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While the swabian and franconian karsts of southern Germany have yielded rich and important neogene vertebrate faunas, the middle to late Miocene transition is still extremely underrepresented. This period is however key for the understanding of the European mammal evolution. A microtoid rodent Microtocricetus M2 is described and commented in this paper. The fossil discovered in the karst filling Petersbuch 69 is regarded herein such as derived and might be thus the youngest fossil of the genus in Germany. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS) is a well-established U.S.-based research program administered by the National Cancer Institute to track the public access to and use of health information. This paper introduces a German research initiative, part of the International Studies to Investigate Global Health Information Trends (INSIGHTS) research consortium. This adaptation of the HINTS is important for initiating analyses of global health communication practices and comparing health information seeking behaviors (HISB) across nations to pinpoint potentials and challenges of health information provision and contribute to a deeper understanding of socio-contextual determinants of HISB. First cross-country comparisons revealed that the share of residents seeking for health information is high in the U.S. (80%) and Germany (74%), but different primary sources are used. Whereas a clear majority of U.S. residents chose the Internet to gather health information (74.9%), Germans most often turn to health professionals (48.0%). Socio-structural and health(care)-related predictors were found to contribute to the explanation of HISB in both countries, whereas information-related predictors were only relevant in Germany. The results indicate the need to engage in patient-provider communication to initiate HISB and to improve the access to information for residents with lower socio-economic backgrounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agency has received much attention in recent historical institutionalist theorizing of change processes, but remains largely disconnected from questions about mechanisms that stabilize institutions. To help fill this lacuna, the paper presents bricolage as one key mechanism through which actors stabilize an institutional setup. It suggests that institutions may be defended by keeping intact the institutional logic on which the incumbent coalition is based, but rearrange the salience of the ideational and institutional elements that make up the existing institutional setup. The empirical relevance of the argument is supported through a case analysis of a 1980-reform that could have changed the face of German corporatism, but never was, namely the policy of collective equity funds (Tariffonds). Through process tracing, we explain the fate of the reform with the effectiveness of a last-minute intervention based on a bricolage of the extant institutional logic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the early 2010s, budgetary policy-making in EU member states has been subject to tighter European constraints. While recent research shows the relevance of intergovernmental negotiations for setting European policy priorities, little is known about how much political alternation in government still matters for national budgetary agendas. This paper investigates this question in Germany, one of Europe's most powerful and financially stable countries. Drawing on original data, the paper first shows how political alternation in German cabinets changes governments' budgetary agendas. Secondly, it shows how this alternation also influences the formulation and adoption of European policy recommendations. Based on these findings, the paper argues that governments in financially stable countries can pursue alternative policy agendas, but that these need to find consensus at both the national and European level. The range of alternatives is therefore inevitably contingent upon the national institutional framework and country's relative strength within the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays, the term "interreligiosity" is well-established in discussions about religious education. This paper addresses various current approaches and concepts within interreligious pedagogy in Germany and Austria. On the one hand, it strives to bring order to the wide, impervious variety of previous approaches and on the other hand it identifies existing focal points, main topics and tendencies. The research subjects are theoretic-conceptual models, didactic and methodological approaches, and empirical analyses on applied interreligious projects within pedagogical practice. It is shown that there is an imbalance in the existing literature-namely, the lack of practical orientation. The paper concludes by outlining suggestions on the future of interreligious pedagogical research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that Covid-19 has produced a set of social characters during the corona crisis and that these characters represent different approaches toward control. Social characters emerge as constructs responding to current discourses. They may function as role models in uncertain times and offer orientation. The paper identifies such characters in communication on the online platform Jodel. It analyses and discusses the properties of the following social characters, which are reconstructed inductively from the data, classifying 156 Jodel posts into the following typology: the social worker, the crisis entrepreneur, the worried and depressed loner, the crisis manager, the admonisher, and the health expert. All these characters also display different approaches to how the crisis could be controlled. Some of them highlight economic discourses, others psychological discourses, and again others bureaucratic discourses. The analysis of the social characters and their approaches to control contributes to research on the role of discourses in modern European societies and on how these discourses contribute to different approaches to controlling a crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper is concerned with the spatial dimension of the coronavirus crisis and the tensions it created in multilevel governance in the Polish–German border region. Regarding the spatial dimension of the crisis, territoriality is referred to as the political competence to exert control over a national territory and over places particularly affected by the coronavirus crisis and its management – from local hubs of outbreaks to twin cities in border regions facing closed borders. Territoriality was mirrored in the unilateral decisions of the central governments to close national borders in Europe. Considering spatiality as well as the asymmetric