Two measles clusters in connection with short inner-European air travels indicating impediments to effective measles control: A cluster analysis.

Importation and transmission of measles via air travel is a public health concern to countries, which are close to or have achieved elimination, i.e., to the majority of countries in Europe. In 2018, two measles cases occurred in Berlin residents, who flew within Europe while being infectious. In addition to contact tracing through passenger manifests, we contacted national authorities in flight destination countries or embarking countries and inquired about epidemiologically linked measles cases to the two Berlin index cases. We identified eight epidemiologically linked cases (six males, median age: 32 years) from three countries associated with three air-travels. Consequently measles was imported to Germany (Bavaria), Denmark and possibly Sweden. Our investigations revealed impediments to an effective public health response indicating the need to revisit current guidelines and methods to better control transmission of measles related to air travel.

Cross-Cultural Validity of the Social Communication Questionnaire for Adults with Intellectual Developmental Disorder.

Diagnosing Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) is important throughout the lifespan. The objective was to investigate the transcultural diagnostic validity of the Social Communication Questionnaire (SCQ) in a clinical sample of 451 adults with Intellectual Developmental Disorder (IDD) with and without ASD in Germany, the U.S.A. and Great Britain. Variables associated with higher SCQ sum-scores were higher levels of IDD, male gender, a diagnosis of ASD and the study site (Germany > U.S.A > G.B.). An ROC analysis revealed a cut-score of 13, which resulted in a sensitivity of 0.87 and a specificity of 0.58. It is recommended to adjust the cut-score according to level of IDD and gender. Further research is needed to align diagnostic assignment of ASD across different sites and countries.

Reactions to Receiving a Gift-Maternal Scaffolding and Cultural Learning in Berlin and Delhi.

This study shows how Berlin (n = 35) and Delhi (n = 28) mothers scaffold a common and highly scripted social situation, namely gift giving, and enable cultural learning in 19-month-olds. Using modeling and prompting to encourage appropriate responses, mothers took culture-specific directions during scaffolding that were in line with the broader cultural model as assessed by maternal socialization goals (SGs). Whereas Berlin mothers prioritized autonomous SGs, Delhi mothers emphasized autonomous and relational SGs to similar degrees. During scaffolding, Berlin mothers focused on maximizing positive affect and acknowledging the gift, whereas Delhi mothers prompted toddlers to acknowledge the giver more often. Furthermore, there were differences in toddlers' behavior in line with these culture-specific scripts guiding gift giving.

Children's Family Drawings as Expressions of Attachment Representations Across Cultures: Possibilities and Limitations.

The present study explored the cross-cultural appropriateness of children's family drawings as a measure for attachment quality. The sample consisted of 63 children aged 6 years from two diverse ecosocial contexts: middle-class families from Berlin, Germany (n = 32) and rural farming families from small villages around Kumbo, Cameroon (n = 31). The analysis of drawings with two classical attachment procedures, the Checklist of Drawing Signs (Kaplan & Main, 1986) and the Global Rating Scales (Fury, 1996), revealed substantial cultural differences. The results thus substantiated children's drawings as important cultural documents. Implications of the findings, however, are discussed in consideration of culture-specific conceptions of attachment relationships as indicated by cultural variations in mother's socialization goals.

The acceleration of the masculine in early-twentieth-century Berlin.

In early-twentieth-century Berlin, agents of speed and industrialisation, such as the railway, contributed to the seemingly unbridled velocity of urban life. Doctors and cultural critics took an ambivalent stance toward the impact of speed and technology on the human body. Critics argued that these factors, in conjunction with sexual excess and prostitution, accelerated the sexual maturation of young men, thereby endangering 'healthy' male sexuality. This comparison of Hans Ostwald's socio-literary study Dunkle Winkel in Berlin (1904) with Georg Buschan's sexual education primer Vom Jüngling zum Mann (1911) queries the extent to which speed shaped the understanding of 'the masculine' in pre-World-War-I Germany. The essay thus examines Ostwald's and Buschan's arguments and postulates that speed in the city (Berlin) can be seen as a feminised, sexualised force that determined sex in the city. According to this reading, the homosexual urban dandy resisted the accelerated modernist urban tempo, whereas the heterosexual man and hegemonic, heteronormative masculinity yielded to speed. '"Das Verhältnis"' became a fleeting, momentary alternative to stable marital relationships, which in turn contributed to the general 'crisis' of ­ and in­ masculinity in early-twentieth-century Berlin.

