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Early screening of diabetes retinopathy (DR) plays an important role in preventing irreversible blindness. Existing research has failed to fully explore effective DR lesion information in fundus maps. Besides, traditional attention schemes have not considered the impact of lesion type differences on grading, resulting in unreasonable extraction of important lesion features. Therefore, this paper proposes a DR diagnosis scheme that integrates a multi-level patch attention generator (MPAG) and a lesion localizationmodule (LLM). Firstly,MPAGis used to predict patches of different sizes and generate a weighted attention map based on the prediction score and the types of lesions contained in the patches, fully considering the impact of lesion type differences on grading, solving the problem that the attention maps of lesions cannot be further refined and then adapted to the final DR diagnosis task. Secondly, the LLM generates a global attention map based on localization. Finally, the weighted attention map and global attention map are weighted with the fundus map to fully explore effective DR lesion information and increase the attention of the classification network to lesion details. This paper demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed method through extensive experiments on the public DDR dataset, obtaining an accuracy of 0.8064. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building new production facilities abroad poses a huge challenge to the human resource practices of a firm. This is because reaching the required level of competence and commitment is not possible without adjusting these practices to the characteristics of local personnel. However, there are few empirical studies that highlight how such situations have actually been handled. This paper makes a contribution through an examination of the initial phases of a Finnish-owned Greenfield paper mill in East Germany. The evidence used in the study includes documentary analysis, interviews and discussions with actors at the different organizational levels. The case study demonstrates how managerial subdivisions and the absence of local actors from the higher levels of the managerial hierarchy impede development of competence and commitment among the new employees. The evidence presented suggests that the involvement of various organizational actors in human resource management processes should be given more weight in further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite its critique of Pop Art and western consumerism, the former GDR briefly promoted the 'paper dress' as an attractive, fashion novelty for its youth, consistent with the tenets of 'socialist fashion.' This essay explores the phenomenon of the paper dress, putting it in the context of GDR youth policy, the growing youth culture in the country, and Cold War ideology. It argues that the GDR's brief embrace of the paper dress, after severe state restrictions on the importation of western youth culture, was part of a gradual liberalization of GDR society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper suggests how lessons from Germany's national-level, comprehensively focused place-based regeneration (or levelling up) efforts could be applied in the UK. It draws the direct linkage between spatial inequality and the decline of large-scale heavy manufacturing industry at the end of the 20th century in Germany and the UK. It also posits that rapid deindustrialisation, poor-quality education and other indices of poverty and economic inequality have fuelled political fragmentation — including loss of public trust in government, national and civic institutions — in both countries. The paper explores and compares two sets of German redevelopment efforts over time, in the industrial heartland of the former West German Ruhr region and across the former East Germany, to assess their impacts on reducing political polarisation as well as bolstering redevelopment. It highlights which elements of these efforts have been most successful and why. The German experience, as described in the paper, clearly demonstrates that it takes decades to achieve measurable positive economic outcomes from redevelopment programmes. Political outcomes can also be mixed, even negative, if grassroots sentiment and public well-being are ignored or discounted in the process. In the former East Germany, despite huge transfers of development funds, grievances rooted in the economic and political dislocation of German unification in the 1990s have fuelled anti-establishment politics. The paper also examines how grassroots, philanthropic and private sector actors work alongside regional and federal governments in Germany in shaping positive political as well as socio-economic outcomes and how this might be most effectively adapted for the UK. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In times of crisis, journalism's own history needs to be reflected upon, both from within and from outside the newsroom. This paper attempts both. From a scientific perspective, we examined the process of the digitalization of journalism and then asked journalists from different generations to reflect on this process. Based on data gathered from these semi-structured interviews with German journalists, our paper presents their evaluation on the evolution from analog to digital journalism—from retired male reporters who wrote most of their articles on typewriters to young female data journalists. The interviews with journalists—including local newspaper reporters, public broadcasting services and news magazines' editors, freelancers and former German Democratic Republic (GDR) journalists—are part of a larger funded research project on German journalism. Their analysis reveals a common problematization of the growing pace of news production and the hybridization of media formats. The qualitative data confirm data from quantitative surveys on journalism and can help international journalism research to get an in-depth understanding on how journalists perceive the changes over the last decades in their trade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The early diagnosis of diabetic retinopathy (DR) can effectively prevent irreversible vision loss and assist ophthalmologists in providing timely and accurate treatment plans. However, the existing methods based on deep learning have a weak perception ability of different scale information in retinal fundus images, and the segmentation capability of subtle lesions is also insufficient. This paper aims to address these issues and proposes MLNet for DR lesion segmentation, which mainly consists of the Multi-Scale Attention Block (MSAB) and the Lesion Perception Block (LPB). The MSAB is designed to capture multi-scale lesion features in fundus images, while the LPB perceives subtle lesions in depth. In addition, a novel loss function with tailored lesion weight is designed to reduce the influence of imbalanced datasets on the algorithm. The performance comparison between MLNet and other state-of-the-art methods is carried out in the DDR dataset and DIARETDB1 dataset, and MLNet achieves the best results of 51.81% mAUPR, 49.85% mDice, and 37.19% mIoU in the DDR dataset, and 67.16% mAUPR and 61.82% mDice in the DIARETDB1 dataset. The generalization experiment of MLNet in the IDRiD dataset achieves 59.54% mAUPR, which is the best among other methods. The results show that MLNet has outstanding DR lesion segmentation ability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document is an editorial from the International Journal of Molecular Sciences that discusses the intricate relationship between DNA damage response (DDR) and metabolism. It highlights the importance of maintaining genomic integrity and the role of metabolism in providing energy and building blocks for DNA repair processes. The editorial also introduces a collection of nine papers from leading experts in the fields of DNA damage response and cancer metabolism, which explore various aspects of DDR and its connection to cancer, aging, and metabolic diseases. The findings presented in these papers contribute to our understanding of genomic stability and offer potential avenues for preventive, diagnostic, and therapeutic strategies. [Extracted from the article]

