German Prisoners of War in Canada, 1940–1946: An Autobiography-Based Essay

The four years I spent in British and Canadian POW Camps offered ample time to study English Literature. This experience in particular had a decisive effect on my later career as university teacher of English literature. It also helped me to become one of the first Anglicists at German and Austrian universities, who included Canadian literature in his syllabus and a founder member of the German Association for Canadian Studies. In this essay based on my war-autobiography, I describe the experience of German POWs in Canada. I was captured in 1942 when serving as third officer of the watch on board U-331 after my vessel was sunk in the Mediterranean by a torpedo fired from a RAF Albacore. I also deal with the so-called Laconia affair and the ambiguity of Admiral Dönitz’s orders issued to U-boat captains concerning the treatment of survivors of sunken ships

Mission-Aransas Watershed Social Vulnerability Analysis : Using Principal Component Analysis as an Indexing Tool for Social Vulnerability

Climate change will impact the human communities of the Mission‐Aransas National Estuarine Research Reserve, resulting in adverse impacts to local economies, development, and infrastructure. In order to improve the resiliency of communities in the Mission‐Aransas Estuary watershed, adaptation strategies that address the major climate change threats must be developed. Vulnerability assessments are a key tool for developing these strategies, and they provide the necessary information for creating adaptation plans that improve resiliency. Social vulnerability to climate change is the degree to which a community is susceptible to, and unable to cope with, the adverse effects of climate change. It is a function of (1) the sensitivity of the community to climate change impacts, (2) its exposure to those changes, and (3) its adaptive capacity or resilience to the consequences. Specifically for this project, Texas Sea Grant and the Mission‐Aransas Reserve collaborated on the development of a social sensitivity index for the Census block groups located in the Mission‐Aransas Estuary watershed. The goal of the index is to provide communities with valuable information on their sensitivity and increase their ability to plan for and respond to upcoming environmental changes and potentially disastrous episodic events associated with climate change.NOAA Climate Program Office, Coastal and Ocean Climate Applications Program (NA12OAR4310104).Marine Scienc

Optimale statistische Versuchsplanung dreifaktorieller Zwei-Farben-cDNA-Microarray-Experimente

In der Medizin hat mit dem rasanten Wachstum der biotechnologischen Industrie in den letzten Jahrzehnten die Erforschung von mit Genmutationen assoziierten Ursachen für die Entstehung verschiedener Krankheitsbilder stark an Bedeutung zugenommen. Das Ziel der Durchführung von Genexpressionsanalysen mit Hilfe von Zwei-Farben-cDNA-Microarray-Experimenten [1] besteht in der Identifikation von Kandidatengenen, die für den Ausbruch einer bestimmten Erkrankung mitverantwortlich gemacht werden können. Langfristig sollen die hierbei gewonnenen Erkenntnisse zur Entwicklung von innovativen Medikamenten führen, die zur Therapie von genetisch assoziierten oder bedingten Erkrankungen verwendet werden können. Landgrebe et al. haben ein spezielles genspezifisches lineares Modell mit festen Effekten für die statistische Auswertung der in Zwei-Farben-cDNA-Microarray-Experimenten generierten Genexpressionsdaten vorgeschlagen [2]. Durch eine geringfügige Modifikation dieses Modells kann zusätzlich zu den häufig betrachteten Einflussgrößen „Farbe“ und „Behandlung“ der Effekt des Faktors „Zelllinie“ auf die ermittelten Genexpressionsdaten analysiert werden. Es wird gezeigt, dass der Parametervektor des Landgrebe-Modells in dieser speziellen dreifaktoriellen Designsituation nicht unverzerrt schätzbar ist. Anschließend werden Φp-optimale Versuchspläne für das Schätzen aller Paarvergleiche von Behandlungen, für den Nachweis unterschiedlicher Behandlungsdifferenzen zwischen den Zelllinien, sowie für das Schätzen des aus diesen speziellen linearen Kontrasten zusammengesetzten Vektors, konstruiert. Für den Nachweis der Φp-Optimalität wird dabei jeweils eine generalisierte Form der von Pukelsheim eingeführten Äquivalenztheoreme [3] verwendet. Die erzielten Optimalitätsergebnisse sind nicht auf bestimmte Anzahlen von Arrays, Behandlungen und Zelllinien beschränkt und liefern damit allgemeingültige Optimalitätsaussagen für das Schätzen der hier untersuchten linearen Kontraste. Bei Betrachtung der linearen Kontraste für das Schätzen der Interaktionseffekte von Behandlungen und Zelllinien ist die gefundene Lösung allerdings abhängig von der vorliegenden Beziehung zwischen der Anzahl analysierter Behandlungen und der Anzahl verwendeter Zelllinien. Die Unabhängigkeit dieser Lösungen vom verwendeten Optimalitätskriterium lässt sich als Robustheitseigenschaft der konstruierten optimalen Blockpläne interpretieren. Insbesondere sind diese Versuchsanlagen damit A-, D-, E- und T-optimal für das Schätzen der betrachteten linearen Kontraste. Für die Praxis ergeben sich aus den identifizierten optimalen Designs direkte Empfehlungen bezüglich der Wahl effizienter Versuchsanlagen für konkrete Zwei-Farben-cDNA-Microarray-Experimente mit vorgegebenen Anzahlen von Arrays, Behandlungen und Zelllinien. Durch die Verwendung entsprechender effizienter Versuchspläne lässt sich ein Zeitgewinn bei der praktischen Durchführung dieser Experimente und damit die Einsparung finanzieller Ressourcen erwarten