Squatting and urban renewal: the interaction of squatter movements and strategies of urban restructuring in Berlin.

Squatting as a housing strategy and as a tool of urban social movements accompanies the development of capitalist cities worldwide. We argue that the dynamics of squatter movements are directly connected to strategies of urban renewal in that movement conjunctures occur when urban regimes are in crisis. An analysis of the history of Berlin squatter movements, their political context and their effects on urban policies since the 1970s, clearly shows how massive mobilizations at the beginning of the 1980s and in the early 1990s developed in a context of transition in regimes of urban renewal. The crisis of Fordist city planning at the end of the 1970s provoked a movement of "rehab squatting" ('Instandbesetzung'), which contributed to the institutionalization of "cautious urban renewal" ('behutsame Stadterneuerung') in an important way. The second rupture in Berlin's urban renewal became apparent in 1989 and 1990, when the necessity of restoring whole inner-city districts constituted a new, budget-straining challenge for urban policymaking. Whilst in the 1980s the squatter movement became a central condition for and a political factor of the transition to "cautious urban renewal," in the 1990s large-scale squatting ­ mainly in the eastern parts of the city ­ is better understood as an alien element in times of neoliberal urban restructuring.

[The journal of A.V. Humboldt in Spain]. / El diario de Alexander von Humboldt en España.

The Spanish diary can surprisingly not be found in his bounded diaries from his American travels, but in a separate folder of his legacy in Berlin, where Humboldt collected material which he wanted to use for his publication about Spain. So it remained undiscovered until recently. Humboldt's notes contain geognostic descriptions as well as his observations about climate, vegetation, electricity of the atmosphere, etc. The comparison with Humboldt's publication of 1825 facilitates to gain insight into his scientific methods.

Sexing Berlin?

Berlin has always been a literary space of extremely diverse political and cultural projections. This essay investigates why after the unification of East and West Berlin the city has been imagined as a play zone of sexual self-fulfilment by authors such as Inka Parei, Tanja Dückers, Kathrin Röggla, Judith Hermann and Julia Franck. Have such erotic adventures replaced political vision in our post-utopian decade? What is the purpose of the laboured allegorisation of the fall of the wall in Durs Grünbein's essays or in the novels of Katja Lange-Müller and Thomas Hettche? The sexification of historical and political processes recalls similar stereotypes in the East German literature of the 1980s: the metropolis as a whore in works by Heiner Müller or Wolf Biermann, but also by younger authors of the independent literary scene in Berlin like Uwe Kolbe or Frank-Wolf Matthies.

Public participation in post-Fordist urban green space governance: the case of community gardens in Berlin.

This article examines citizen participation in the governance of contemporary urban green space. Rather than exploring normative questions of ideal forms of participatory democracy, it focuses on changing roles and relationships between local state and non-state actors in order to identify and explain the changing nature of participation. I argue that neoliberal urban restructuring has changed the conditions for participation and thus participation itself in fundamental ways and that we need an account of changes in statehood and governance in order to capture this conceptually. Based on the case of community gardens in Berlin, the article discusses the extent to which this changed relationship is expressed by current citizen participation as well as the potential and problems that result from it. My empirical results show the emergence of a new political acceptance of autonomously organized projects and active citizen participation in urban green space governance. The central argument of this article is that this new acceptance can be conceptualized as an expression of the neoliberalization of cities. Nevertheless, this neoliberal strategy at the same time leads to complex and contradictory outcomes and the resulting benefits are also acknowledged.

Karl Abraham in New York: the contributions of Bertram D. Lewin.

