Statusinkonsistenz im Lebensverlauf

Sozialbiographische Überlegungen und die Lebensverlaufsperspektive tragen zu einem Fortschritt in der Inkonsistenzforschung bei. Wichtige theoretische und methodische Voraussetzungen sind dabei die Berücksichtigung der Dynamik von Statusinkonsistenz und die Kontrolle der Zeitabhängigkeit von Statuslagen. Dadurch wird es möglich, Entstehen, Verschwinden, Dauer und Folgen von Statusinkonsistenz detailliert zu untersuchen. Die empirischen Befunde des Artikels zeigen, daß die Verortung von Individuen in einer Statushierarchie im Lebenslauf zunehmend mit vergleichbaren Plazierungen in anderen Statusdimensionen übereinstimmt. Dies verstärkt sich in der Abfolge von Geburtskohorten; ferner finden sich eher Frauen als Männer in ungünstigen statusinkonsistenten Lagen. Schließlich hat Statusinkonsistenz deutliche Auswirkungen auf berufliche Mobilität von Männern. Eine ungünstige Statuslage 'erzwingt' Mobilität, wenn, gemessen an der Bildung, unerwartete Statusverluste ausgeglichen werden sollen. Männer mit unerwarteten Statusgewinnen versuchen dagegen, ihre vorteilhafte Statuslage abzusichern, und sind eher immobil.

Imported human rabies in Switzerland, 2012: a diagnostic conundrum

Human rabies is rare in Western Europe. It is not easily recognized in the absence of a history of exposure. We describe the clinical course, diagnosis and follow-up of an imported human rabies case in Switzerland. The patient, a U.S. citizen, presented at an outpatient clinic in Iraq with pain in his right shoulder on July 5, 2012. On July 8 he was transferred to a hospital in the United Arab Emirates, where he exhibited progressive encephalitis with coma. On July 29, he was transferred to a hospital in Switzerland, where he died on July 31, 2012. The autopsy showed severe encephalitis. Rabies was diagnosed by the rapid fluorescent focus inhibition test (RFFIT) and confirmed by fluorescence antibody testing (FAT) in brain smears and immunohistochemistry on paraffin-embedded brain sections. The viral strain was characterized by RT-PCR followed by sequencing and phylogenetic analysis as an American bat rabies strain associated with Tadarida brasiliensis. Close contacts and exposed health care workers received postexposure prophylaxis (PEP).

Optimizing the size of the area surveyed for monitoring a Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) population in the Swiss Alps by means of photographic capture-recapture

We studied the influence of surveyed area size on density estimates by means of camera-trapping in a low-density felid population (1-2 individuals/100 km(2) ). We applied non-spatial capture-recapture (CR) and spatial CR (SCR) models for Eurasian lynx during winter 2005/2006 in the northwestern Swiss Alps by sampling an area divided into 5 nested plots ranging from 65 to 760 km(2) . CR model density estimates (95% CI) for models M0 and Mh decreased from 2.61 (1.55-3.68) and 3.6 (1.62-5.57) independent lynx/100 km(2) , respectively, in the smallest to 1.20 (1.04-1.35) and 1.26 (0.89-1.63) independent lynx/100 km(2) , respectively, in the largest area surveyed. SCR model density estimates also decreased with increasing sampling area but not significantly. High individual range overlaps in relatively small areas (the edge effect) is the most plausible reason for this positive bias in the CR models. Our results confirm that SCR models are much more robust to changes in trap array size than CR models, thus avoiding overestimation of density in smaller areas. However, when a study is concerned with monitoring population changes, large spatial efforts (area surveyed ≥760 km(2) ) are required to obtain reliable and precise density estimates with these population densities and recapture rates.