Decay and snapback in superconducting accelerator magnets

This thesis deals with the explanation and compensation of the effects ‘decay’ and ‘snapback’ in superconducting accelerator magnets, in particular in those used in the new Large Hardron Collider at CERN. During periods of constant magnet excitation, as for example during the injection of particles in the storage ring, the magnetic field in superconducting accelerator magnets shows a decay behavior. As soon as the particles are accelerated, the magnets are ramped, and the magnetic field ‘snaps back’ to the original hysteresis curve. Decay and snapback affect the beam in the machine and have to be compensated precisely in order to avoid losses of particles

Vorhofflimmerndiagnostik mittels EKG-fähiger Smartwatches

Background!#!The fiberoptic endoscopic evaluation of swallowing (FEES) is considered to be an indispensable instrumental procedure in the management of patients with dysphagia. The aim of the implemented training curriculum is to raise the quality standards and to contribute to an upgrading of the procedure.!##!Objective!#!The study evaluated to what extent a standardized implementation, evaluation and documentation of FEES takes place in Germany after the introduction of the curriculum.!##!Material and methods!#!In this study 603 neurological and geriatric hospitals in Germany were interviewed by the use of an online questionnaire regarding structural features and the course of the investigation.!##!Results!#!A total of 190 institutions completed the survey. Of the institutions 43.31% had only implemented FEES since the publication of the curriculum. The practical application is increasingly carried out by physicians (59%), the clinical reports and cost recommendations are carried out by speech therapists (62% and 83%, respectively). The practical application by speech therapists increases with increasing level of training. Despite orientation towards the standard protocol according to Langmore, there are differences in the implementation of the anatomical physiological examination, the consistencies and foods administered and the scoring of swallowing-relevant parameters.!##!Discussion!#!The introduction of the curriculum has led to an upgrading of the FEES and to a strengthening of speech therapy as the implementing professional group. At the current state of the art there is a homogeneous course of the examination in essential aspects but it shows a need for further uniformity. The FEES curriculum could be used as a guiding instrument for further standardization

Literatur-Rundschau

Niklas Luhmann: Einführung in die Systemtheorie. Herausgegeben von Dirk Baecker (Klaus Meier) Vinzenz Wyss: Redaktionelles Qualitätsmanagement Ziele, Normen, Ressourcen (Steffen Hillebrecht) Walter Hömberg (Hg.): Deutschland - einig Medienland? Erfahrungen und Analysen (Susanne Haverkamp) