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Chinese Engineers Relational Database (CERD) Design Manual
No full textThe CERD database is a register of engineers from the Chinese Republican period (1912–1949). The
digital analysis of historical registers has led to a prosopographic catalogue of persons, educational
institutions, and companies. The data can be put in relation to one another by researchers to answer
individual research questions. This paper describes the architecture of the database, explains how it
works, and presents ways of analysing the data
Mapping Intervention Practices of ECOWAS and the African Union: Methodological and Practical Challenges
No full textTo date, mapping African peace and security developments has mostly meant different mappings of
conflict dynamics in Africa. In contrast to this dominant trend, we have started to map conflict intervention
practices of African regional organizations (ROs), specifically ECOWAS1 and the African Union (AU),
based on a comprehensive review of different official documents that these ROs have produced for
‘internal’ reporting as well as ‘external’ communications. While the first results of this work have become
part of a detailed study of basic intervention practices of African ROs and their intimate connection
to space-making during conflict interventions (see Herpolsheimer 2021 [forthcoming]), in this working
paper we reflect in more detail about the methodological and practical challenges inherent in mapping
intervention practices based on official documents of ROs. Moreover, building on these reflections, we
discuss strengths and weaknesses of our approach and identify several directions into which it could
be developed, thereby allowing for new empirical and theoretical insights on African Peace and Security.
In this, we argue that some of the methodological and practical challenges identified in this paper
already point to interesting dynamics and allow for several important observations.
To this end, we begin with a brief review of the literature, identifying the gaps that we want to address.
First, this refers to literature on African Peace and Security, insufficiently capturing multiple,
non-military intervention practices of ROs. Second, it refers to existing mapping projects, which largely
focus on mapping conflict dynamics, not intervention practices. Subsequently, we introduce our approach
towards mapping intervention practices, reflecting upon methodological and practical choices.
Following this, we outline the main challenges that still remain, before identifying different directions for
research based on our mapping
Women, Peace, and Security in Africa: An Agenda beyond a Place at the Peace Table?
No full textAlready in 1993, the forerunner of the African Union (AU), the Organization of African Unity (OAU, 1963–2001), was instrumental in establishing what became known as the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) agenda. This theme was further developed by the 4th United Nations World Conference on Women (Beijing, 1995) and finally led to the adoption of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000) on the role of women in the prevention, management, and resolution of conflict. Since then, two debates have dominated the field: (1) the prevention of sexual violence against women and children in armed conflict and post-conflict situations and (2) the full, equal, and effective participation of women at all stages of peace processes. In practice, the AU Panel of the Wise was key to establishing institutions and launching related AU policies. In 2014, the Office of the Special Envoy on Women, Peace, and Security (OSE WPS) was established, a five-year Gender Peace and Security Programme (GPSP) was launched, and the African Network of Women in Conflict Prevention and Peace Mediation (FemWise-Africa) was founded.
This working paper reviews the development and relevance of the WPS agenda in the wider field of non-military AU conflict interventions.1 In the next section of the paper, the emergence of the international WPS norm is briefly discussed. In the third section, the institutionalization of the WPS agenda by the AU is reconstructed. In the fourth section, the management of the agenda is examined. And, finally, the implementation of the WPS agenda is analysed with an empirical view on (1) women participation in peacebuilding and (2) recent debates around sexual harassment, abuse, and exploitation. This is followed by conclusions
“Agents of Translation”: West African Entrepreneurs in China as Vectors of Social Change
No full textChina-Africa relations continue to attract substantial academic interest. In addition to the activities
of large-scale state-directed enterprises, the social and economic conditions and practices of
both Chinese actors in Africa and African actors in China have gained increasing prominence
in recent years. Yet, these transnational businesspersons tend to be portrayed in a negative
light, with the incompatibility between their business practices and their new environments
being emphasized. The isolation, exclusion and, consequently, the limits of social and economic
cooperation between the two groups are some of the major themes of the literature.1 In contrast
to this, our paper focuses less on the structural description of the encounter between Africans
in China and their Chinese counterparts and more on the semantic dimension. Having already
established that the Chinese in Africa impact on the local social order by force of their mere
presence rather than any close interaction with the local population (Giese and Thiel 2012,
Marfaing and Thiel 2013), we set out to describe how the growing number of African actors
traveling to China potentially trigger shifts in attitude and practice upon and through their
return by translating and incorporating their commercial and intellectual experiences in and
with China into their life at home.