multilevel setting of cross-border Polish–German relations, this paper investigates to what extent subnational actors were able to interact in a cross-border sense in this situation. The paper shows the relevance of subnational political authorities and highlights the significance of civil society actors in times of crisis, as they were able to lobby for a less restrictive border management response and helped to hold – merely through digital activities – the web of bilateral relations together. In this light, it may enhance the ability of further research to take a multilevel territorial perspective for a more nuanced picture of the pandemic's effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Negotiations over wages have always been a central part of industrial relations in capitalist economies. The unstable value of money in the 19th and 20th centuries has made these negotiations both crucial and complex. Linking contemporary understandings of monetary values to wage bargaining provides an important historical background for a better understanding of real wage developments and the agency of workers. Adopting a comparative perspective, this paper discusses how managers and workers dealt with changing monetary values in Germany and the United States from the 1870s to the immediate aftermath of the First World War. The paper also discusses the extent to which actors understood the instability of their respective currencies' purchasing power and whether their perceptions changed over time. The paper reveals that negotiations were never exclusively shaped and guided by concepts such as inflation or the 'cost of living' in both countries but that the importance of the concepts changed with the level of price fluctuations and institutional setting. Indices could achieve a dominant role only in exceptional circumstances due to their artificial and contestable nature, their neglect of the complexity of workers' job contexts and living environments, and their normative implications concerning wage demands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the strategic goals behind actors' involvement in emerging technological innovation systems (TISs) for sustainable technologies and the way they contribute to the development of the TIS functions. Based on six expert interviews with firms within the biorefinery sector in Germany, we observe four different strategic goals driving firm-actors' involvement: (1) exploiting new markets and businesses, (2) learning about the potential of new markets and businesses, (3) developing new technologies and (4) building up new market applications. We also differentiate between three firm-actor types: (1) a leading type of incumbent firm highly contributing to the TIS functions; (2) a learning type of incumbent firm with lower contribution; and (3) a 'fill the gap' type of SME or start-up producing complementary knowledge or connecting other TIS actors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate policy is expected to consider the current state of science. As populist radical right parties (PRRP) become elected members of parliaments, they have a greater influence on integration processes between science and politics. The aim of the paper is to show that instead of generally rejecting climate science, PRRPs appeal to 'alternative expertise' and politicize scientific knowledge. With our empirical analysis of public hearings, plenary meetings and press statements discussing Germany's Climate Package between 2018 and 2020, we show that the AfD uses expertise that suits their political interests very selectively and arbitrarily supporting either scientific outsider positions or positions that only pretend to be scientific. We argue that populist strategies weaken trust in scientific expertise by undermining democratic institutions for knowledge integration in climate governance. Therefore, a clear separation between research and politics together with transparent and formal scientific knowledge integration processes are needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we have calculated the basic reproduction number (R0) and doubling time (Td) for the novel Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The calculation is performed for March 2020 from the data provided by worldometer. We have investigated the data for Germany and Bangladesh. The calculation of R0 is performed based on SIR model. The parameter Td is estimated based on the new cases of each day. Since Td and R0 in use to judge the lockdowns and other measures to prevent spreading of the virus, we have provided simple approximation of both parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whereas previous research has focused on religious education (RE), teachers' religious attitudes, and personal religiosity, no studies to date have examined their experiences or discussion of positionality in a RE setting. The denominational-cooperative model of RE serves as a specific opportunity for such research since common denominational RE is a setting where denominational positionality seems to be an obvious factor beyond debate. Based on the analysis of RE teachers' conversations on cooperative RE in Germany, the paper presents results of qualitative research into the conceptual metaphors of positionality and taking a position. In the analysis we found a consistent framing of experiences of positionality under three major conceptual metaphors with their source domains allocated to the semantic fields of motion, physical combat, and theatrical play. Since conceptual metaphors are assumed to stem from embodied experiences, to structure human thought, and can be found in language, the discussion of the data deals with the impression that these conceptual metaphors shape the RE teachers' agency, i.e., the way they teach in the denominational-cooperative religious education classroom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I argue that Miki's concept of myth offers a continuation and consolidation of his Philosophy of History (1932), providing an important conceptual tool to comprehend his philosophical project. To understand Miki's originality, it is important to contrast his conception of history with that of Rickert's, one of Miki's professors during his stay in Germany. Although scholarship about the Kyōto School does not mention these texts, between 1932 and 1935, Miki's writing focuses on the importance of myth as a manifestation of the historical consciousness during periods of social crisis. Thus, myth, as a form of knowledge tied to the most fundamental ontological level of human existence (that Miki calls 'fact'), was able to serve as an operationalization of social change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines narratives of identity and belonging among descendants of white German indentured labourers in Jamaica and the local community in which they live. