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This thesis uses reception theory, as formulated by the late Wolfgang Iser, as well as ideas about interpellation or hailing, to compare and analyze two paintings: The Annunciation (c. 1435) by Roger van der Weyden and Personal Values (1952) by René Magritte. It demonstrates that interpellation and reception are part of the same process, and that reception theory is especially suited to this comparison and analysis-because it allows consideration of ways in which the comparable pictorial structures of both paintings facilitate their intentions. It argues that those intentions are to engage viewers in a dialogue that ultimately is beneficial to both pictures and viewers. Furthermore, based on this shared intent, and on visible structural similarities, it argues that each of the two paintings identifies and receives the other as a picture of the same image-that is, of the Annunciation.

William Langland's The Vision of Piers Plowman was probably the first medieval English poem to achieve a national audience because Langland chose to write in the vernacular and he used the specialized vocabularies of his readership to open the poem to them. During the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, writers began using the vernacular in an attempt to allow all English people access to their texts. They did so consciously, indicating their intent in prologues and envois when they formally address readers. Some writers, like Langland and the author of Mankind, actually use representatives of the rural classes as primary characters who exhibit the beliefs and lives of the rural population. Anne Middleton's distinction between public-the readership an author imagined-and audience-the readership a work achieved-allows modern critics to discuss both public and audience and try to determine how the two differed. While the public is always only a presumption, the language in which an author writes and the cultural events depicted by the literature can provide a more plausible estimate of the public. The vernacular allowed authors like Gower, Chaucer, the author of Mankind, and Langland to use the specialized vocabularies of the legal and rural communities to discuss societal problems. They also use representatives of the communities to further open the texts to a vernacular public. These open texts provide some representation for the rural and common people's ideas about the other classes to be heard. Langland in particular uses the specialized vocabularies and representative characters to establish both the faults of all English people and a common guide they can follow to seek moral lives through Truth. His rural character, Piers the Plowman, allows rural readers to identify with the messages in the text while showing upper class and educated readers that they too can emulate a rural character who sets a moral standard.

Die mittlere Höhe des arteriellen Blutdruckes (AP) ist von zentraler Bedeutung für das kardiovaskuläre Risiko Hochdruckkranker. Zusätzlich zeigen neuere Untersuchungen, daß Änderungen der Blutdruckdynamik eine wichtige Rolle in der Entwicklung hypertonieassoziierten Endorganschäden zukommt. Die Blutdruckvariabilität scheint in diesem Zusammenhang sogar einen eigenständigen Risikofaktor zu bilden. Der Einfluß kurzfristiger Blutdruckschwankungen auf zentrale Mechanismen der Langzeitblutdruckregulation, wie beispielsweise die renale Elimination von Natrium und Wasser, ist weitgehend unbekannt. Unsere Untersuchungen zeigen, daß schnelle Blutdruckschwankungen (BPO) kaum von der renalen Autoregulation der Durchblutung (RBF) unterdrückt werden können und zu Oszillation im Harnzeitvolumen führen. Es ist daher wahrscheinlich, daß BPO intrarenale System der Blutdruckregulation (wie beispielsweise das Renin-Angiotensin-System oder die schubspannungsabhängige Freisetzung von Stickoxid) modulieren können. Um diese Hypothese zu testen wurde der Einfluß von 0,1Hz BPO auf die Entwicklung eines renovaskulären Hypertonus untersucht. BPO um 85mmHg senkten signifikant die Plasmareninaktivität, erhöhten die tägliche Ausscheidung von Wasser, Natrium und Kalium und induzierten einen transienten Anstieg der Nitratspiegel im Urin wobei eine deutliche Senkung des arteriellen Blutdruckes beobachtet wurde. / The average level of arterial blood pressure (AP) is a major determinant of future cardiovascular complications in hypertension. In addition, recent investigations demonstrate that the dynamic properties of BP are of significant importance for the development of hypertension - related end organ damage in patients. Thus, hypertension - related changes in blood pressure dynamics seem to establish an independent risk factor for cardiovascular complications. Little is known regarding the influence of such short - term changes in AP on kidney function, a crucial control element for long - term AP regulation. Our investigations show that fast blood pressure oscillations (BPO) are not effectively buffered by renal blood flow autoregulation and induce oscillations in urine flow. It seems, therefore, likely that AP fluctuations can modulate intrarenally located systems involved in blood pressure regulation (e.g., renin release or shear stress dependent release of endothelium derived nitric oxide). To test this hypothesis we investigated the impact of induced BPO with a frequency of 0.1Hz on the onset of renovascular hypertension. BPO around 85mmHg significantly decreased plasma renin activity, enhanced 24h fluid, sodium and potassium excretion, and induced a transient increase in urinary nitrate excretion, thereby, attenuating renovascular hypertension.

Tunneling in 1D describes the effect that quantum particles can penetrate a classically insurmountable potential energy barrier. The extension to classically forbidden transitions in phase space generalizes the tunneling concept. A typical 1D Hamiltonian system has a mixed phase space. It contains regions of regular and chaotic dynamics, the so-called regular islands and the chaotic sea. These different phase space components are classically separated by dynamically generated barriers. Quantum mechanically they are, however, connected by dynamical tunneling. We perform a semiclassical quantization of almost resonance-free regular islands and transporting island chains of quantum maps. This yields so-called quasimodes, which are used for the investigation of direct dynamical tunneling from an almost resonance-free regular island to the chaotic sea. We derive a formula which allows for the determination of dynamical tunneling rates. Good agreement between this analytical prediction and numerical results is found over several orders of magnitude for two example systems. / Der 1D Tunneleffekt bezeichnet das Durchdringen einer klassisch nicht überwindbaren potentiellen Energiebarriere durch Quantenteilchen. Eine Verallgemeinerung des Tunnelbegriffs ist die Erweiterung auf jegliche Art von klassisch verbotenen Übergangsprozessen im Phasenraum. Der Phasenraum eines typischen 1D Hamiltonschen Systems ist gemischt. Er besteht aus Bereichen regulärer und chaotischer Dynamik, den sogenannten regulären Inseln und der chaotischen See. Während diese verschiedenen Phasenraumbereiche klassisch durch dynamisch generierte Barrieren voneinander getrennt sind, existiert quantenmechanisch jedoch eine Verknüpfung durch den dynamischen Tunnelprozess. In dieser Arbeit wird eine semiklassische Quantisierung von praktisch resonanz-freien regulären Inseln und transportierenden Inselketten von Quantenabbildungen durchgeführt. Die daraus folgenden sogenannten Quasimoden werden für die Untersuchung des direkten dynamischen Tunnelns aus einer praktisch resonanz-freien regulären Insel in die chaotische See verwendet, was auf eine Tunnelraten vorhersagende Formel führt. Ihre anschlie?ßende Anwendung auf zwei Modellsysteme zeigt eine gute Übereinstimmung zwischen Numerik und analytischer Vorhersage über viele Größenordnungen.