Assimilation,segregation, or integration? A teaching project examining approaches to religious and ideological diversity in the classroom

In this article, we describe the multiple phases of a project that was constructed around the real case of a young Muslim student who wished to be exempted from coeducational physical education on religious grounds. When the school refused her initial request, she decided to take legal measures which ended up in the German Federal Administrative Court. The court ultimately ruled in her favour. Her case was selected as the core ingredient for a new teaching project, which studies acculturation from different perspectives, and examines the complex balance between individual rights and societal duties, as defined by constitutional law in the Federal Republic of Germany. This case demonstrates that the majority society, represented in this study by the school, at times needs to change traditional educational policy in order to further national goals of integration; not as a compromise, but as a fair balance of interests. The project was implemented successfully as an integrated part of teacher preservice education occurring towards the end of the first academically based phase of their training.     

The German debate over the intake of Uyghur Guantanamo inmates: a research note

Given the recent increase of scholarly interest in the Uyghur diaspora's international activism, this research note presents the development of the Uyghur issue in Germany. Although the Uyghur issue has gradually received attention in German legislative debate, this was not primarily achieved through diasporic efforts; rather, the willingness of sympathetic German parliamentarians to offer Uyghur activists the opportunities and venues to operate played a determining role. However, party politics and reservations from the executive branch have prevented Berlin from accepting Uyghur Guantanamo inmates.     

The Promethean role of Europe: changing narratives of the political and scholarly left

ABSTRACT

The gradual abandoning of the ‘socialism in one country’ doctrine during the post-war period and the intensive transformation of European social democracy in the 1990s pushed social democratic politicians and intellectuals into the front line of advocates of a unified and powerful Europe. They contributed to the inclusion of social democratic and environmentalist values in the EU’s official narrative. The success of European integration and George W. Bush’s presidency created the narrative of the Promethean role of Europe. Scholars with a social democratic or environmentalist background created this narrative and it was also shaped by authors’ national contexts.     

Adaptive phase I/II clinical trials for drug combination assessment in oncology using the outcomes of each cycle

Many new anticancer agents can be combined with existing drugs, as combining a number of drugs may be expected to have a better therapeutic effect than monotherapy owing to synergistic effects. Furthermore, to drive drug development and to reduce the associated cost, there has been a growing tendency to combine these as phase I/II trials. With respect to phase I/II oncology trials for the assessment of dose combinations, in the existing methodologies in which efficacy based on tumor response and safety based on toxicity are modeled as binary outcomes, it is not possible to enroll and treat the next cohort of patients unless the best overall response has been determined in the current cohort. Thus, the trial duration might be potentially extended to an unacceptable degree. In this study, we proposed a method that randomizes the next cohort of patients in the phase II part to the dose combination based on the estimated response rate using all the available observed data upon determination of the overall response in the current cohort. We compared the proposed method to the existing method using simulation studies. These demonstrated that the percentage of optimal dose combinations selected in the proposed method is not less than that in the existing method and that the trial duration in the proposed method is shortened compared to that in the existing method. The proposed method meets both ethical and financial requirements, and we believe it has the potential to contribute to expedite drug development.     

冷战后日美同盟的强化——以联合军事演习为视角

日美联合军事演习的发展演变,体现出冷战后日美同盟的强化:作用范围扩大化、军事合作一体化、战略地位中心化、地区威慑强势化.     

《共产党人》与抗日战争时期党的干部教育

抗战时期党的干部教育是顺应革命形势的发展和干部队伍自身建设的需要而广泛兴起和发展的。《共产党人》是抗战时期中共中央主办的专门研究党的建设理论和实践的党内刊物,刊登了大量党关于干部教育的决定和指示、研究性论文和干部教育通讯,有力地推进了党的干部教育的政策制定、理论解读和实践开展。     

解放战争时期党在解放区的土地政策探析

解放战争时期中国共产党在解放区的土地政策,是我们党的一项重要政策.根据当时的背景变化,党在解放区的土地政策经历了一个历史的演变过程,在中国革命和建设中做出了巨大历史贡献.     

美国"冷战"政策与日苏领土问题的形成

战后日苏领土问题的形成,与美国"冷战"政策有密切关系。美国因"冷战"政策而转变对《雅尔塔协定》的态度,使苏联获得有关领土的法律依据缺少说服力,同时也给日本收回领土提供了口实;美国主导的《旧金山对日媾和条约》要求日本放弃有关领土,但又不规定其最终归属对象;美国对日苏两国恢复邦交正常化谈判的干涉,表面上支持日本方面主张,实质上阻止日本方面妥协而使领土问题成为遗留问题。美国国际"冷战"政策是造成战后日苏及日俄领土问题形成最重要的外来因素。     

A simple two-stage design for quantitative responses with application to a study in diabetic neuropathic pain

Two-stage designs offer substantial advantages for early phase II studies. The interim analysis following the first stage allows the study to be stopped for futility, or more positively, it might lead to early progression to the trials needed for late phase II and phase III. If the study is to continue to its second stage, then there is an opportunity for a revision of the total sample size. Two-stage designs have been implemented widely in oncology studies in which there is a single treatment arm and patient responses are binary. In this paper the case of two-arm comparative studies in which responses are quantitative is considered. This setting is common in therapeutic areas other than oncology. It will be assumed that observations are normally distributed, but that there is some doubt concerning their standard deviation, motivating the need for sample size review. The work reported has been motivated by a study in diabetic neuropathic pain, and the development of the design for that trial is described in detail.