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and qualitative interviews the research shows the ways in which members of the community in the village of Seaford Town make sense of and articulate elements of their German cultural heritage. This paper argues that while ideas about whiteness suffuse many of the identity-narratives, whiteness can variously be muted or amplified as a marker of identity. Similarly, notions of German-ness are not consistently articulated as embodied cultural forms. Here, culture is not conceptualized as static or embodied, but can be claimed and shared. In sum, the paper speaks to the ways in which whiteness read through a historical lens becomes remade in a contemporary context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent years have seen a series of anniversaries of iconic protests. This draws attention to social movements' long-term legacies both in terms of their impact on society at large as well as their influence on subsequent cycles of mobilization. The growing literature on the interconnections between memories and movements provides crucial insights into such legacies as it explores how movements are remembered or forgotten. The paper aims to contribute to this literature and our understanding of continuities and discontinuities between different cycles of mobilization. For this purpose, we explore how activists of a central strand of the German anti-austerity movement, Blockupy, remember the '68 movement. Based on interviews with Blockupy activists and a media analysis, the paper shows how Blockupy activists largely share a joint memory of '68 despite ideological and generational differences. This shared memory is characterized by recurrent patterns of mnemonic adoptions of some '68 traits and rejection of others. At the same time, we reveal that this memory is only partly movement-specific as it overlaps with public memories in several respects. Activists however clearly reject public memories with respect to '68's central goals. The paper's findings show how impacts of past movements on later activism are shaped by activists' memories of that past and in particular by two levels of mnemonic rejection and adoption: how activists reject or adopt characteristics of a past movement and, in doing so, how they reject or adopt public memories of that movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper commences with some general observations on Poland's kin-state policy followed by an analysis of that element of kin-state policy concerned with the Polish minority in Germany. The paper argues that the recent invigoration of kin-state politics cannot be viewed in isolation from wider global political trends. Rather it contends that this increased concern with the fate of claimed ethnic kin is part of a wider trend towards the privileging of identity politics. It is further argued that in turn this impulse is located within the growth of populism, the celebration of parochialism, anti-globalisation sentiment and Euroscepticism, all of which have been fuelled by the financial crash of 2007/2008. The paper concludes by pointing to a paradox between the pursuit of policies that seek to prioritise ethnic identification with a kin-state and the commitment of member-states of the European Union to ever-closer union among the peoples of Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contributes to the recent discussion concerning the interactions between China and Germany in the context of Industry 4.0, highlighting the most relevant innovation and trade trends and the policy implications of this collaboration. The qualitative analysis examines the features of the innovation systems in Germany and China and the strategies implemented to boost the innovation process. The quantitative analysis exploits trade, patent and publications data to identify trends related to China-Germany cooperation. The paper provides insights into the policy implications for both countries of Sino-German cooperation in relation to Industry 4.0. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper operationalises the theory of social practices for the specific case of professionally producing and maintaining the atmospheres in Thuringian mourning halls (Germany). Funeral services constitute a complex of social practices, which releases affects. Using the example of consultation with the funeral director and the funeral speech, I demonstrate how actors in the funeral services profession engage in the practice and shape the funeral service's atmosphere. Likewise, the present paper outlines that these actors are also affected by the complex of practices and their corporeality as well as disturbances. As a consequence, this disrupts routine performance in funeral service. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces a model of vote choice in mixed-member proportional representation systems where electors cast two votes. Despite the growing popularity of mixed systems around the world, a recent stream of literature suggests that the candidate vote contaminates the list vote, inducing the type of behavior observed under majority rule. We propose a new approach to account for these so-called "contamination" effects, a phenomenon that we define as a causal influence making choices more similar across the vote decisions. Since causality entails a time ordering, we argue that contamination arises only when voters choose sequentially. By making use of new survey questions asking respondents about the timing of vote decisions, we can estimate the magnitude of these contamination effects directly. The model is tested using Bayesian multinomial probit models with survey data from the 2013 federal election in Germany. A key contribution of this paper is to show that contamination effects are present only among voters with lower levels of education, and work primarily from the list vote to the candidate vote. We also test a number of predictions about the determinants of the two vote choices in mixed systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper reconstructs the invention of the loose file system in German psychiatry in the early nineteenth century as a special case of medical and juridical relationship. The loose file allows the gathering of all information of the treatment of the respective patient in one folder, which enables it to be reordered for the different ways of reimbursing care, providing cure, and to store the patient’s file for re-use in the case of re-admission. Psychiatry was the first discipline to introduce the new filing system. The reason for this was not, I argue, a medical one. Legislation and juridical debates about the status of the mentally ill person prompted a new admission procedure. The new Prussian General Law Code required a formal ‘declaration of lunacy’ which was negotiated in a regular trial. ‘Lunatics and raving mad persons’ came under the ‘special supervision and preventative care of the state’. The legal procedure produced questionnaires, reports and protocols which drove the patient-related record keeping in the psychiatric departments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents information on the 26th annual German Association for Stable Isotope Research (GASIR) meeting on October 6-8, 2003 in Cologne, Germany. Topics discussed in the meeting; Impact of isotope research in biomedicine and biochemistry; Information on the scientific programs of GASIR in the field of ecology, geology and hydrology.