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Rechtsextremismusforschung is the property of Verlag Barbara Budrich GmbH and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Mid-level commanders are commonly considered the visible heads of the rebel body: as leaders of combat operations, they are often targeted in counterterrorism or counterinsurgency operations. While their role during conflict has been theorized extensively, only recent scholarship has focused on mid-level commanders in post-conflict transitions. Specifically, it is not clear how mid-level commanders function within ex-combatant groups to create divergent peacebuilding results. This paper argues that transitions from conflict involve fraying of wartime bonds and rebel command-and-control structures, which is counterproductive to peace when rebels demobilize collectively. In peacetime and in the absence of wartime command, social groups formed through military logic struggle to redefine individual roles. Mid-level commanders, responsible for shaping intergroup bonds during conflict, are essential for allocating ex-combatant roles and redefining rebel-civilian relations. Against the common practice of breaking rebel wartime command-and-control structure during demobilization, this paper argues that ex-combatant groups can demobilize and reintegrate more successfully if they maintain their wartime cohesion and are provided the necessary tools for building sustainable livelihoods. To support the argument, the paper provides original qualitative and quantitative evidence from the Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR) programme with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents research on the development history as well as on the materials and techniques of technical installations with gas discharge lamps, colloquially known as ‘neon’ systems, in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR). Taking into account changes in materials, design, and technology between the 1950s and the 1980s, the findings also form the basis for the practical art-technological examination and evaluation of the examples still in existence. The majority of these objects have disappeared since the 1990s; the remainder are still acutely endangered today, due to progress in lighting technology and the current highly invasive repair practices. In this paper, a systematic examination case study is presented and discussed for the first time. The Poliklinik lettering under consideration is located on the façade of today's Medical Centre in the Hanseatic city of Stralsund and dates back to the second half of the 1950s. After more than 60 years of exposure to the elements, it appeared as an authentically aged, completely original example of the object group. A substance-careful concept for in situ examination was developed that did not require the fragile structure to be dismantled. The concept presented here is generally applicable to other objects with gas discharge lamps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study aims to explore how the integration of augmented reality (AR) filters into English as a second language (ESL) can enhance speaking fluency teaching. The study sheds light on how AR filter can be best implemented in speaking fluency teaching by the innovative opportunities to transform language learning experiences. In this study, ESL teachers' perceptions and experiences with AR filters in speaking fluency instructions were examined through qualitative research method. Design/methodology/approach: This study is an evaluation stage study within a bigger study which utilized design and developmental research (DDR) approach. In this third phase of DDR which is the evaluation phase, this study involved semi-structured interviews with six ESL teachers from six different public secondary school settings. Thematic analysis was conducted on the interview transcripts. Findings: Data analysis revealed several key findings regarding the utilization of AR filters in ESL speaking fluency teaching. Firstly, participants reported that AR filters can be best used in various educational settings. Secondly, AR filters were found to provide supports for various students' levels. Thirdly, participants identified that AR filters can be best used to cater students with diverse learning styles. Research limitations/implications: The work aims to help ESL educators in using AR filters in their speaking fluency teaching. The limitation of this study is that it includes only the experience of teachers from a public secondary school setting without taking into consideration other secondary institutions such as ESL teachers from private schools or boarding schools. The generalizability of our findings may be affected due to our reliance on self-reported data from a small sample size. Practical implications: The implications of these findings for ESL pedagogy and teacher professional development are discussed. By incorporating AR filters into ESL speaking fluency instruction, educators can create speaking fluency teaching in various settings such as formal and informal settings. Furthermore, ESL teachers may immerse students in environments that cater to the diverse language learners' styles and language levels through the use of AR filter. Overall, this research contributes to a deeper understanding of the potential of AR filters to transform ESL teaching and learning practices, paving the way for future innovations in language education. Originality/value: Available studies exploring AR in English teaching exist, but very limited of those utilized markerless AR, in the form of AR filters with speaking fluency teaching. Also, this paper focused on teachers' experience with AR filters in contrast to students' experience in public secondary school settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Urban Studies (Sage Publications, Ltd.) is the property of Sage Publications, Ltd. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In this paper, an improved Beluga Whale Optimization algorithm based on data mining and scheduling rules with AdaBoost(IBWO-DDR-AdaBoost) rule heuristic scheduling method for solving job-shop scheduling problems (JSP) is proposed, in which data mining-extracted dispatching rules are incorporated into the heuristic algorithm to guide the optimization process. Firstly, an AdaBoost-CART integrated learning algorithm is introduced to evolve dispatching knowledge from historical data and convert it into effective dispatching rules. Secondly, in order to address the issues of local optimality and slow convergence speed faced by the beluga whale optimization algorithm (BWO) when solving JSP, this study presents an improved beluga whale optimization algorithm (IBWO) that incorporates two enhancement mechanisms: a neighborhood search strategy based on greedy thinking and genetic operators. These enhancements aim to improve both the efficiency and quality of reconciliation in scheduling, ultimately leading to better scheduling schemes. Furthermore, the extracted scheduling rules obtained through the AdaBoost-CART integrated learning algorithm are embedded into the