Our initial hypothesis2 assumed transnational African traders regularly moving between
West Africa and China to be the main actors of this translation, with longer-term African residents
in China merely influencing their encounter.3 Our fieldwork in China, however, quickly
showed us that the division between resident and traveling actors could not be upheld. Ghanaian
and Senegalese agents residing in China maintain close relations to their home countries and
regularly exchange ideas and goods with those at home. Furthermore, observing that their
encounters with China are arguably much more intimate and intensive than those of their
short-term visiting compatriots – not only allowing them deeper insights into the workings
of the Chinese business environment and society, but ultimately also greater interpretative
authority – we reconsidered these actors not as a mere structuring factor in the China experience
of transnational traders but as key translators in their own right.
Thus, drawing on our first set of data from this project phase, our aim in this paper is to
analyze which elements of their encounter with China our informants deem worthy of selection
for later reintegration and adaptation into the context of their home societies.4 We apply the term
“translations” to describe the “processes of transfer” at work in African individuals’ encounters
with Chinese everyday life – that means, all the “interconnected articulations, practices
and positionings” developed to interpret, assimilate and integrate these Chinese experiences
(Wolf 2008). The space in which African entrepreneurs operate is understood as a field of forces
where only those properties are considered that are significant to the individuals concerned.
The latter permanently apply strategies of adjustment, confronting the new with their own
conformity. Bourdieu (1979) describes this as the struggle for distinction (i. e., the dynamics
of transculturation), whereby an actor monopolizes all forms of capital (social, cultural, and
economic) to become an agent of translation. This allows the agent to adapt new experiences
to his or her social, economic and cultural context and to communicate these experiences and
have them bear fruit, always maintaining the power this capacity procures. Like a decomposition
or deconstruction of the elements of the translation process, the stages in this process are
the core focus in our case study of African entrepreneurs in China, whose capacities to adapt
their experiences to the context of their home societies we perceive as the trigger of dynamic
socioeconomic change back home.
In the following sections, we will present our methods, describe the corpus of our interviews,
and introduce our field sites. We will then describe the characteristics of our group of
informants in terms of both their business activities and their social organization in China. This
is, on the one hand, to deconstruct the false notion of a homogenous group5 of Africans in China
and, on the other hand, to illustrate the factors that shape our informants’ options for economic
and social activities and therefore their experiences with Chinese people or things. Finally, we
will present our analysis of selected objects of translation defined by our informants as worthy
of incorporation into everyday African life. We end by presenting our initial conclusions on the
relevance of these translation potentials more generally. As one of our Senegalese informants
put it (interview LM n° 19 on 19.6.2013 in Yiwu), the encounter between Africa and Europe is so
old and the impact on African social life so deeply engrained in everyday life that the encounter
between Chinese and Africans presents a new opportunity to understand mutual contributions
and discoveries between two cultures and the transition and adaptations of ideas between them
Genetic and geographic influence on phenotypic variation in European sarcoidosis patients
No full textIntroduction: Sarcoidosis is a highly variable disease in terms of organ involvement, type of onset and course. Associations of genetic polymorphisms with sarcoidosis phenotypes have been observed and suggest genetic signatures.
Methods: After obtaining a positive vote of the competent ethics committee we genotyped 1909 patients of the deeply phenotyped Genetic-Phenotype Relationship in Sarcoidosis (GenPhenReSa) cohort of 31 European centers in 12 countries with 116 potentially disease-relevant single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). Using a meta-analysis, we investigated the association of relevant phenotypes (acute vs. sub-acute onset, phenotypes of organ involvement, specific organ involvements, and specific symptoms) with genetic markers. Subgroups were built on the basis of geographical, clinical and hospital provision considerations.
Results: In the meta-analysis of the full cohort, there was no significant genetic association with any considered phenotype after correcting for multiple testing. In the largest sub-cohort (Serbia), we confirmed the known association of acute onset with TNF and reported a new association of acute onset an HLA polymorphism. Multi-locus models with sets of three SNPs in different genes showed strong associations with the acute onset phenotype in Serbia and Lublin (Poland) demonstrating potential region-specific genetic links with clinical features, including recently described phenotypes of organ involvement.
Discussion: The observed associations between genetic variants and sarcoidosis phenotypes in subgroups suggest that gene–environment-interactions may influence the clinical phenotype. In addition, we show that two different sets of genetic variants are permissive for the same phenotype of acute disease only in two geographic subcohorts pointing to interactions of genetic signatures with different local environmental factors. Our results represent an important step towards understanding the genetic architecture of sarcoidosis
Assessing Parental Competence and Self-Ratings in Management of Pediatric Type 1 Diabetes and Emergency Glucagon Administration: An Exploratory Observational Study
No full textBackground: Parents of pediatric patients with type I diabetes require competence in hypoglycemia management and skills in glucagon administration to deal with potentially life-threatening severe hypoglycemia. We aimed to compare parents’ subjective self-ratings to an objective expert assessment of competences and skills in dealing with severe hypoglycemia. Methods: We interviewed 140 participants to assess their subjective self-ratings. The objective expert assessments used a standardized clinical case scenario of severe hypoglycemia and a practical demonstration of glucagon administration. Results: The participants self-rated their competence in hypoglycemia management as good (5) or very good (6), and their skills in administering glucagon as acceptable (3) [Scale: very poor (1) to very good (6)]. In the standardized clinical case scenario, 1.4% (2/140) of participants named all relevant steps of severe hypoglycemia management. In the practical demonstration of glucagon administration, 92.9% (130/140) of participants committed at least one drug handling error; 52.1% (73/140) committed at least one drug handling error rated with high clinical risk. Conclusions: We found discrepancies regarding participants’ subjective self-ratings compared to their performance in the respective objective expert assessments. These discrepancies indicate a lack of error awareness and the need for intervention studies to improve competence in hypoglycemia management and glucagon administration
Was macht Mathematik effektiv?: Das Wie und Warum mathematischer Wirkung
No full textMathematik scheint den natürlichen Formalismus zur Be
schreibung und Berechnung physikalischer Prozesse und
Gesetzmäßigkeiten zu liefern. Umgekehrt haben physika
lische Fragestellungen die Entwicklung der Mathematik an
geregt und teilweise ihre Richtung bestimmt, und eigentlich
gibt es keine scharfe Grenze zwischen Mathematik und Phy
sik. Eine sinnvolle Einteilung bezieht sich eher auf die Motiva
tion als auf die Untersuchungsgegenstände der Mathematik:
Forschung wird betrieben, um mathematische Strukturen zu
verstehen oder ist durch naturwissenschaftliche oder tech
nisch industrielle Anwendungen motiviert
Spotted Fever Group Rickettsiae in Ticks and Small Mammals from Grassland and Forest Habitats in Central Germany
No full textRickettsiae of the spotted fever group (SFG) are zoonotic tick-borne pathogens. Small mammals are important hosts for the immature life stages of two of the most common tick species in Europe, Ixodes ricinus and Dermacentor reticulatus. These hosts and vectors can be found in diverse habitats with different vegetation types like grasslands and forests. To investigate the influence of environmental and individual factors on Rickettsia prevalence, this study aimed to analyse the prevalence of SFG rickettsiae in ticks and small mammals in different small-scale habitats in central Germany for the first time. Small mammals of ten species and ticks of two species were collected from grasslands and forests in the Hainich-Dün region, central Germany. After species identification, DNA samples from 1098 ticks and ear snips of 1167 small mammals were screened for Rickettsia DNA by qPCR targeting the gltA gene. Positive samples were retested by conventional PCR targeting the ompB gene and sequencing. Rickettsia DNA was detected in eight out of ten small mammal species. Small mammal hosts from forests (14.0%) were significantly more often infected than those from grasslands (4.4%) (p < 0.001). The highest prevalence was found in the mostly forest-inhabiting genus Apodemus (14.8%) and the lowest in Microtus (6.6%), which inhabits grasslands. The prevalence was higher in D. reticulatus (46.3%) than in the I. ricinus complex (8.6%). Adult ticks were more often infected than nymphs (p = 0.0199). All sequenced rickettsiae in I. ricinus complex ticks were R. helvetica, and the ones in D. reticulatus were R. raoultii. Unlike adults, questing nymphs have had only one blood meal, which explains the higher prevalence in I. ricinus adults. Interestingly, habitat type did influence infection probability in small mammals, but did not in ticks. A possible explanation may be the high prevalence in Apodemus flavicollis and A. sylvaticus which were more abundant in the forest