The paper examines migration experience and migrant solidarity within a differential migration system. The paper unfolds how Hungarians living in Germany have become involved in refugee support (either in form of voluntary or paid work), and how their engagement relates to their own experience of migration. Concerning applied methods the paper is based on a quantitative online survey and qualitative interviews. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since early April 2020, there has been intense debate over proposed clinical use of ionizing radiation to treat life-threatening pneumonia in Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients. At least twelve relevant papers appeared by 20 May 2020. The radiation dose proposed for clinical trials are a single dose (0.1–1 Gy) or two doses (a few mGy followed by 0.1–0.25 Gy involving a putative adaptive response, or 1–1.5 Gy in two fractions 2–3 days apart). The scientific rationale for such proposed so-called low dose radiotherapy (LDRT) is twofold (note that only doses below 0.1 Gy are considered as low doses in the field of radiation protection, but here we follow the term as conventionally used in the field of radiation oncology). Firstly, the potentially positive observations in human case series and biological studies in rodent models on viral or bacterial pneumonia that were conducted in the pre-antibiotic era. Secondly, the potential anti-inflammatory properties of LDRT, which have been seen when LDRT is applied locally to subacute degenerative joint diseases, mainly in Germany. However, the human and animal studies cited as supportive evidence have significant limitations, and whether LDRT produces anti-inflammatory effects in the inflamed lung or exacerbates ongoing COVID-19 damage remains unclear. Therefore, we conclude that the available scientific evidence does not justify clinical trials of LDRT for COVID-19 pneumonia, with unknown benefit and known mortality risks from radiogenic cancer and circulatory disease. Despite the significant uncertainties in these proposals, some clinical trials are ongoing and planned. This paper gives an overview of current situations surrounding LDRT for COVID-19 pneumonia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This comprehensive study focuses on analyzing the growth of research in the domain of ocean acidification using various bibliometric methods. Datasets were retrieved from Scopus databases using keywords pertaining to the subjects, and detailed analysis was made to understand the growth of literature, publication trends, authorship pattern, keywords, country-wise distribution, and leading institutes working in the subject domain of ocean acidification. The resultant data show that a significant portion (37.83%) of the research documents are published in open-access journals. The finding shows that 76.06% of the total publication has published in the last seven years (2013–2019). In the year 2017, research in this subject reached its peak with the highest number of publications 697 (12.54%). The top 15 journals published around 34.04% (1,891) of the entire research documents. GEOMAR Helmholtz Center for Ocean Research Kiel, Germany, has produced the highest number of research papers (5.42%) followed by Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research, Germany (4.66%), and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the USA, with 4.39% of research documents. It has been found that Biogeosciences published by European Geosciences Union is the most preferred journal by researchers for publishing their work followed by Plos One covering around 215 (3.87%) papers and Marine Ecology Progress Series of 166 (2.99%) articles. A significant portion of the research documents are published in the sub-subject domain of Agricultural and Biological Sciences (55.31%), followed by Environmental Science (42.03%) and Earth and Planetary Sciences subject domains (37.99%). There has been an unparalleled growth of ocean acidification research during the last decade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the financial crisis at the end of the last decade, Germany is regarded again as a successful coordinated market economy. However, a closer look at labour and working conditions reveals disturbing phenomena like an increase of psychical stress, growing shares of low wage employment or the erosion of collective bargaining or works councils' coverage. Finance capitalism has become the most popular concept among German sociologists to explain why and how industrial relations and working conditions have been put under pressure in the last one or two decades. But how coherent is the finance capitalism story? This question is tackled in the paper, based on literature review and empirical findings. The paper argues that the concept is overexpanded and that, first, financial market capitalism is refractured by agency and actors on different instituitonal levels and that, second, there are other and independent developments influencing industrial relations like globalisation or the deregulation of labour markets that have to be taken into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sterphone's article engages with the relevance and consequentiality of 'Muslim' as a social category for everyday Germans during the 1970s and 1980s. Specifically, it examines commonsense knowledge about the characteristics and actions bound to the category 'Muslim' and (re)produced in newspapers and speeches. It demonstrates that the German essentialization of 'Turks' following the end of the guest worker programme in 1973 deployed and (re)produced their simultaneous categorizability as 'Muslims'. Thus Germans employed 'Muslim' as a resource for (re)producing category-tied knowledge about irreconcilable civilizational difference. Sterphone's analysis combines discourse analysis with an ethnomethodological approach to studying categories and categorization practices. Since categories are 'inference rich' and act as storehouses for commonsense knowledge about the social world, they constitute