improved beluga optimization algorithm, enabling real-time solution updates for optimized schedules. Finally, extensive simulation tests are conducted on JSP benchmark examples of varying scales with minimizing maximum completion time as the objective function for schedule optimization. The simulation results demonstrate the significant advantages of our proposed IBWO-DDR-AdaBoost rule heuristic scheduling method in terms of accuracy, performance optimization, and convergence speed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports exploratory research that considers two challenges recognised in the disaster risk reduction (DRR) community in recent years: one is the reinforcement of community-based DRR and the other is experts' prioritising high-impact/low-frequency hazards. Inquiries into stakeholders'—community members' in particular—understandings of disaster risks have been scarce. The research aimed to address these gaps by investigating communities' perceptions around community-based DRR and disaster risks. The research focused on natural water hazards, such as floods and typhoons generated due to atmospheric forcing factors, as well as tsunamis in four communities in Japan and England. A field survey of major structural mitigation solutions, non-structural measures, and community interviews revealed that community members did not necessarily find the often-used impact/frequency description of hazards helpful in developing and implementing community-based DRR activities. Such hazard-based scientific language does not necessarily correspond with the general public. The paper attempted 'the number of affected people', which was recognised by the research participants, to be applied as a tool for understanding disaster risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Maintaining the structural integrity of genomic chromosomal DNA is an essential role of cellular life and requires two important biological mechanisms: the DNA damage response (DDR) mechanism and telomere protection mechanism at chromosome ends. Because abnormalities in telomeres and cellular DDR regulation are strongly associated with human aging and cancer, there is a reciprocal regulation of telomeres and cellular DDR. Moreover, several drug treatments for DDR are currently available. This paper reviews the progress in research on the interaction between telomeres and cellular DNA damage repair pathways. The research on the crosstalk between telomere damage and DDR is important for improving the efficacy of tumor treatment. However, further studies are required to confirm this hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

INTRODUCTION: Quality Standards (QS) are an important priority in European drug policy, although the extent of their application remains unclear. The FENIQS-EU project (Further ENhancing the Implementation of Quality Standards in drug demand reduction across Europe) was set up to foster the use of QS. The objective of this paper is to present the main findings of the first 18 months of this project. METHODS: A multi-method study design was used to assess the application of QS. It consisted of: 1) an online survey and brief interviews with key stakeholders in various areas of drug demand reduction across Europe; 2) the development of criteria and selection of examples of inspiring practices; 3) a Delphi study to reach consensus around successful QS implementation strategies. RESULTS: QS have been implemented in the prevention domain, with the European Drug Prevention Quality Standards being the most commonly implemented standards. In the treatment/social reintegration domain, national standards and the Standards and Goals of Therapeutic Communities are most commonly used, while the EU Council conclusions on the implementation of minimum quality standards are primarily applied in the field of harm reduction. In total, 14 inspiring examples of practice were selected. Three rounds of a Delphi study resulted in consensus on successful implementation strategies, covering five core themes: collaboration, communication, support structure, education, and funding. DISCUSSION: Despite the recognition that the implementation of QS is important, these efforts vary across European countries and are unevenly spread across DDR areas. CONCLUSION: This paper focuses on the relevance of QS availability, and emphasises key factors influencing successful implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study aims to further develop the CLC stage/path's identification model that distinguishes between path's emergence (emergence stage), path's development (growth stage), path's sustainment (maturity stage), path's decline (decline stage) and path's transformation (renewal stage), and by applying it, define the current stage/path of the Demarcated Douro Region (DDR) cluster. The Port wine industry, which is the dominant industry of the DDR cluster, is at the maturity/decline stage – is the same for the cluster itself? Design/methodology/approach: It is a case study with a longitudinal perspective based on the analysis of the dynamics of the parameters of cluster evolution using available secondary sources (cluster identity/brand; number of firms; number of employees; network; innovation; policies and regulations; and external markets – exports), especially addressing the past decade, that represent the stage of maturity/decline of the cluster's dominant Port wine industry. Findings: The conclusion is that since the 1990s the Demarcated Douro Region has gone through a "path transformation" where during the following 20 years new "anchors" for the cluster were gradually introduced, such as Doc Douro Wines, new forms of consumption of Port wine, tourism and olive oil. Since 2010 the cluster has entered a growth stage/(new) path's development, where these "anchors" are in steady growth. The Douro brand is becoming more internationally recognized and established, the number of firms and employees is increasing, the network is restructuring with the creation of cluster-specific official institutions, innovation is especially reflected with increasing heterogeneity through diversification of the clusters into new activities and regulations and policies are supportive for expansion – all these parameters are indicating the rise of the new cycle for the cluster. Thus, the DDR cluster represents an attractive business environment and requires attention from regional policymakers to support the cluster's development. Especially institutions have been highlighted as internal factors driving clusters growth, European integration as an external factor and firms' strategies of diversification and internationalization as an appropriate de-locking mechanism for new path's development. Research limitations/implications: This research contributes to the CLC theory by further developing and applying a CLC stage/path identification model. It provides a better understanding of the dynamics of the DDR cluster that diverge from its dominant industry life cycle, which is relevant for regional policies and firms' strategies. This study has its limitations. It provides an exploratory application of the theoretical framework proposed, and consequently, no general conclusions are possible yet. More empirical studies with different clusters in different stages are necessary to test the framework. Practical implications: These findings are useful to policymakers when designing their policies for cluster development but also for clusters' entities and actors when making their strategic decisions as it allows based on the verification of the established parameter of CLC to identify its current stage/path of development. Originality/value: The paper presents a theoretically grounded