Duale versus vollzeitschulische Berufsausbildung in der Schweiz. Zwei Institutionalisierungsmuster der beruflichen Bildung aus rechtfertigungstheoretischer und kantonal vergleichender Perspektive

Der historische und kantonsvergleichende Beitrag zur dualen versus vollzeitschulischen Berufsausbildung verbindet historische, berufsbildende und soziologische Perspektiven, um unterschiedlich verlaufende Institutionalisierungsprozesse nach Branche und Region bei der Entwicklung des Schweizer Berufsbildungssystems nachzuzeichnen. Im Zentrum steht die Frage, wie sich die zentralen, jedoch kontrastreichen, Organisationsmodelle der Berufsbildung – dual oder vollzeitschulisch – etablieren und kantonal durchsetzen konnten. Anhand von exemplarischen Fallstudien der Kantone Luzern und Genf werden rechtfertigungstheoretisch die zentralen Ordnungsprinzipien der Koordination und Legitimation sozialen Handelns, welches in Arbeits- und Bildungsorganisationen der Berufsbildung auf Dauer gestellt wird, verglichen. Gezeigt wird, dass die Organisation der Berufsbildung in den zwei Kantonen durch unterschiedliche Rechtfertigungsbezüge und Kompromisse befördert wurde. Mit dem dualen Berufsbildungsmodell zeichnete sich im historischen Rückblick dabei gleichzeitig eine auch überkantonal gangbare und durchsetzbare Kompromisslösung ab, um die unterschiedlichen bildungspolitischen Interessen und Bestrebungen der Kantone (Berufsbildung als Mittel der Integration und des sozialen Ausgleichs versus Berufsbildung als Mittel der Gewerbeförderung) in einem stark von Verbänden geprägten und gestalteten Modell der beruflichen Bildung zu integrieren und nachhaltig zu stabilisieren.

Valence and agency influence striatal response to feedback in patients with major depressive disorder

BACKGROUND: Reduced sensitivity to positive feedback is common in patients with major depressive disorder (MDD). However, findings regarding negative feedback are ambiguous, with both exaggerated and blunted responses being reported. The ventral striatum (VS) plays a major role in processing valenced feedback, and previous imaging studies have shown that the locus of controls (self agency v. external agency) over the outcome influences VS response to feedback. We investigated whether attributing the outcome to one's own action or to an external agent influences feedback processing in patients with MDD. We hypothesized that depressed participants would be less sensitive to the feedback attribution reflected by an altered VS response to self-attributed gains and losses. METHODS: Using functional MRI and a motion prediction task, we investigated the neural responses to self-attributed (SA) and externally attributed (EA) monetary gains and losses in unmedicated patients with MDD and healthy controls. RESULTS: We included 21 patients and 25 controls in our study. Consistent with our prediction, healthy controls showed a VS response influenced by feedback valence and attribution, whereas in depressed patients striatal activity was modulated by valence but was insensitive to attribution. This attribution insensitivity led to an altered ventral putamen response for SA - EA losses in patients with MDD compared with healthy controls. LIMITATIONS: Depressed patients with comorbid anxiety disorder were included. CONCLUSION: These results suggest an altered assignment of motivational salience to SA losses in patients with MDD. Altered striatal response to SA negative events may reinforce the belief of not being in control of negative outcomes contributing to a cycle of learned helplessness.

translin Is Required for Metabolic Regulation of Sleep

Dysregulation of sleep or feeding has enormous health consequences. In humans, acute sleep loss is associated with increased appetite and insulin insensitivity, while chronically sleep-deprived individuals are more likely to develop obesity, metabolic syndrome, type II diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. Conversely, metabolic state potently modulates sleep and circadian behavior; yet, the molecular basis for sleep-metabolism interactions remains poorly understood. Here, we describe the identification of translin (trsn), a highly conserved RNA/DNA binding protein, as essential for starvation-induced sleep suppression. Strikingly, trsn does not appear to regulate energy stores, free glucose levels, or feeding behavior suggesting the sleep phenotype of trsn mutant flies is not a consequence of general metabolic dysfunction or blunted response to starvation. While broadly expressed in all neurons, trsn is transcriptionally upregulated in the heads of flies in response to starvation. Spatially restricted rescue or targeted knockdown localizes trsn function to neurons that produce the tachykinin family neuropeptide Leucokinin. Manipulation of neural activity in Leucokinin neurons revealed these neurons to be required for starvation-induced sleep suppression. Taken together, these findings establish trsn as an essential integrator of sleep and metabolic state, with implications for understanding the neural mechanism underlying sleep disruption in response to environmental perturbation.

A nearby M Star with tree Transitting Supter-Earths Discovered by K2

Small, cool planets represent the typical end-products of planetary formation. Studying the architectures of these systems, measuring planet masses and radii, and observing these planets' atmospheres during transit directly informs theories of planet assembly, migration, and evolution. Here we report the discovery of three small planets orbiting a bright (K-s = 8.6 mag) M0 dwarf using data collected as part of K2, the new ecliptic survey using the repurposed Kepler spacecraft. Stellar spectroscopy and K2 photometry indicate that the system hosts three transiting planets with radii 1.5-2.1 R-circle plus, straddling the transition region between rocky and increasingly volatile-dominated compositions. With orbital periods of 10-45 days the planets receive just 1.5-10x the flux incident on Earth, making these some of the coolest small planets known orbiting a nearby star; planet d is located near the inner edge of the system's habitable zone. The bright, low-mass star makes this system an excellent laboratory to determine the planets' masses via Doppler spectroscopy and to constrain their atmospheric compositions via transit spectroscopy. This discovery demonstrates the ability of K2 and future space-based transit searches to find many fascinating objects of interest.

Maternal separation followed by isolation-housing differentially affects prepulse inhibition of the acoustic startle response in C57BL/6 mice

Exposure to chronic stress is associated with an increased incidence of neuropsychiatric dysfunction. The current study evaluated two competing hypotheses, the cumulative stress and the match/mismatch hypothesis of neuropsychiatric dysfunction, using two paradigms relating to exposure to “stress”: pre-weaning maternal separation and post-weaning isolation-housing. C57BL/6 offspring were reared under four conditions: typical animal facility rearing (AFR, control), early handling (EH, daily 15 min separation from dam), maternal separation (MS, daily 4 hr separation from dam), and maternal and peer separation (MPS, daily 4 hr separation from dam and from littermates). After weaning, mice were either housed socially (2–3/cage) or in isolation (1/cage) and then tested for prepulse inhibition in adulthood. Isolation-housed MPS subjects displayed greater deficits in prepulse inhibition relative to socially-housed MPS subjects while socially-housed AFR subjects displayed greater deficits in prepulse inhibition relative to isolation-housed AFR subjects. The results indicate that these treatment conditions represent a potentially valuable model for evaluating the match/mismatch hypothesis in regards to neuropsychiatric dysfunction.