RuhrCampusOnline: Hochschulübergreifendes E-Learning in der Universitätsallianz Metropole Ruhr

Das Projekt RuhrCampusOnline zielt darauf ab, hochschulübergreifende Lehre für die Partnerhochschulen der Universitätsallianz Metropole Ruhr (UAMR) auf der Basis von Blended-Learning-Arrangements zu implementieren. Der Beitrag stellt die strategische Bedeutung dieses Vorhabens für die Universitäten im Ruhrgebiet dar und beschreibt die Organisation und Vorgehensweise im Projekt. Ziel ist es, einen Pool von Kursen zu implementieren, die einen hohen Online-Anteil haben, und von Studierenden hochschulübergreifend genutzt werden. Über die Internet-Plattform RCO werden diese Kurse sichtbar gemacht, das Belegen der Veranstaltung realisiert und der Austausch von Leistungspunkten unterstützt. Der Beitrag stellt erste Erfahrungen nach einem Jahr Projektlaufzeit vor. (DIPF/ Orig.)

Detection of Staphylococcus aureus by 16S rRNA directed in situ hybridisation in a patient with a brain abscess caused by small colony variants.

Kipp F, Ziebuhr W, Becker K, Krimmer V, Höbeta N, Peters G, Von Eiff C. Institute of Medical Microbiology, Hospital and Clinics, University of Münster, Germany. A 45 year old man was admitted to hospital with a right sided facial paralysis and three month history of seizures. Computed tomography showed a left temporal mass including both intracerebral and extracerebral structures. Ten years earlier the patient had undergone a neurosurgical intervention in the same anatomical region to treat a subarachnoid haemorrhage. In tissue samples and pus obtained during neurosurgery, Staphylococcus aureus was detected by a 16S rRNA-directed in situ hybridisation technique. Following long term cultivation, small colony variants (SCV) of methicillin resistant S aureus were identified. The patient was treated successfully with a combination of vancomycin and rifampin followed by prolonged treatment with teicoplanin, with no sign of infection on follow up nine months after discharge. This is the first report in which S aureus SCV have been identified as causative organisms in a patient with brain abscess and in which in situ hybridisation has been used to detect S aureus in a clinical specimen containing SCV. Antimicrobial agents such as rifampin which have intracellular activity should be included in treatment of infections caused by S aureus SCV.

Women artists of the international avant-garde: the case of "Abstraction-Création" (1931-1936)

Women’s contribution to abstract art in the interwar period is a subject that, to date, has received very little attention. In this article we deal with the untold story of the participation of women artists in Abstraction-Création, the foremost international group dedicated to abstract art in the 1930s. Founded in Paris in 1931, the group took on the work of two previous collectives to become a platform for the dissemination and promotion of abstract art and consisted of around a hundred members. Twelve of these were women, whose writings and works were published in the group’s annual magazine, abstraction creátion art non figuratif (1932-1936), and who participated in a number of the group’s exhibitions. Compared to what had occurred in previous groups, the participation of women, although reduced in number, was comparable to that of the male artists and being members of the group had a generally positive impact on the women’s careers. However, all this came at the expense of relinquishing any gender specificity in their work and the public presentation of it, and demonstrates that the normalization of women’s contributions to the avant-garde could only be brought about alongside a questioning of the more dogmatic views of modernity.

Situative Risikofaktoren von Korruption – Gelegenheit allein macht keine Diebe

In diesem Beitrag werden die Ergebnisse von sieben Datenhebungen zur Relevanz situativer Risikofaktoren für Korruption aus den Jahren 2010 bis 2013 vorgestellt. In fünf quantitativen Datenerhebungen wurden folgende sechs Faktoren untersucht: Dauer der Korruptionsbeziehung, Vorteilshöhe, Art der Vorteilsempfänger, Entdeckungswahrscheinlichkeit, Vorliegen einer persönliche Notlage und situative Unsicherheit. In zwei qualitativen Datenerhebungen wurde mit offenen Fragen nach situativen Einflussfaktoren von Korruption gefragt. Erwartungswidrig erwiesen sich die untersuchten Faktoren als weitgehend irrelevant für die Bewertung von Korruption sowie für das Meldeverhalten bei beobachteter Korruption. Zu vermuteten ist, dass situative Risikofaktoren nicht unmittelbar, sondern indirekt über vom Umfeld geteilte mögliche Rechtfertigungen korrupter Handlungen im Alltag wirken. Die durchgängig nicht signifikanten Ergebnisse lassen daran zweifeln, dass korruptes Handeln maßgeblich durch situative Risikofaktoren beeinflussbar ist.

Purity of Blood and Caste. Identity Narratives among Early Modern Goan Elites

This essay analyses the roles played by purity of blood and caste in seventeenth-and eighteenth-century identity narratives of Goan clites. Goa and its population are usually excluded from the mainstream literature of Indian social history, and seldom related to the early-modern Atlantic world, making this case study all the more valuable as a place to think the topic of blood and caste. The early establishment and the longevity of the Portuguese imperial presence (1510-1961) in Goa, its location at the crossroads of multiple cultural geographies (Iberian and Indian, and later, also Dutch, British and French), as well as the systematic process of religious conversion of its inhabitants and the questions of legal equality that conversion entailed, all intensified the types, textures, layers and meanings of experiences of social differentiation in this colonial context. This mapping of the experiences of purity of blood and caste in early-modem Goa therefore illuminates from a new angle the role of European imperial powers in the mUltiple expressions of racial classification.