model for CLC identification and for the first time to the best of the authors' knowledge applies it to a cluster case – the DDR cluster. This case applies the proposed model and illustrates its usefulness. The model provides the tools for a better understanding of cluster dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diabetic retinopathy (DR) is a serious ocular complication that can pose a serious risk to a patient's vision and overall health. Currently, the automatic grading of DR is mainly using deep learning techniques. However, the lesion information in DR images is complex, variable in shape and size, and randomly distributed in the images, which leads to some shortcomings of the current research methods, i.e., it is difficult to effectively extract the information of these various features, and it is difficult to establish the connection between the lesion information in different regions. To address these shortcomings, we design a multi-scale dynamic fusion (MSDF) module and combine it with graph convolution operations to propose a multi-scale dynamic graph convolutional network (MDGNet) in this paper. MDGNet firstly uses convolution kernels with different sizes to extract features with different shapes and sizes in the lesion regions, and then automatically learns the corresponding weights for feature fusion according to the contribution of different features to model grading. Finally, the graph convolution operation is used to link the lesion features in different regions. As a result, our proposed method can effectively combine local and global features, which is beneficial for the correct DR grading. We evaluate the effectiveness of method on two publicly available datasets, namely APTOS and DDR. Extensive experiments demonstrate that our proposed MDGNet achieves the best grading results on APTOS and DDR, and is more accurate and diverse for the extraction of lesion information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large areas of land are restored with un-weathered soil substrates following mining activities in eastern Germany and elsewhere. In the initial stages of colonization of such land by vegetation, plant roots may become key agents in generating soil formation patterns by introducing gradients in chemical and physical soil properties. On the other hand, such patterns may be influenced by root growth responses to pre-existing substrate heterogeneities. In particular, the roots of many plants were found to preferentially proliferate into nutrient-rich patches. Phosphorus (P) is of primary interest in this respect because its availability is often low in unweathered soils, limiting especially the growth of leguminous plants. However, leguminous plants occur frequently among the pioneer plant species on such soils as they only depend on atmospheric nitrogen (N) fixation as N source. In this study we investigated the relationship between root growth allocation of the legume Lotus corniculatus and soil P distribution on recently restored land. As test sites the experimental Chicken Creek Catchment (CCC) in eastern Germany and a nearby experimental site (ES) with the same soil substrate were used. We established two experiments with constructed heterogeneity, one in the field on the experimental site and the other in a climate chamber. In addition we conducted high-density samplings on undisturbed soil plots colonized by L. corniculatus on the ES and on the CCC. In the field experiment, we installed cylindrical ingrowth soil cores (4.5 x 10 cm) with and without P fertilization around single two-month-old L. corniculatus plants. Roots showed preferential growth into the P-fertilized ingrowth-cores. Preferential root allocation was also found in the climate chamber experiment, where single L. corniculatus plants were grown in containers filled with ES soil and where a lateral portion of the containers was additionally supplied with a range of different P concentrations. In the high-density samplings, we excavated soil-cubes of 10 x 10 x 10 cm size from the topsoil of 3 mini-plot areas (50 x 50 cm) each on the ES and the CCC on which L. corniculatus had been planted (ES) or occurred spontaneously (CCC) and for each cube separated the soil attached to the roots (root-adjacent soil) from the remaining soil (root-distant soil). Root length density was negatively correlated with labile P (resin-extractable P) in the root-distant soil of the CCC plots and with water-soluble P in the root-distant soil of the ES plots. The results suggest that P depletion by root uptake during plant growth soon overrode the effect of preferential root allocation in the relationship between root density and plant-available soil P heterogeneity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Pravnik is the property of Czech Academy of Sciences, Institute of State & Law and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of ifo Dresden Berichtet: Ueber Konjunktur, Struktur, Wirtschaftspolitik is the property of ifo Institute for Economic Research and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper examines the technologisation of the pedagogical space "classroom". We will discuss the development and establishment of the subject-specific classroom system in the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany, 1949–1989) by taking a closer look at organisational-structural conditions and responsibilities, as well as at the functioning and challenges that emerged during the implementation of subject classrooms. The furnishing of the subject classroom with seating, desks, teaching and learning objects including technical equipment, and storage furniture was planned down to the last detail and aligned to the requirements of the curriculum. We will concentrate on the classrooms for Physics and Music to highlight the peculiarities of this principle of school spatial organisation and its impact on social school practice. Our paper will focus on the political agenda and regulations, by drawing on sources from state-led research programmes. The article uses the concept of the classroom dispositif as a description of the programmatic claims. Thus, the subject-specific classroom could be considered as a technically shaped apparatus whose architectural structure determines pedagogical practices in their spatial, temporal, social, institutional, and technical dimensions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how Amber Film and Photography Collective's working-class affiliations and Berwick Street Film Collective's middle-class makeup shaped their divergent approaches to depicting 'working-class issues' by drawing on the films of both collectives, alongside archival materials and oral testimonies. By engaging in a comparative reading, I highlight the breadth of Amber's oeuvre, tracing the development of their filmmaking strategies--which included agitprop, the fusion of factual and fictional formal elements and transnational collaboration with the German Democratic Republic's film production company, Deutsche Film-Aktiengesellschaft (DEFA)--to demonstrate that, contrary to criticisms levelled by contemporary theorists clustered around Screen magazine and the British Film Institute, Amber transcended the constraints of Documentary Realism by incorporating radical avant-garde aesthetics into their oppositional practice. Concomitantly, Amber's radical filmmaking is positioned as relative to its members' working-class solidarities, with their concern for championing working-class cultures contrasted with Berwick Street's broader political agendas. Through foregrounding this politics/culture dialectic, the practical repercussions of Berwick Street's middle-class representation of 'working-class interests' are investigated while the theoretical criteria by which avant-garde depictions of 'working-class issues' are evaluated are themselves assessed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study focuses on the critical concern of designing secure and resilient bridge piers, especially regarding scour phenomena. Traditional equations for estimating scour depth are limited, often leading to inaccuracies. To address these shortcomings, modern data-driven models (DDMs) have emerged. This research conducts a comprehensive comparison involving DDMs, including support vector machine (SVM), gene expression programming (GEP), multilayer perceptron (MLP), gradient boosting trees (GBT) and multivariate adaptive regression spline (MARS) models, against two regression equations for predicting scour depth around cylindrical bridge piers. Evaluation employs statistical indices, such as root-mean-square error (RMSE), coefficient of determination (R2), mean average error (MAE) and normalized discrepancy ratio (S(DDRmax)), to assess their predictive performance. A total of 455 datasets from previous research papers are employed for assessment. Dimensionless parameters Froude number F r = U gy , Pier Froude number F r P = U g ′ D , and the ratio of scour depth to pier diameter (y D) are carefully selected as influential model inputs through dimensional analysis and the gamma test. The results highlight the superior performance of the SVM model. In the training phase, it exhibits an RMSE of 0.1009, MAE of 0.0726, R2 of 0.9401, and SDDR of 2.9237. During testing, the SVM model shows an RMSE of 0.023, MAE of 0.017, R2 of 0.984, and SDDR of 5.301. Additionally, it has an average error of − 0.065 and a total error of − 20.642 in the training set and an average error of − 0.005 and a total error of − 0.707 in the testing set. Conversely, the M5 model exhibits the lowest accuracy. The statistical metrics unequivocally establish the SVM model as significantly outperforming the experimental models, placing it in a higher echelon of predictive accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aiming to contribute to the historiography of English Studies, this essay explores the research agenda and collective work of a particular network of academics that made a committed and systematic effort to implement working-class literature and culture as a new research field in (GDR) English Studies. Set up as a "Research Group on Working Class Literature" in 1965, its key actors were a group of academics based at the Humboldt University or Pädagogische Hochschule Potsdam who had come to the GDR from the UK or US as immigrants or remigrants. The driving force was Dr. Mary Ashraf, whose papers contained in the Bundesarchiv [Federal Archives] shed light on the Group's work. On the basis of these archival papers and the Group's publications, this essay studies the programmatic and conceptual nature as well as the praxeological dimension of their work, including their teaching legacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study aims to elucidate the quantitative and qualitative differences in employment development between German districts. Building on ideas from competitive development and resource-based theory, the paper particularly seeks to explain enduring East-West differences between rural regions by two different forms of competitive advantage: cost leadership and quality differentiation. Design/methodology/approach: This study follows a two-step empirical approach: First, an extended shift-share regression is conducted to analyze employment development in Western and Eastern German districts between 2007 and 2016. Second, the competitive share effect and other individual terms of the shift-share model are further examined in additional regressions using regional economic characteristics as exogenous variables. Findings: The findings suggest that the above-average employment growth of the rural districts in the West is owed to the successful exploitation of experience in manufacturing that has been gathered by firms in the past 100 years or so. While their strategy is largely based on advanced and specialized resources and an innovation-driven differentiation strategy, the relatively weak employment development of Eastern rural districts might be explained by a lack of comparable long-term experiences and the related need to focus on the exploitation of basic and general resources and, accordingly, on the efficiency-based strategy of cost leadership. Originality/value: This study offers an in-depth empirical analysis of how the competitive share effect, i.e. region-specific resources beyond industry structure, contributes to regional employment development. The analysis reveals that quantitative differences in rural employment development are closely related to qualitatively different levels of input factors and different regimes of competitiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The representation of East Germans in elite positions has been a broadly debated topic. Most studies show that, comparative to other elite sectors, East Germans are best represented in politics. However, in some areas of the political sector, like the federal government, we find very few East Germans, despite Angela Merkel's chancellorship. This paper looks at East German representation in parliamentary leadership positions. It finds East Germans remain underrepresented in these positions, especially outside of The Left. It explores three explanatory approaches: (1) there are not enough East Germans in the recruitment pool, (2) East German members lack the desired qualifications and (3) the leadership recruitment process is biased against East Germans. Using statistical analysis based on a biographical dataset including all MPs from the 13th to the 18th legislative period, it finds that both low East German membership in the Bundestag and the existence of a bias lead to underrepresentation of East Germans in those positions. While The Left tries to strongly represent East German interests by recruiting them into leadership positions, East Germans' access to these positions in all other party parliamentary groups remains low. This has negative effects on the substantive representation of East Germans and on their trust in representative democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1970s, the existing historical building stock gained more value. Monument protection was gradually introduced in the urban planning process as were its methods and instruments. Approaches for an urban development based on the existing building stock were made in both former german countries, GDR (German Democratic Republic) and FGR (Federal Republic of Germany), even if the extent was different. Especially with the regeneration of the historical old towns in the GDR beginning in late 1989, early 1990, the preservation of urban architectural heritage formally became an integrated part of urban development strategies in united Germany. The adaption and development of instruments to protect and develop historical city centres is part of the research project 'Stadtwende', funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. Surveys based on the results of qualitative expert interviews and archive research show that the 'turn' (Wende) in 1989 had an impact on the development of a planning practice that took the existing building stock into account. With regard to recent trends the paper shows the historical genesis of the preservation of urban heritage in urban planning and asks to what extent it could support a resource-saving urban development today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this research, Lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries were tested at four different charge rates (DCR): 0.2C, 0.5C, 1C, and 1.5C, and four different discharge rates (DDR): 0.5C, 0.9C, 1.3C, 1.6C. This paper proposes a capacity fade model for charging and discharging at accelerated current-rate (C-rate), to interpret the vulnerabilities of Li-ion batteries in energy storage system, because Lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries are prone to ageing at the fluctuation of the loads in micro-grids. The characteristics of Li-ion batteries both at accelerated DCR and DDR are thoroughly investigated. It is discovered that charging and discharging Li-ion batteries outside of the standard C-rate accelerates their ageing. In addition, the degree of capacity fade is assessed at an accelerated C-rate to develop an ideal charge and discharge model for the micro-grids. Furthermore, the battery capacity fade model is then investigated with deep learning algorithm-based feed-forward neural network (FNN), and recurrent neural network with long-short term memory layer (RNN-LSTM). A comparison of the developed capacity fade models is performed, and it is discovered that the LSTM-RNN battery ageing model outperforms the conventional FNN network at accelerated C-rate. Nevertheless, the error metrics performance of both FNN and LSTM-RNN are less than 0.1%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The DNA damage response (DDR) is a signaling cascade that is triggered by DNA damage, involving the halting of cell cycle progression and repair. It is a key event leading to senescence, which is characterized by irreversible cell cycle arrest and the senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP) that includes the expression of inflammatory cytokines. Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) is a ubiquitous pathogen that plays an important role in the senescence process. It has been established that DDR is necessary for HCMV to replicate effectively. This paper reviews the relationship between DDR, cellular senescence, and HCMV, providing new sights for virus-induced senescence (VIS). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The socialist German Democratic Republic (GDR) in the east part of former divided Germany, which existed between 1949 and 1990, saw the emancipation of women as a national objective. In this paper we examine the gender ideologies of young people in the GDR in relation to state socialist ideas of gender equality. First, we outline the GDR's socialist state policy in favour of maternal full-time employment, even with young children, between the 1950s and the 1980s. We then present the results of our analysis of gender ideologies using survey data collected by the GDR's Central Institute of Youth Research in 1984. By applying latent class analysis, we identify two patterns of egalitarianism in the analytic sample, which we term 'all-inclusive-egalitarians' and 'not-in-my-backyard-egalitarians' ('nimby-egalitarians'). The former supported gender equality in both the public and familial spheres. The nimby-egalitarians, by contrast, had ambivalent attitudes, as they supported gender equality in the public sphere and at the same time held more traditional attitudes towards the private sphere. Our study demonstrates that after almost 40 years of propagating gender equality, state socialism in the GDR had some success in shaping societal gender ideologies. However, we reveal ambivalences which researchers have previously often overseen, especially in contrast to the Western part of Germany. The top-down shaped GDR patterns of egalitarianism also bear similarities to the stalled gender revolution in contemporary Western democratic societies. Beyond the results, the paper proves the richness and principle usability of hitherto rarely used data sets preserved from the GDR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Trade Union Colleges as Centres of Knowledge. A Focus on African Course Participants as (Co-)Producers of Knowledge during the 1960s Cold War. In this article, I argue that circulations were central to processes of knowledge production, adaptation, and dissemination at and between the two trade union colleges under investigation. By illuminating concrete knowledge transfers and circulations through the exchanges of experience, examination papers, correspondence, and book shipments, I make the case that knowledge circulation should not be understood as a one-way street of linear transfer, but rather as a concept characterised by multiple points of contact and exchange. These nodes of knowledge transfer were often located within the educational institutions themselves, which sought to become centres of knowledge in the field of trade union education for Africans. The practical and technical knowledge of African students was one of the key factors that enabled these pioneering institutions in Guinea and the German Democratic Republic to generate knowledge about the African trade union movement through intercultural interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: In Germany there is a large wealth gap between East and West Germans as well as a gap in life satisfaction, with people in East Germany reporting to be less satisfied. This paper intends to shed light on the role of the different levels of wealth and their association with life satisfaction. On a wider scale, this paper examines psychological consequences of wealth inequality between large societal groups. Method: Longitudinal data from the years 2007, 2012, and 2017 of the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) with a sample size of N = 5066 (Nfemale = 2522, Nwest = 3756, mage2007 = 50.46) was used. To test our hypothesis, multiple linear regression models as well as a fixed-effects regression model were run. Furthermore, to examine the development of wealth distribution between different birth cohorts in East and West Germany a latent growth curve model was calculated. Results: Net-worth was found to be a highly significant predictor for life satisfaction. This holds true for variance between respondents as well as for individual change over time within respondents. Additionally, the results show that the wealth gap between East and West Germans in total as well as within most of the birth cohorts increased. Conclusion: Due to their socialistic history and the related obstacles in acquiring wealth as well as the unbalanced distribution of GDR-assets after the reunification, East Germans are significantly less wealthy than West Germans. This has consequences on the mental well-being and the life satisfaction of East Germans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a growing amount of literature in economic geography showing that historical episodes can leave long‐lasting cultural and institutional legacies across space. For credibly identifying such persistent effects the analyses should not pick up trends preceding the respective episodes. Against this background, the paper re‐examines the famous case of the German division and reunification. The empirical focus is on the persistent mark‐up of women in work in East relative to West German regions that are often associated with legacy effects of the socialist regime that was in place in East Germany during the country's four decades of division. In contrast to the conventional wisdom in academia, policy, and the public, the current paper shows that the higher share of working women in East German regions is not due to a legacy of socialism. Female labor force participation was already remarkably higher in the East before the introduction of socialism. The general lesson is that any attempt to explain spatial variation in individual decision‐making by persisting institutional and cultural legacies of certain historical episodes needs to assess regional conditions predating these episodes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary In this paper, a novel strategy of video communication over a 5G platform of new radio (NR) is developed, and it is named ViNR. With the support of optimization on the ViNR quality of service (QoS) system design, we stretched the outdated R‐D optimization to a novel delay‐distortion‐rate optimization (DDRO) control method. The entire model is partitioned with two types of coding: source coding and channel coding. For source coding, we affianced the inter‐frame prediction method of independent predicted frames (IPPPP) with Lagrange multiplier optimization. Channel coding is intricate with the minimization of delay‐distortion and getting the most out of the rate using resource allocation optimization in terms of sub‐slice allocation. To perform this sub‐slice resource assignment with optimization of DDR, the isolation resource allocation is premeditated in this work to ensure the service level profile of various groups of resource slots or grids dealing with the subject of middling delay and rate. The widespread simulation results divulge that the proposed algorithm NR‐DDRO achieves better QoS parameters of delay, distortion, and rate with the metrics of end‐to‐end distortion, encoding Y‐PSNR, encoding bit rate, encoding time, end‐to‐end PSNR, optimization time, and complete computation time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper, based on 15 months of fieldwork and archival research carried out in 2018/2019 for my PhD in Social Anthropology, takes as its object the everyday coexistence with the Second World War military dead scattered across the rural landscape of Brandenburg, formerly part of the German Democratic Republic (1949–1990). Focusing on the practices through which the living relate to the war dead 'out of place', I argue that the construction of the war dead as valued members of the social collectivity does not necessarily depend upon their ritual 'separation'. Indeed, the physical proximity of the misplaced and unrelated war dead in my fieldsite results in their adoption and conceptualization as local dead. I contextualize attachments to the fallen in the local history of chaotic 'total war', which collapsed the boundary between the military and civilian experience of war, and transformed the spaces of everyday life into battlefields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an outline of steps to be taken to achieve a unified social policy governing East Germany (DDR) and the Federal Republic (BRD). The steps include social security financial transfers, the economic growth of the DDR, stabilizing of the labor market and unemployment, braking the migration of DDR citizens to the BRD, and the promotion of employment and a common social security program.

This paper explores negotiations of futures within and beyond Germany's formerly fastest shrinking city, the East German city of Hoyerswerda. Originally built for the German Democratic Republic's miners and energy workers, its model socialist New City attracted tens of thousands of people in the latter half of the 20th century. In the wake of German reunification, this direction of mobility reversed. Economic transformations resulted in widespread unemployment and subsequent outmigration. Mostly the young and well-educated left the city, as reunified Germany saw millions of East Germans move 'to the West'. Beyond outmigration, those staying behind continued to face their city's presumed loss of the future. However, widespread expectations of better futures elsewhere did not necessarily result in ever more people leaving. Futures elsewhere were contrasted to futures elsewhen: hopeful local futures different to the one of continuous decline so commonly predicted. Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork, I explore these entangled practices of place- and future-making and map the different expectations of im/mobility that make up a surprisingly complex local regime of im/mobility. I do so in order to ascertain what keeps peripheral postindustrial cities like Hoyerswerda going amidst accelerated urban decline and ubiquitous outmigration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the year of 2015, about 800.000 refugees arrived in Germany, a number which equals around one percent of the total population. This migration process was labelled the refugee crisis and was accompanied by a contested debate. On the one hand, there was a widespread willingness to voluntarily help arriving refugees, on the other hand, the number of xenophobic attacks against refugees drastically increased. Our paper will focus on a specific form of xenophobic violence with a strong symbolic meaning: We analyze how arson attacks against collective accommodation facilities spread. Using a comprehensive web chronicle, we collected temporal and spatial data about arson attacks perpetrated on accommodations or facilities for refugees in Germany between 2015 and 2017. We counted 251 attacks, assigned each incident location to its county, merged county characteristics such as population size, proportion of foreigners, right-wing party support, and—going beyond previous research—added geographically coded media data from two digital archives. Besides newspaper contents of a popular nation-wide tabloid, we use a data base that covers local fake news on refugees. Based on these data, we constructed a balanced panel data set with the counties as geographical units and periods of 14 days as the time dimension. Results indicate that social contagion drives the diffusion process of arson attacks. Spatial proximity of previous attacks increased the propensity of attacks in the neighboring counties. Attacks were more likely to occur in counties with larger populations and fewer foreigners. While local newspaper coverage did not impact the diffusion of xenophobic attacks, fake news were relevant–but only in East Germany. We also considered two particularly salient threatening events that received nation-wide media attention, namely Merkel's "border opening" on the 5th of September 2015 and the sexual assaults occurring during New Year's 2015/16 in Cologne. Both were followed by temporary increases in violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the state socialist era in the GDR, the People’s Republic of Poland and Czechoslovakia, care for the elderly and people in need of help was often provided at home. Volunteers from the national Red Cross societies, the East German organization People’s Solidarity or neighborhood helpers from the residential area cared for needy people in the place that determined their reality of life – their own home. The way in which the home shaped social voluntary care for helpers and those in need before and after 1989 will be the subject of this paper. Keywords: care, elderly, home, volunteering, state socialism, German Democratic Republic, People’s Republic of Poland, Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The reunification of the socialist German Democratic Republic and the capitalist Federal Republic of Germany presents a unique setting for studying the impact of socio-economic and political change on migration. This paper provides a comprehensive review of the interdisciplinary literature on migration between East and West Germany since reunification, conducted in disciplines such as economics, demography, sociology, and human geography. We synthesise the literature with regard to data-related challenges as well as individual and contextual determinants of migration. We clarify some misinterpretations and discrepancies in previous studies, identify research gaps, and suggest directions for future