resources for a variety of social actions. This paper demonstrates that not only did politicians and news journalists demonstrably orient themselves to the relevance of 'Muslim' as a means for (re)constructing and emphasizing incommensurable social difference, they also called on readers to participate in seeing these traits and behaviours as the kind of thing done or embodied by Muslims. Such practices produced the category 'Muslim' as mutually exclusive with 'German' long before the influx of refugees in the 1990s or the post-9/11 securitization. Thus Sterphone's paper contributes to studies of German nationhood and its intersections with race, ethnicity and religion. Specifically, it highlights Germany's post-war movement towards alignment with 'the West' and, consequently, the Muslim Turk's position as a salient Other in Germany's westernizing project. It therefore contributes to both theoretical and empirical discussions of anti-Muslim racism that demonstrate how Germans employ and (re)produce 'Germanness' (Deutsch-Sein) and 'Muslimness' (Muslimisch-Sein) so that they preclude one another. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing proportion of youth in the Global North are of migration background, many of whom engage in mobility across countries, through which they establish and maintain transnational networks of peers. While young people's local peer relationships have been established as a source of social capital, studies have to date ignored the role of transnational peers. This is largely because young people's mobility has been over-simplified, obscuring mechanisms that enable transnational peer relationships to emerge and thrive. Drawing on 14 months of ethnographic, multi-sited fieldwork in Germany and Ghana with 20 young people of Ghanaian background (aged 15-25), this paper employs a mobility lens to show how transnational peer relationships provide social capital to migrant youth. We find that, through these relationships, migrant youth gain (1) educational motivation, as has been found in the literature on local peer relationships, and (2) transnational frames of reference, which is particular to transnational peer relationships. As such, we argue for an expansion of the concept of peer relationships to include those built and maintained through transnational mobility in order to generate a more comprehensive understanding of migrant youth's support systems and the valuable social capital that transnational peer relationships provide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper deals with families in villages on the bank of the river Rhine in the southwest of Germany (Rheingau, Rheinhessen, Mittelrhein). Starting with the observation that land changed hands often, although the situation in the Middle Rhine valley favoured tenants – wine was produced for export, personal serfdom was rare, and hereditary leasehold was typical for the region and landlords rarely interfered – I ask for the reasons why. The main reason for the vivid fluctuation was the importance of credit for the wine-growing society. Almost every piece of land was mortgaged. The debts could only be paid back after harvest when the wine was sold. Credits and also loans for investment could be secured on land only. The second most important reason for land change is inheritance rules. Property had to be divided among the children. Female and male children inherited equal shares, as soon as one of their parents died. Land was sold, burdened, leased, shared, swapped and divided – and it changed hands quite often without any hindrance. It is obvious that families were loaded with heavy burdens despite the good conditions for tenants. But, the high mobility of land is no proof for economic depression; it is a by–effect of this very specialised economic system. In the fifteenth century the ecological and economical system was fragile, but it was just working. So, mobile land could be seen as a sign of a vivid economic system in the fifteenth century and not as a sign of crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the beginning of Angela Merkel's chancellorship, German care policy changed considerably. Social policy has gained in prominence and this has affected people with caring responsibilities. Against this background, this paper compares childcare and elderly care policies in terms of gender equality. We focus on policy measures introduced and implemented during the Merkel era and we consider Chancellor Merkel's role in shaping these policies. Based on interviews with parents of young children as well as male and female elderly carers, our analysis discusses the impacts of Merkel-era care policies on lived experiences. We concentrate on effects on caregivers' employment status (maintaining, reducing, or leaving gainful employment for caring). Furthermore, we focus on gender equality effects depending on socio-economic status (SES). The comparison of both policy fields shows that gender in/equality and the gendered division of labour are essentially moderated by Merkel's way of facilitating reconciliation policies. We argue that recent childcare and elderly care policies particularly address middle-class caregivers. In both fields, care policies offer a framework that is used, interpreted, and negotiated differently by individuals, couples, and families, depending on their SES and existing gender norms. Consequently, Merkel-era care policies can reinforce or mitigate gender inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Marriage Equality Act (2017) provides an example for Chancellor Angela Merkel's strategy of 'leading from behind' in the form of evolved facilitation as she changed her stance from publicly resisting to enabling this policy. Merkel's objections against marriage equality were shared by large parts of the Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU): A draft version of the bill was postponed for two years in the justice committee due to internal conflicts in the CDU/CSU. Scholars argue that Merkel's shift from blocking to enabling the reform has been influenced by international as well as domestic developments. The focus of this paper is on a domestic factor that has been neglected so far, namely interactions between the far right and the conservative camp. Based on data from a case study on 'anti-gender' mobilisations against marriage equality in Germany and their influence on the parliamentary process, this article analyses shifts in the conservative camp. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The spatial mobility of students and academics as part of the internationalisation of higher education is becoming increasingly relevant in securing top-tier positions, especially within academia. While the number of doctoral candidates is rising, new positions are not created at the same rate, leading to scarcer career opportunities in academia and the need to develop alternative career paths. Previous studies have much focused on the connection between mobility and career development among junior academics in the STEM fields, but the significance of mobility for SSH PhD candidates and their career development remains unanswered. Does spatial mobility have any effects there, and if so, which? For this reason, this paper studied doctoral SSH candidates from Germany with mobility experiences in the Netherlands. The findings show that spatial mobility affects the perception of the PhD candidate's career in several, sometimes ambivalent ways. It shows that the experience of mobility narrows the planning to a career in academia, contributes to the informal learning process of the candidate, and expands the horizon for possible opportunities in academia. The perceived asset of mobility varies alongside the internationalisation of disciplines and whether the candidate plans to return to Germany or pursue an international career. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses Indonesia's largest Muslim organization, the Nahdlatul Ulama (the NU), in campaigning Islam Nusantara, the NU's version of moderate Islam, and enacting religious agency in Germany. The NU has expanded its networks by establishing special branches (PCI NU) across the globe. In Germany, the special branch was established in 2011. This paper specifically investigates organizational projects, religious practices of the NU people, and the campaign of moderate Indonesian Islam. My analysis of the results of ethnographic fieldwork consisting of in-depth interviews, casual chats, and hang-outs in the organization's meetings and gatherings in Germany and Indonesia shows that PCI NU Germany is extending its transnational networks, claiming its religious agency, and strengthening its version of moderate Islam overseas in an effort to make its voices heard within Islamic communities and broader public in the host country and maintain socio-religious connections with the home country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aggressive and hateful user comments on news sites and social media threaten discussions on the Internet and pose a difficult challenge for content regulation. Previous research has mainly focused on the analysis of moderation strategies in dealing with such comments. In contrast, little attention was paid to the issue of which comments are considered problematic by content moderators in the first place. The answer to this question has more than theoretical relevance, but practical significance against the backdrop of increasing efforts to automate the detection of hate speech or toxicity in user comments. Based on 20 interviews, this paper explores what comment moderators in Germany consider to be hate comments, how they moderate them, and how differences in moderation practices can be explained. Our findings show strong agreement regarding extreme cases of hate comments, whereby there is overlap with the theoretical concept of hate speech, but also forms of incivility. Moreover, the interviews revealed differences in the perception and handling of hate comments, which can be linked to explanatory factors at the levels of the individual, professional routines, and the organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several studies have demonstrated a positive association between regular church attendance and turning out to vote in established democracies. This paper examines whether the relationship holds for Muslims who regularly attend religious services. Using an original dataset of Muslim-origin citizens in Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, I find that regular mosque attendance is indeed associated with higher likelihood to vote in national elections in Germany and the United Kingdom, while among Dutch Muslims turnout is positively associated with individual religiosity. I find evidence that the proposed association between regular mosque attendance and voting is mediated through the acquisition of relevant political information and stronger associational involvement. The paper provides an individual-level analysis complementing studies of country-level institutional particularities and group-level characteristics that are conducive to higher levels of turnout among Muslims. The findings dispel the myth that mosques are sites of civic alienation and self-segregation, but can, in fact, play the role of 'schools of democracy'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In spatial planning debates in Germany and other European countries, a discursive turn from feminist planning critique to gender planning over the past 20 years has led to ambiguous results. On the one hand, feminist claims have been translated into guidelines and criteria catalogues which help planners to consider them in their professional practice. On the other hand, this approach to gender mainstreaming has not made it any easier in planning practice to address (gendered) power relations and their spatial expressions. A gap between professional practice and academic debate has emerged in spite of feminists' conviction that theory and practice are interrelated. This paper presents this argument with a particular focus on gender planning in Germany, and three options how to go on: a target-group approach oriented towards equal opportunities, a deconstructive approach looking to overcome discriminatory practice and a performative approach. As a consequence, this paper proposes a diversification of strategies both in professional practice and in academic research in order to reconcile different rationales and theoretical concepts that are used in gender studies, planning theory and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mobility largely depends on public services and constitutes a key factor for regional development. However, demographic and structural changes challenge public transport networks in peripheral regions and lead to economic shrinkage. This, in turn, undermines the principle of creating or maintaining equal living conditions across Germany and leads to spatial polarization. Limited mobility is closely connected to social exclusion and warrants an in-depth analysis. Our paper examines the commuting patterns of apprentices in rural Brandenburg, Germany. It is based on a survey of apprentices in tourism and the food industry. The study finds that apprentices in rural areas are confronted with public transport deficits but also apply strategies for dealing with these problems. The paper also shows how this relates to social exclusion and to current planning debates regarding co-production and digitalization in the context of public service provision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the