In October 2018, the independent PornFilmFestival Berlin celebrated its 13th edition. This festival is not part of the mainstream channels and explores sexuality and pornography from an ethical, ...feminist and queer perspective. In this short article, I explore the emerging space offered by the festival and what this means for queer communities. Through analysis of films and images viewed during the festival, I explore some of the particular attractions of DIY/independent porn compared to commercial pornography, reflecting on the importance of indie productions to the festival experience.
The microbial communities inhabiting urban soils determine the functioning of these soils, in regards to their ability to cycle nutrients and support plant communities. In an increasingly urbanized ...world these properties are of the utmost importance, and the microbial communities responsible are worthy of exploration. We used 53 grassland sites spread across Berlin to describe and explain the impacts of urbanity and other environmental parameters upon the diversity and community composition of four microbial groups. These groups were (i) the Fungi, with a separate dataset for (ii) the Glomeromycota, (iii) the Bacteria, and (iv) the protist phylum Cercozoa. We found that urbanity had distinct impacts on fungal richness, which tended to increase. Geographic distance between sites and soil chemistry, in addition to urbanity, drove microbial community composition, with site connectivity being important for Glomeromycotan communities, potentially due to plant host communities. Our findings suggest that many microbial species are well adapted to urban soils, as supported by an increase in diversity being a far more common result of urbanity than the reverse. However, we also found distinctly separate distributions of operational taxonomic unit (OTU)s from the same species, shedding doubt of the reliability of indicator species, and the use of taxonomy to draw conclusion on functionality. Our observational study employed an extensive set of sites across an urbanity gradient, in the region of the German capital, to produce a rich microbial dataset; as such it can serve as a blueprint for other such investigations.
In March 2018 the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin-Preußischer Kulturbesitz (State Museums in Berlin) received a significant bequest from the estate of art historian Barbara Göpel (1922-2017), consisting ...of two paintings, 46 drawings, and 52 prints by Max Beckmann (1884-1950) and one painting by Hans Purrmann (1880-1966). This bequest represents an important addition to the collection of classical modernist works in the Nationalgalerie (National Gallery) and the Kupferstichkabinett (Museum of Prints and Drawings). In 1937 – during the time of National Socialism – the Nationalgalerie lost 505 artefacts as a result of the confiscation of “degenerate art”, among them eight works of Beckmann, who was in those times classified as a “degenerate artist”. But from whom did the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin receive this bequest? And is it generally important to ask from whom a museum receives an artefact? Where did the artworks come from? Is their provenance “clean” in the sense of the 1998 Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art? Is it legitimate to make a distinction between the person of the collector/estate and the works of art? These are some of the – legal but also moral – questions a museum must address before accepting any cultural object that belonged to a collector who was actively working for a gigantic project like the “Führermuseum Linz”. Or should rejection of the bequest be considered?
In my essay, I discussed the un-talked-about topic of firework pollution. I also talked about my personal experience in Berlin dealing with the intensity of fireworks, but also the love and ...excitement the traditions bring. I present solutions to create eco-friendly, sustainable fireworks and alternatives for people wanting to cut out firework usage completely.
Artykuł jest poświęcony trzem poglądom na temat demokracji, często przyjmowanym przez współczesnych decydentów, politologów i teoretyków polityki. Poglądy te, w mojej opinii, są błędne, ale błędne w ...sposób pouczający. Ukazują one bowiem poważne niezrozumienie natury i walorów demokracji. Jeśli uświadomimy sobie, dlaczego są one błędne, dostrzeżemy istnienie tych wymiarów demokracji, które zwykle łatwo umykają naszej uwadze. Do nazwania tych błędów używam nazwisk wybitnych myślicieli, którzy je popełnili. Pierwszy z nich określam błędem Berlina, odnajduję go bowiem w dorobku brytyjskiego myśliciela rosyjskiego pochodzenia, Isaiaha Berlina. Drugi z nich określam błędem Schumpetera, nazywając go na cześć amerykańskiego bankowca, ekonomisty i myśliciela politycznego austriackiego pochodzenia, Josepha Schumpetera. Trzeci określam mianem błędu Rikera, przypisując go Williamowi Rikerowi, amerykańskiemu politologowi, znanemu ze swojego rozróżnienia między liberalizmem a populizmem.
This paper addresses three claims that are often made among contemporary policy-makers, political scientists and political theorists about democracy. The claims, in my view, are false and indeed revealingly false: they display a serious misunderstanding of the nature and appeal of democracy. As we see why they are false, we will come to appreciate dimensions of democracy that easily escape notice. I name the mistakes after outstanding thinkers who have made them. The first I describe as Berlin’s mistake, finding it in the work of the Anglo-Russian philosopher, Isaiah Berlin. The second I describe as Schumpeter’s mistake, naming it after the Austrian-American banker, economist and political thinker, Joseph Schumpeter. And the third I describe as Riker’s mistake, associating it with William Riker, the American political scientist, famous for his distinction between liberalism and populism.
