Geisteswissenschaftlerinnen mit Migrationshintergrund in Beruf und Arbeitsmarkt am Beispiel des wissenschaftlichen Standortes Berlin

Bereits Anfang der 50er Jahre begann Deutschland die Verhandlungen mit verschiedenen Ländern über die Anwerbung von Arbeitskräften. Im Jahre 1957 folgten die Römischen Verträge, die als Grundlage für die Entstehung der Europäischen Union angesehen werden können. Seither sind fast 50 Jahre vergangen, und in Deutschland lebt mittlerweile eine zweite bzw. dritte Generation von Zuwanderern. Außerdem ist Deutschland mit neuen Formen der Mobilität in Europa konfrontiert. Was bedeuten diese Prozesse und Entwicklungen für die Zuwanderer in Deutschland, für ihre Eingliederung bzw. Ausgrenzung innerhalb der Aufnahmegesellschaft? Ist mittlerweile innerhalb der „Gastarbeitergeneration“ eine kulturelle und geistige Elite entstanden, oder wird die Elite immer noch aus dem Ausland rekrutiert? Und welche Chance hat sie im universitären Leben in Deutschland? Findet sie einen Zugang zu einer höheren Position oder ist sie mit Formen der Exklusion konfrontiert? In dieser Expertise haben wir Zahlen und Daten über die Geisteswissenschaftlerinnen mit Migrationshintergrund in Beruf und Arbeitsmarkt am Beispiel des wissenschaftlichen Standorts Berlin gesammelt und analysiert.

The 99th percentile of reference population for cTnI and cTnT assay: Methodology, pathophysiology and clinical implications

According to recent international guidelines, including the 2012 Third Universal Definiton of Myocardial Infarction by the Joint ESC/ACCF/AHA/WHF Task Force, an increase in cardiac troponin (cTn) levels over the 99th percentile upper reference limit (99th URL) should be considered clinically relevant, this cut-off being measured with an imprecision â\u89¤10 CV%. In theory 99th URL values strongly depend not only on demographic and physiological variables (i.e. criteria for considering the reference population "healthy"), but also on the analytical performance of cTn methods and mathematical algorithms used for the calculation. The aim of the present article was therefore to review the methodological and pathophysiological factors affecting the evaluation and calculation of the 99th URL for cTn assay. The critical analysis made showed that no uniform procedure is followed, and nor have experts or regulatory bodies provided uniform guidelines for researchers or cTn assays manufacturers as an aid in "their quest to define normality". In particular, little attention has been paid to the way in which a healthy reference population is to be selected, or the criteria for calculating the 99th URL value for cTn assays, thus highlighting the need for international recommendations not only for demographic and physiological variables criteria for defining a healthy reference population, but also for calculating mathematical algorithms for establishing/calculating clinical decision values. An expert consensus group, comprising laboratory and clinical scientists, biomedical statisticians, industrial and regulatory representatives, should be responsible for drawing up these guidelines

Increase in circulating levels of cardiac natriuretic peptides after hormone replacement therapy in postmenopausal women

The mechanisms that mediate the cardioprotective action of steroid hormones in postmenopausal women are poorly understood. To study the inter-relationship between female steroid hormones and cardiac natriuretic peptides, plasma levels of atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP) and brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) were measured in postmenopausal women, both before and after oestrogen replacement therapy. A total of 22 healthy postmenopausal women (mean age 51.9±4.6 years) were enrolled in the study; all had been postmenopausal for at least 1 year and all reported climacteric symptoms accompanied by increased levels of follicle-stimulating hormone (&gt;30m-i.u./ml) and luteinizing hormone (&gt;20m-i.u./ml), and a reduction in oestradiol (&lt;25pg/ml). All women were given hormone replacement therapy with transdermal oestradiol, either patch (50μg/24 h) or gel (1mg/day), cyclically combined with oral dihydrogesterone (10mg/day for 12 days/month, on days 19-30 of the month). ANP and BNP were measured directly in plasma samples with specific and sensitive immunoradiometric assays before and after hormone replacement therapy (transdermal oestradiol combined with oral dihydrogesterone). Body weight, arterial blood pressure and echocardiographic examination values did not change after hormone replacement therapy. As expected, serum oestradiol increased significantly and gonadotropins decreased as an effect of the hormone replacement therapy. On average, both ANP and BNP had increased significantly after 3 months of hormone replacement therapy [ANP: before treatment, 17.6±9.6pg/ml; after, 23.6±5.6pg/ml (P = 0.0173); BNP: before treatment, 12.6±10.2pg/ml; after, 19.8±14.0pg/ml (P&lt;0.0001)]. Our study indicates that hormone replacement therapy for a period of 3 months induces a rise in the circulating levels of cardiac natriuretic hormones in postmenopausal women. Our data also suggest the working hypothesis that cardiac natriuretic peptides may play an important role in mediating the cardioprotective effects of female steroid sex hormones in women throughout life.</jats:p

On the perception of audio description : developing a model to compare films and their audio described versions

Audio description (AD), the transfer of visual information into spoken language, has enjoyed little empirical research attention (cf. Galiano/Portalier 2010). This is in part due to the heterogeneity of target audiences, which makes it difficult to evaluate the reception of AD. This paper uses the semantic differential (Osgood/Suci/Tannenbaum 1957), a method of quantitatively analyzing affective word meanings, to compare visually impaired subjects’ reception of AD films with sighted viewers’ reception of the corresponding original versions. In our investigation, participants reveal how they perceive aspects of two films by providing a rating on a scale between two opposite adjectives. The results show that the main characters or concepts of the films are often perceived in similar ways by sighted and visually impaired people if the descriptive attributes are concrete (e.g. aggressive). More abstract attributes (e.g. ‘beautiful’) are perceived differently by the two target audiences. Our model can be used to evaluate audio description and to ensure that, where possible, visually impaired and sighted recipients have a similar experience of the film in question