Professors of German Universities (e.g. Cologne, Heidelberg) in Italy (1400-1550) and the Repertorium Academicum Germanicum (RAG)

The RAG’s task is to collect biographical and social data on those Theologians, Jurists, Physicians, and Masters of Arts, who studied at a university between 1250 and 1550. The information is entered into a prosopographic database that will finally cover the entire territory of the Holy Roman Empire. Non-graduated noble visitors of universities are also taken into account. The RAG, which in the end will be a “who is who” of the scholars of the Old Empire, offers divers new and interdisciplinary perspectives due to its vast collection of data. Qualitative and quantitative statements on the intellectual elite of the Empire, their European networks, as well as institutional and territorial comparisons will be possible. Thus the scholars' role in pre-modern society can be described on a firm empirical basis and explained within the framework of modern educational research, with special reference to social, cultural, and scientific history. Up to 50,000 scholars are to be expected.

Kollektive Erinnerung. Topographie und Topik in Walthers ›Palästinalied‹

The French sociologist Maurice Halbwachs (1877–1945) conceived re- membrance as a product of ›collective memory‹ and explained this idea in his book on ›La Topographie légendaire des Évangiles en Terre sainte‹ (1941) showing that the topography of the Holy Land was predominantly an imaginary landscape construed by Christian communities. Following this concept, this article studies the ›Palästinalied‹, a text describing the arrival of a pilgrim in the Holy Land in the time of the crusades, abundantly transmitted under the name of Walther von der Vogelweide. The high degree of textual variance in the diverse manuscripts testifies the acting of ›collective memory‹ in the medieval poetic tradition. Of special interest in this context are the strophic arrangements, the variation of deictic markers, the reworking of melodic models documented in the manuscript transmission and the diatopic opposition existing between the emphasis of ›distant love‹ expressed in Jaufré Rudel’s Occitan song ›Lanqand li jorn son lonc en mai‹ (one of the named models) and the attitude of proximity prevailing in the ›Palästinalied‹.

Osteocyte lacunar density and area in newly formed bone of the augmented sinus

OBJECTIVES Osteocytes, the most common cells of the bone, are buried in lacunae. Density and area of the osteocyte lacunae change with increasing maturation of the newly formed bone. Evaluation of osteocyte lacunae can therefore provide insights into the process of graft consolidation. MATERIALS AND METHODS Here, we determined the osteocyte lacunar density (number of osteocyte lacunae per bone area; N.Ot/BAr) and the osteocyte lacunar area in μm(2) (Lac.Ar) in histological specimens 6 and 12 weeks after the sinuses of 10 minipigs were augmented with Bio-Oss(®) , a deproteinized bovine bone mineral, and Ostim(®) , an aqueous paste of synthetic nanoparticular hydroxyapatite. The region of interest was defined by the following criteria: (i) >1 mm from the host bone, (ii) >0.5 mm from the sinus mucosa, (iii) minimum area of 0.2 mm(2) , and (iv) bone tissue spanning at least two bone substitute particles. RESULTS The overall osteocyte lacunar density was significantly higher in the Bio-Oss(®) group than in the Ostim(®) group and decreased during the observation period at a similar range in both groups. The osteocyte lacunar area was smaller in the Bio-Oss(®) group than the Ostim(®) group but there was no significant change within the groups over time. CONCLUSIONS These results suggest that bone substitutes affect the osteocyte lacunar density and the osteocyte lacunar area in the newly formed bone within the augmented sinus in this particular model situation. These measures can provide insights into the maturation of newly formed bone in the augmented sinus.