Simulating the hydrology of small coastal ecosystems in conditions of limited data

Hydrology / Simulation / Ecosystems / Lagoons / Estuaries / Irrigation effects / Sri Lanka / South Africa / Karagan Lagoon / Bundala Lagoon

The role of the state in foreign borrowing by developing countries

The debt crisis that has been rumbling for many years repeatedly necessitates fresh rescheduling negotiations. These debt rescheduling conferences bring together two fundamentally different partles: on the one side are the emissaries from the big international banks and on the other the government representatives from the debtor country in question

Incorporating river morphological changes to flood risk assessment: uncertainties, methodology and application

Risk zonation maps are mostly derived from design floods which propagate through the study area. The respective delineation of inundated flood plains is a fundamental input for the flood risk assessment of exposed objects. It is implicitly assumed that the river morphology will not vary, even though it is obvious that the river bed elevation can quickly and drastically change during flood events. The objectives of this study were to integrate the river bed dynamics into the flood risk assessment procedure and to quantify associated uncertainties. The proposed concept was applied to the River Ill in the Western Austrian Alps. In total, 138 flood and associated sediment transport scenarios were considered, simulated and illustrated for the main river stem. The calculated morphological changes of the river bed at the moment of peak flow provided a basis to estimate the variability of possible water surface levels and inundation lines which should be incorporated into flood hazard assessment. In the context of vulnerability assessment an advanced methodological approach to assess flood risk based on damage probability functions is described

Применение импульсных электронных пучков в качестве дезинфицирующего агента при обработке сточных вод

Background and Objective: Concerning current clinical practice, laser-assisted lipoplasty is still secondary to other procedures. In order to evaluate effects of thermal interaction with fatty-tissue, a near infrared diode laser was examined under reproducible conditions. Methods: Based on optical spectroscopy of fatty-tissue, a high-powered diode laser (lambda = 940 nm) was used to irradiate n = 59 fat samples of fresh corpses in non-contact mode. Thermal effects were histologically evaluated by computer based metric measurements. Calculated values included ablation rate (AR) and the ratio of cavity diameter to diameter of collateral damage (CCDratio). Pearson's correlation and analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) were used for statistical evaluation. P values of less than 0.05 were considered to indicate statistical significance. Results: Regarding the conditions examined, irradiances from 250 to 400 W/cm(2) revealed both increased ablation capacities and decreased collateral damages. An average irradiance of 370 +/- 0 W/cm(2) shows an average CCDratio of 2:1 and an average AR of 9.98 +/- 7.65 mm(3)/second. Conclusion: Near infrared high-powered diode laser energy proved to be eligible for tissue protective ablation of fat in vitro. Further studies are necessary to improve efficiency and safety of this procedure

Comparison of Cooling System Designs for an Exhaust Heat Recovery System Using an Organic Rankine Cycle on a Heavy Duty Truck

A complex simulation model of a heavy duty truck, including an Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) based waste heat recovery system and a vehicle cooling system, was applied to determine the system fuel economy potential in a typical drive cycle. Measures to increase the system performance were investigated and a comparison between two different cooling system designs was derived. The base design, which was realized on a Mercedes-Benz Actros vehicle revealed a fuel efficiency benefit of 2.6%, while a more complicated design would generate 3.1%. Furthermore, fully transient simulation results were performed and are compared to steady state simulation results. It is shown that steady state simulation can produce comparable results if averaged road data are used as boundary conditions

Микротвердость валиков из бронзы ПГ-19М-01, нанесенных как составляющая мултимодального покрытия методом лазерной наплавки

В статье рассматриваются преимущества лазерной наплавки и возможности использования лазерной наплавки для создания мультимодальных покрытий из разнородных металлических материалов. Приведены результаты исследований микротвердости в поперечном сечении наплавленных валиков из алюминиевой бронзы. Показано влияние скорости лазерной наплавки на микротвердость в наплавленных валиках.The advantages and the capabilities of laser cladding are analyses for used laser cladding for applying multimodal coatings from heterogeneous metal work materials. Results of microhardness investigations in cross section of cladding tracks from Al-bronze are exhibited. The influence of cladding velocity on microhardness are examined