normative permissibility of differential inclusion policies, taking Germany as a case study. In the face of mounting asylum applications, Germany introduced new administrative rules differentiating access to integration for asylum seekers. The paper normatively examines whether this practice is consistent with two conventional liberal concepts: special obligations grounding the moral commitments of the liberal state towards its own citizens and the principle of legal certainty grounding its moral commitments towards everyone under its jurisdiction, including asylum seekers. Combining these two usually separately employed perspectives, it argues that while differential inclusion is in principle consistent with these liberal principles, the crude criterion of the country of origin does not comply with both perspectives. The paper contributes to the debate on the ethics of immigration by scrutinizing this real-world instrument of differential inclusion from a political philosophy perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While interest groups are often seen as transmission belts of public preferences, little is known as to how they might transmit such preferences. This paper argues that the provision of information is one mechanism through which advocates represent their constituents' interests and analyses who informs policymakers about these preferences and when actors are more likely to do so. The study relies on a new dataset containing information on the arguments advocates made in public hearings that were held on 34 specific policy issues in Germany. The results reveal that the amount of information on public preferences an actor provides is determined by actor type, its public support and position on the issue. Interestingly, information on public preferences is predominantly used by status-quo defenders. This paper contributes to our understanding of interest groups as transmission belts and their potential to enhance governments' ability to respond to public preferences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Employability has become one of the most important outcomes of higher education despite it being weakly conceptualised for the sector. The lack of an accepted conceptualisation to address students' and graduates' employability results in difficulties when comparing research findings and therefore in assessing quality in higher education provision. This paper addresses this gap in the conceptualisation of employability and adapts an established framework so that it aligns with the higher education sector. Employability is defined as 'the ability to find, keep and progress in graduate employment'. A holistic framework composed of four categories ('individual factors'; 'individual circumstances'; 'enabling support system'; 'labour market') is used to classify and measure employability. This allows for an understanding of how specific initiatives enhance the employability of students and graduates, and suggests ways to measure this impact. Also, the limitations of HEIs to impact students' employability are addressed using the framework. The examples of Germany and England show how differences in employability occur due to differences in the surrounding labour market. The paper concludes that in a complex and holistic discussion it is necessary to highlight the various indicators, including the labour market, which were used to report more nuanced aspects of employability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we use the notion social innovation to shed light on the complex interrelations between the emergence and consolidation of new policy approaches and their geographical mobility. Empirically, the paper deals with learning region policies in Germany, which epitomize a shift of the main approach from 'catching up' to 'reflexive experimentation' during the 1980s/1990s in Germany. We highlight the nature of social innovations in spatial planning as complex assemblages of material, organizational and conceptual elements. These elements are not necessarily new themselves. Rather, the novelty lies in the unprecedented ways, in which these elements are re-combined. From an innovation perspective, the unfolding of the learning region policy model co-evolves with the growth and proliferation of a related professional community of practice. Longitudinal data covering the whole innovation process is analysed in combination with case study material from two recent instantiations of the respective policies: the REGIONALE 2016 Westmünsterland and the 'Competition Impulse Regions' in Saxony. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to understand the social process of the emergence and institutionalization of innovations in spatial planning (which we describe as 'social innovations'). The paper is based on a recently finished empirical and comparative study conducted in four distinct areas of spatial planning in Germany: urban design, neighbourhood development, urban regeneration and regional planning. The empirical cases selected in these areas encompass different topics, historical periods, degrees of maturity and spatial scales of innovation. As a temporal structure of the innovation processes in the different cases we identified five phases: 'incubating, generating, formatting, stabilizing, adjusting'. In a cross-comparison of the case studies and along these phases, we furthermore found typical (groups of) actors, tensions and conflicts. In the focus of our case analyses are the following dimensions: (1) the content of the innovations, (2) actors, networks and communities involved as well as (3) institutions and institutionalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the greater involvement of users and the co-creation of ideas with suppliers or other firms, innovation processes are increasingly based upon combinatorial knowledge. Thus, innovation is not restricted to research-and-development-driven, science-based knowledge, but is also the result of experiences and creative thinking. This has consequences for regional innovation policies because each knowledge type differs regarding policy requirements. Contributing to the under-researched topic of the barriers of combinatorial knowledge dynamics in practice, the aim of this paper was to guide government policies in transferring theoretical insights into a contemporary, place-based policy approach. In accordance with the knowledge base approach this paper clearly distinguishes between analytical knowledge, synthetic knowledge and symbolic knowledge. The analysis consists of in-depth interviews, conducted in two case-study regions in Germany. This paper deduces several local factors that have hampered combinatorial knowledge dynamics, and identifies obstacles that can only be overcome at the federal state or national levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper shows why German spatial planning is neoliberalized after the 2007 global economic crisis. Drawing on historical materialist theory the paper provides a conceptual framework for the analysis of spatial planning in Germany and gives an empirical insight into German spatial planning on the national scale in the aftermath of the crisis. It shows that the crisis affected Germany only for a short time. Hence, the crisis deepened existing patterns of spatial development and as the analysis of the spatial planning discourse in the German parliament shows, spatial planners and politicians perceived the crisis as an intensifier of existing spatial developments. Thus, they saw no reason to change the previous neoliberal spatial planning strategies of endogenous development and supporting metropolitan regions. Therefore, German national spatial planning discourse was neoliberalized after the global crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines intra-individual "script switching", alternation between Kurrentschrift ("German script") and "Latin script", within nineteenth-century handwritten German texts. We attribute a semiotic value to the textual surface and assume that graphic variation conveys meaning and should therefore be considered a communicative practice. After an overview of the development of Kurrentschrift and of the functions and ideologies behind script switching with a particular focus on nineteenth-century German schools, our paper presents three case studies from different contexts of lower-class writing. First, we analyse the writings of a tailor in a southern German psychiatric hospital, who not only used script switching to comply with the relevant conventions, but also to make his texts appear "educated". The second case study focuses on the French–German border region, which, especially Alsace-Lorraine, has historically been characterised by multilingualism and shifting national affiliations. Here, the use of different scripts and languages reflects both contemporary norms and the writers' identity. Finally, we examine the letters of two Frisian sailors who had migrated to America and wrote home after adjusting to life in their new home country. Frequent switches between different scripts and languages index both cultural practices and their hybrid identity in a multilingual context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on green infrastructure planning in three different regions, namely, the Ruhr in Germany, the Capital Region of Denmark and Greater Manchester in the UK. We investigate planning cultural research heuristics and propose a conceptual refinement of existing planning cultural research and approaches. We use framing and storytelling to show how societal beliefs and cultural assumptions are consolidated as spatial frameworks that guide planning practice. Theories of spatial governance describe how spatial frames are mediated, accepted and changed through institutionalized structures. We present arguments from urban design and implementation research to illustrate how planning ideas materialize. The empirical material presented in this paper shows how cultures of green infrastructure planning operate in diverse spatial contexts and that a dynamic perspective is useful for understanding how planning cultures develop and change over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents abstracts of medical education, which include the use of games as teaching tools in surgical residency, computer-based testing of the modified essay question and the joint U.S.-German collaboration project in medical education.

Objectives Multimorbidity poses various challenges, and previous research has indicated a causal relation with depression. As multimorbidity is not curable, the underlying mechanisms are of great interest. Positive affect is a major resource for coping with chronic conditions and for the prevention of depression. Long-term multimorbidity, however, may deplete positive affect. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of positive affect in the association between multimorbidity and depressive symptoms. Method We used four consecutive waves (2008, 2011, 2014, 2017) of the nationally representative German Ageing Survey (DEAS) with a total of 1,558 older adults aged 40 and over. To account for time-varying confounding, exposure-induced mediator-outcome confounding, and reciprocities, we applied the mediational g-formula with inverse-probability weighting techniques. We also tested for exposure-mediator interaction to adjust for differences in mediation across the duration of multimorbidity. Results We confirmed a positive longitudinal relation between multimorbidity and depressive symptoms, both of which were negatively associated with while positive affect. The model without interaction indicated a share mediated of ca. 18.3% on the total effect of multimorbidity on depressive symptoms. Addition of interaction led to substantial differences for multimorbidity duration and levels of positive affect. Associations for long-term multimorbidity (at least two survey waves) were more substantial, and the share mediated doubled (>40%). Additionally, the direct effect of multimorbidity on depressive symptoms diminished for short-term multimorbidity. Conclusion Strengthening positive affect could reduce depressive symptoms in those facing multimorbidity. This study also discusses methodological challenges in performing longitudinal mediation analysis. We advise researchers to consider the mediational g-formula and exposure-mediator interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fight against COVID-19 in Germany up to now has led to the highest financial debts for cities and state governments in the last 30 years. German cities (partly together with federal states) own infrastructures such as fair halls, fairgrounds or international airports; therefore, this is a relevant issue for meetings, conventions, incentives and exhibition (MICE) industries. MICE tourism will recover much slower than general tourism and those debts will even increase during the next years. So, this might lead to the need for change in MICE strategy and infrastructure in some or even many cities. This may also become (or even already is) a risk for Germany's function and image as one of the top three countries for international MICE tourism, especially for international fairs and conferences – and due to that, this might also lead to international changes. The paper discusses whether German cities should reinvest, change/focus positioning or abandon the MICE market and its infrastructure to become more competitive as well with every city but also as an internationally recognized MICE-country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]