research. Our review demonstrates that East-West migration mainly occurred in line with what could have been expected based on migration theory with regard to migrants' sex, age, education, labour market position, and social networks. West-East migration, in contrast, was strongly affected by return migrants who often stated non-occupational motives for moving. On the contextual level, differences in wages are better able to explain East-West migration over time than differences in unemployment rates. West-East migration, however, cannot be explained well with such macroeconomic models. This paper contributes a point of reference for future research on this topic, as well as on internal migration and socio-economic disparities in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper looks at the different positions two major international sport federations, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) and the Fédération Internationale de Ski (FIS), took with respect to East Germany during the 1950s. Because these positions were greatly influenced by FIFA's and the FIS's prior relations with Germany and by the challenges posed by global politics, this study begins by examining these relations during the interwar period. By combining information from the FIFA, FIS, and International Olympic Committee (IOC) archives with documents from the German national archives and articles published in Switzerland's sporting press, the authors were able to highlight differences between the two federations' approaches and show the need for studies to go beyond an IOC-centric approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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In this paper, we study the effect of television exposure on fertility. We exploit a natural experiment that took place in Germany after WWII. For topographical reasons, Western TV programs, which promoted one/no child families, could not be received in certain parts of East Germany. We find robust evidence that access to West German TV results in lower fertility. This conclusion is robust to alternative model specifications and different data sets. Using individual level information on TV consumption, we employ IV techniques to estimate the direct effect of Western TV consumption on fertility. By using aggregate level fertility data, we furthermore show the robustness of our analysis in a difference-in-difference setting. Our results suggest that individual fertility decisions are affected by role models or information about other ways of life promoted by media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Featured Application: The proposed RL via data-informed Domain Randomization (DDR) is designed to stabilize autonomous underwater vehicles and the platforms of underwater vehicle-manipulator systems, which are further subject to unknown dynamics and varying payloads. The approach captures the differences in dynamics between the simulated AUVs and real AUVs, trains the controller in simulations that are suitable for real AUVs, and avoids the tedious procedures of parameter-tuning. The proposed RL-DDR requires only a few training samples, making the controller adaptation efficient for real-time applications. Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) or underwater vehicle-manipulator systems often have large model uncertainties from degenerated or damaged thrusters, varying payloads, disturbances from currents, etc. Other constraints, such as input dead zones and saturations, make the feedback controllers difficult to tune online. Model-free Reinforcement Learning (RL) has been applied to control AUVs, but most results were validated through numerical simulations. The trained controllers often perform unsatisfactorily on real AUVs; this is because the distributions of the AUV dynamics in numerical simulations and those of real AUVs are mismatched. This paper presents a model-free RL via Data-informed Domain Randomization (DDR) for controlling AUVs, where the mismatches between the trajectory data from numerical simulations and the real AUV were minimized by adjusting the parameters in the simulated AUVs. The DDR strategy extends the existing adaptive domain randomization technique by aggregating an input network to learn mappings between control signals across domains, enabling the controller to adapt to sudden changes in dynamics. The proposed RL via DDR was tested on the problems of AUV pose regulation through extensive numerical simulations and experiments in a lab tank with an underwater positioning system. These results have demonstrated the effectiveness of RL-DDR for transferring trained controllers to AUVs with different dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Erdkunde is the property of Universitaet Bonn, Geographisches Institut and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

As an often-overlooked period of conflict, the era of transformation after German re-unification represents a time of collective and individual identity crisis for East Germans, who experienced a loss of their Lebenswelt (lifeworld; Edmund Husserl) and a devaluation of their life achievements that often led to severe discontent, causing conflict both in and between East and West Germany. During this period, People of Colour experienced a discharge of the general tension through a sharp increase in violence directed against them by radical right-wing actors. Since then, their experiences have gone largely unnoticed in popular media and publications, having only recently found their way into a broader discourse of remembrance. This paper seeks to contribute to a shift away from a discussion about People of Colour and towards a position that focuses on their narratives, experiences and opinions. In doing so, it takes a firmly female-centred perspective, using written and video-recorded material from Women of Colour as a doubly marginalised group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Employment among mothers has been rising in recent decades, although mothers of young children often work fewer hours than other women do. Parallel to this trend, approval of maternal employment has increased, albeit not evenly across groups. However, differences in attitudes remain unexplored despite their importance for better understanding mothers' labour market behaviour. Meanwhile, the employment of fathers has remained stable and attitudes towards paternal employment do not differ as much as attitudes towards maternal employment do between socio-economic groups. This paper examines attitudes towards maternal and paternal employment. It focuses on Germany, drawing on data from the German Family Demography Panel Study (FReDA). The survey explicitly asks whether mothers and fathers should be in paid work, work part-time or full-time, presenting respondents with fictional family profiles that vary the youngest child's age. Unlike previous studies, the analysis compares the views of respondents with different origins: West Germany, East Germany, immigrants from different world regions, and second-generation migrants in West Germany. The results highlight remarkable differences between respondents from West and East Germany, with the former group displaying strong approval for part-time employment among mothers and fathers of very young children and the latter group reporting higher approval for full-time employment. Immigrant groups are far from homogenous, holding different attitudes depending on their region of origin. Taken together, the results offer a nuanced picture of attitudes towards maternal and paternal employment. We discuss these findings in relation to labour markets participation in Germany. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]