Early versions in medieval textual traditions. Wolfram’s Parzival as a test case

Wolfram von Eschenbach’s novel Parzival is a courtly romance composed in German language shortly after 1200. In a project, based at the University of Bern, a new critical edition of the poem is prepared in electronic and printed form. It visualizes parallel textual versions, which, depending on particular circumstances of oral performance, have developed in the early stage of the poem’s transmission. Philological research as well as phylogenetic techniques common in the natural sciences, e.g. in molecular biology, have been used to demonstrate the existence of these early textual versions. The article shows how both methods work and how they are applied to the ongoing edition. Exemplary passages to be presented include the text of some rare fragments written in the first decades of the 13th century, which might even go back to the author’s lifetime and which allow to date the existence of the versions they belong to.

Plant and arthropod community sensitivity to rainfall manipulation but not nitrogen enrichment in a successional grassland ecosystem

Grasslands provide many ecosystem services including carbon storage, biodiversity preservation and livestock forage production. These ecosystem services will change in the future in response to multiple global environmental changes, including climate change and increased nitrogen inputs. We conducted an experimental study over 3 years in a mesotrophic grassland ecosystem in southern England. We aimed to expose plots to rainfall manipulation that simulated IPCC 4th Assessment projections for 2100 (+15 % winter rainfall and −30 % summer rainfall) or ambient climate, achieving +15 % winter rainfall and −39 % summer rainfall in rainfall-manipulated plots. Nitrogen (40 kg ha−1 year−1) was also added to half of the experimental plots in factorial combination. Plant species composition and above ground biomass were not affected by rainfall in the first 2 years and the plant community did not respond to nitrogen enrichment throughout the experiment. In the third year, above-ground plant biomass declined in rainfall-manipulated plots, driven by a decline in the abundances of grass species characteristic of moist soils. Declining plant biomass was also associated with changes to arthropod communities, with lower abundances of plant-feeding Auchenorrhyncha and carnivorous Araneae indicating multi-trophic responses to rainfall manipulation. Plant and arthropod community composition and plant biomass responses to rainfall manipulation were not modified by nitrogen enrichment, which was not expected, but may have resulted from prior nitrogen saturation and/or phosphorus limitation. Overall, our study demonstrates that climate change may in future influence plant productivity and induce multi-trophic responses in grasslands.

Being optimally aroused matters: Effects of a weak stress manipulation on children’s executive functions are moderated by temperament and age

We tested a core assumption of the bidirectional model of executive function (EF) (Blair & Ursache, 2011) indicating that EF is dependent on arousal. From a bottom-up perspective the performance on EF tasks is assumed to be curvilinearly related to arousal, with very high or low levels of arousal impairing EF. N = 107 4-and 6-year-olds’ performance on EF tasks was explored as a function of a weak stress manipulation aiming to raise children’s emotional arousal. EF (Stroop, Flanker, Go/no-go, and Backwards Color Recall) was assessed and stress was induced in half of the children by imposing a mild social evaluative threat. Furthermore, children’s temperament was assessed as a potential moderator. We found that stress effects on children’s EF performance were moderated by age and temperament: 4-year-olds with high Inhibitory Control and high Attentional Focusing were negatively affected by the stressor. However, it is unclear whether these effects were mediated by self-reported arousal. Our findings disconfirmed the hypotheses that adverse effects of the stressor are particularly high in children high on emotional reactivity aspects of temperament and low on self-regulatory aspects of temperament. Further, 6-year-olds did not show any stress effects. Results will be discussed within the framework of the Yerkes-Dodson law and with regard to stress manipulations in children.

Promoting Pollinating Insects in Intensive Agricultural Matrices: Field-Scale Experimental Manipulation of Hay-Meadow Mowing Regimes and Its Effects on Bees

Bees are a key component of biodiversity as they ensure a crucial ecosystem service: pollination. This ecosystem service is nowadays threatened, because bees suffer from agricultural intensification. Yet, bees rarely benefit from the measures established to promote biodiversity in farmland, such as agri-environment schemes (AES). We experimentally tested if the spatio-temporal modification of mowing regimes within extensively managed hay meadows, a widespread AES, can promote bees. We applied a randomized block design, replicated 12 times across the Swiss lowlands, that consisted of three different mowing treatments: 1) first cut not before 15 June (conventional regime for meadows within Swiss AES); 2) first cut not before 15 June, as treatment 1 but with 15% of area left uncut serving as a refuge; 3) first cut not before 15 July. Bees were collected with pan traps, twice during the vegetation season (before and after mowing). Wild bee abundance and species richness significantly increased in meadows where uncut refuges were left, in comparison to meadows without refuges: there was both an immediate (within year) and cumulative (from one year to the following) positive effect of the uncut refuge treatment. An immediate positive effect of delayed mowing was also evidenced in both wild bees and honey bees. Conventional AES could easily accommodate such a simple management prescription that promotes farmland biodiversity and is likely to enhance pollination services.

Identification of adsorbed molecules via STM tip manipulation: CO, H₂O, and O₂ on TiO₂ anatase (101)

While Scanning Tunneling Microscopy (STM) has evolved as an ideal tool to study surface chemistry at the atomic scale, the identification of adsorbed species is often not straightforward. This paper describes a way to reliably identify H2O, CO and O2 on the TiO2 anatase (101) surface with STM. These molecules are of a key importance in the surface chemistry of this and many other (photo-) catalytic materials. They exhibit a wide variety of contrasts in STM images, depending on the tip condition. With clean, metallic tips the molecules appear very similar, i.e., as bright, dimer-like features located in the proximity of surface Ti5c atoms. However, each species exhibits a specific response to the electric field applied by the STM tip. It is shown that this tip–adsorbate interaction can be used to reliably ascertain the identity of such species. The tip–adsorbate interactions, together with comparison of experimental and calculated STM images, are used to analyse and revisit the assignments of molecular adsorbed species reported in recent studies.

Von der Lust, im fremden Körper zu denken - offene Manipulation im zeitgenössischen Sprechtheater

Figurentheater für ein erwachsenes Publikum findet vermehrt auch auf den institutionalisierten Bühnen des Sprech-, Tanz- und Musiktheaters statt. Diese Entwicklung steht symptomatisch für eine in allen Künsten beobachtbare Tendenz, Genre- und Formgrenzen zu öffnen. Mit der Auflösung strikter Grenzziehungen zwischen den Künsten sowie der Enthierarchisierung der Theatermittel in postdramatischen Formen werden mittlerweile verstärkt auch in Schauspielinszenierungen Puppen, die gleichberechtigt neben den menschlichen Darsteller_innen agieren, eingesetzt (z. B. Frankenstein, Regie: Philipp Stölzl, Theater Basel 2014; Die Brüder Löwenherz, Regie: Ingo Berk, Puppen: Mervyn Millar, Schauspielhaus Zürich 2014; Der Untergang des Hauses Usher, Regie und Puppen: Suse Wächter, Residenztheater München 2015; Merlin oder das wüste Land, Regie: Jan-Christoph Gockel, Puppen: Michael Pietsch, Schauspielhaus Graz 2015). Der seit etwa 20 Jahren beobachtbare massive Entwicklungsschub im west- und zentraleuropäischen Figurentheater ist eng verknüpft mit der Form der offenen Manipulation, bei der Puppenspieler_innen sichtbar die Spielfigur animieren. Inspiriert ist diese offene Spielweise vom traditionellen japanischen Figurentheater Bunraku, bei dem drei sichtbare Puppenspieler eine Figur animieren. Das Bühnengeschehen wird von einem am Seitenrand der Bühne platzierten Rezitator, welcher die Handlung erzählt und den Text aller Figuren spricht, sowie von einem Shamisen-Spieler begleitet. Während für Vertreter der historischen Avantgarde wie beispielsweise Edward Gordon Craig die Puppe aufgrund ihrer Kontrollierbarkeit als Schauspielerersatz von Interesse war, rückt im zeitgenössischen, offen manipulierenden Figurentheater der Fokus auf die Konfrontation von menschlichen Darsteller_innen und Kunstkörpern. Der Beitrag möchte das evidente Interesse der zeitgenössischen Theaterpraxis an der figurentheaterspezifischen Spielweise der offenen Manipulation zum Ausgangspunkt nehmen, um deren Potenzial zur Fragmentierung, Collagierung und Hybridisierung von Körperkonstruktionen und Körperdarstellungen sowie die damit einhergehenden Fragen nach Subjekt- versus Objektstatus zu untersuchen. Abschliessend soll der Frage nachgegangen werden, welche tradierten schauspieltheoretischen Setzungen mit Blick auf die Möglichkeiten der offenen Manipulation als theatrale Praktik im Sprechtheater einer Revision unterzogen werden müssen.