world solutions. A method for analytically obtaining the general solution for such actions is outlined. Genericaly, the requirement of a finite volume element together with the absence of a naked singularity in the bulk imposes fine-tuning of the brane tension. A model with a moduli scalar field is analysed in detail and we address questions of instability and non-singular self-tuning solutions. In particular, we discuss a case with a normalisable zero mode but infinite volume element.Comment: published versio

Solvable Models of Domain Walls in N=1 Supergravity

A class of exactly solvable models of domain walls are worked out in D=4 ${\cal N}=1$ supergravity. We develop a method to embed globally supersymmetric theories with exact BPS domain wall solutions into supergravity, by introducing a gravitationally deformed superpotential. The gravitational deformation is natural in the spirit of maintaining the K\"ahler invariance. The solutions of the warp factor and the Killing spinor are also obtained. We find that three distinct behaviors of warp factors arise depending on the value of a constant term in the superpotential : exponentially decreasing in both sides of the wall, flat in one side and decreasing in the other, and increasing in one side and decreasing in the other. Only the first possibility gives the localized massless graviton zero mode. Models with multi-walls and models with runaway vacua are also discussed.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures; Misprints in three formulas are correcte

A kinesin-based approach for inducing chromosome-specific mis-segregation in human cells

Various cancer types exhibit characteristic and recurrent aneuploidy patterns. The origins of these cancer type-specific karyotypes are still unknown, partly because introducing or eliminating specific chromosomes in human cells still poses a challenge. Here, we describe a novel strategy to induce mis-segregation of specific chromosomes in different human cell types. We employed Tet repressor or nuclease-dead Cas9 to link a microtubule minus-end-directed kinesin (Kinesin14VIb) from Physcomitrella patens to integrated Tet operon repeats and chromosome-specific endogenous repeats, respectively. By live- and fixed-cell imaging, we observed poleward movement of the targeted loci during (pro)metaphase. Kinesin14VIb-mediated pulling forces on the targeted chromosome were counteracted by forces from kinetochore-attached microtubules. This tug-of-war resulted in chromosome-specific segregation errors during anaphase and revealed that spindle forces can heavily stretch chromosomal arms. By single-cell whole-genome sequencing, we established that kinesin-induced targeted mis-segregations predominantly result in chromosomal arm aneuploidies after a single cell division. Our kinesin-based strategy opens the possibility to investigate the immediate cellular responses to specific aneuploidies in different cell types; an important step toward understanding how tissue-specific aneuploidy patterns evolve