Bertram D. Lewin (1896-1971), a leading member of the New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, trained at the Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute in the late 1920s. Lewin's thinking was deeply influenced by Karl Abraham, whose delineation of the oral stage of libidinal development provided the theoretical foundation for Lewin's highly original psychoanalytic papers on mania, sleep and dreams. These contributions and his articulation of the oral triad -- the wish to eat, the wish to be eaten and the wish to sleep -- are reviewed and the stimulating influence his thinking exercised on his analytic colleagues is noted.

Sandor Rado and the fate of the Berlin model in New York.

This paper examines the influence of the Berlin model on psychoanalytic education in New York through the person of Sandor Rado, who was recruited from Berlin to become the first Education Director at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute in 1931, and later went on to found the Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research. While the basic elements of the so-called tripartite model of psychoanalytic education were adopted in principle in New York prior to Rado's arrival, he had an enormous impact on the development and implementation of that curriculum, while attempting to modify it both theoretically and clinically, and became one of the focal points of the controversies that led to the break-up of that institute. He also sought to expand ties to American medicine and psychiatry and to research in general.

The Berlin tradition in Chicago: Franz Alexander and the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis.

Freud considered Franz Alexander, the first graduate of the Berlin Psychoanalytic Institute and an assistant in the Berlin Polyclinic, to be "one of our strongest hopes for the future." Alexander went on to become the first director of the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis in 1932 and modeled some of the Chicago Institute's mission on his Berlin experiences. He was also a researcher in psychosomatic medicine, a prolific writer about psychoanalysis and prominent in psychoanalytic organizations. As he proposed modifications in psychoanalytic technique, he became a controversial figure, especially in the elaboration of his ideas about brief therapy and the corrective emotional experience. This paper puts Alexander's achievements in historical context, draws connections between the Berlin and Chicago Institutes and suggests that, despite his quarrels with traditional psychoanalysis, Alexander's legacy may be in his attitude towards psychoanalysis, characterized by a commitment to scientific study, a willingness to experiment, and a conviction about the role of psychoanalysis within the larger culture.

Racial disparity in stroke risk factors: the Berlin-Ibadan experience; a retrospective study.

BACKGROUND: Different workers have reported racial disparities in the distribution of risk factors for stroke and stroke subtype (ischemic vs hemorrhagic). No transcultural transnational studies have been conducted to confirm and relate these disparities to one another. Our objective was to identify differences in the distribution of risk factors for stroke and stroke subtypes among urban-dwelling stroke patients in Nigeria, a developing country, and Germany, an industrialized country. METHODS: Consecutive stroke patients in Ibadan (100) and Berlin (103) were studied. Their hospital records were screened to identify documented vascular risk factors and stroke subtype. RESULTS: The stroke patients in Ibadan were younger than those in Berlin (t = 4.940, P = 0.000). Hypertension was significantly more common in Ibadan while cigarette smoking, dyslipidemia, atherosclerosis, and cardiac factors were significantly more frequent in Berlin. Cerebral infarction was more common in Berlin (80%) than in Ibadan (63%). CONCLUSION: The risk factors associated with cerebral infarction were more frequent in Berlin. We suspect that racial disparity in risk factors for stroke may account for the difference in proportions of stroke subtype in black and white populations. Larger prospective community-based multinational multiracial studies are required to confirm these disparities and identify possible underlying genetic, dietary, and socio-economic factors.

Drug consumption in London and Western Berlin during the 1960s and 1970s: local and transnational perspectives.

Between about 1964 and 1969, drug consumption was embedded into the transnational networks of a countercultural youth underground. In London, the high mobility of the underground members was evoking a deep-rooted fear of a casual way of life. The West Berlin underground was much more politicized than its London counterpart. In West Berlin, until the last third of the 1970s, there was no coordinated anti-drug policy. This changed when the situation of heroin users deteriorated. Politicians as well as the members of the self-help organizations began to realize that a close cooperation and an improved communication were imperative. The situation for heroin users in 1970s London was not that bad when compared to Berlin because a relatively well-functioning civil society already existed, and there were special clinics, the Drug Treatment Centers, and a relatively well-working network of voluntary organizations.