Respondents construct their answers by implanting a style, using tropes and patterns of argumentations. Thereby, they intend to emphasize the correctness of their answer and to stage their authority. ...Due to this fact it is worthwhile to examine responsa as literature – one of two trends in the Law-and-Literature-Movement. In this paper I want to analyse the collection of responsa called
. This collection of 22 responsa was edited in 1819 by the Bet Din (rabbinical court) of Hamburg in order to condemn the new reforms in Hamburg implemented by the reformers. My goal is to see if and how the febrile atmosphere is visible in rhetoric. It can be shown that a lot of tropes and stylistic devices are used to emotionalise the reader. But patterns of argumentations like »correctio« are used as well with the intention to stress the correctness of the answers.
In urban areas such as Berlin (Germany) with high municipal sewage water discharges and low surface water flows there is a potential risk of drinking water contamination by polar organic compounds ...when groundwater recharge is used in drinking water production. Thus, some pharmaceutically active compounds (PhACs) are not eliminated completely in the municipal sewage treatment plants (STPs) and they are discharged as contaminants into the receiving waters. In terms of several monitoring studies carried out in Berlin between 1996 and 2000, PhACs such as clofibric acid, diclofenac, ibuprofen, propyphenazone, primidone and carbamazepine were detected at individual concentrations up to the μg/l-level in influent and effluent samples from STPs and in all surface water samples collected downstream from the STPs. Under recharge conditions, several compounds were also found at individual concentrations up to 7.3
μg/l in samples collected from groundwater aquifers near to contaminated water courses. A few of the PhACs were also identified at the ng/l-level in Berlin tap water samples.
In 2015 many camps were opened to accommodate newly arriving migrants in Berlin. Christian Sowa studies this form of accommodation. Moving beyond an exclusive focus on borders and migration, he ...argues that camp accommodation must be thought of and studied as part of the urban context and as a specific form of housing. The study provides an in-depth case study, discusses policy alternatives, argues for »housing for all instead of camps«, and contributes to bringing urban and migration studies into public discussion. In times of new waves of migration, the topic of migrant accommodation within urban environments remains highly relevant today.
•Investigated induced microseismicity that occurred during a hydraulic stimulation.•Improved catalog using double-difference relocation and spectral ratio methods.•Seismicity migrating along faults ...driven by growing injection rate and Kaiser effect.•Larger magnitude events after the shut in triggered by shear stress redistribution.•Observed decrease in the stress drop with the distance from injection point.
We investigate induced microseismic activity during a hydraulic stimulation monitored at the Berlín Geothermal Field (BGF), El Salvador. The site was monitored for a time period of 17 months using 13 3-component seismic stations deployed in shallow boreholes. Three stimulations were performed in the well TR8A with a maximum injection rate and well head pressure of 140l/s and 13MPa, respectively. For the entire time period of our analysis, the acquisition system recorded 581 events with moment magnitudes ranging between −0.5 and 3.7. In this study an initial seismic catalog provided by the operator has been substantially improved: (1) We re-picked P- and S-wave onsets and relocated the seismic events using the double-difference relocation algorithm based on cross-correlation derived differential arrival time data. Forward modeling was performed using a local 1D velocity model. (2) We recalculated source parameters using the spectral fitting method and refined the results applying the spectral ratio method. We investigated the source parameters and spatial and temporal changes of the seismic activity based on the refined dataset and studied the correlation between seismic activity and production. The achieved hypocentral precision allowed resolving the spatiotemporal changes in seismic activity down to a scale of a few meters. We observe clustering of the seismicity around the injection well as well as the migration of seismicity outside of the injection point along pre-existing faults. The migration of seismicity is determined by increasing injection rate and “crustal memory” (Kaiser) effect. We observe larger magnitude events after the shut in of the injection well. We finally observe a decrease of the static stress drop with increasing distance from the injection point. Of special interest is the largest event (MW 3.7) and its nucleation process. The event occurred in the center of the BGF about two weeks after the termination of the second injection in TR8A. We investigate whether the refined seismic data display any signatures that the largest event is triggered by the shut-in of the well. These characteristics would be in accordance with the occurrence of induced “larger magnitude events” in a number of other geothermal sites.
Due to the symptoms, patients with acute type A aortic dissection are first seen by the ambulance service and diagnosed at the emergency department. How often an aortic dissection occurs in an ...emergency department per year has been studied. The incidence in the emergency department may be used as a quality marker of differential diagnostics of acute chest pain. A multi-institutional retrospective study with the municipal Berlin hospital chain Vivantes and its Department of Pathology and the Charité - University Medicine Berlin was performed. From the Berlin Hospital Society, the annual numbers of publicly insured emergency patients were obtained. Between 2006 and 2016, 631 aortic dissections were identified. The total number of patients treated in the emergency departments (n = 12,790,577) was used to calculate the "emergency department incidence." The autopsy data from six clinics allowed an estimate on how many acute type A aortic dissections remained undetected. Across all Berlin hospitals, the emergency department incidence of acute type A aortic dissection was 5.24 cases in 100,000 patients per year. In tertiary referral hospitals and, particularly, in university hospitals the respective incidences were markedly higher (6.7 and 12.4, respectively). Based on the autopsy results, about 50% of the acute type A aortic dissection may remain undetected, which would double the reported incidences. Among different hospital types the emergency department incidences of acute type A aortic dissection vary between 5.93/100,000 and 24.92/100,000. Aortic dissection; Incidence; Emergency Department; Epidemiology.
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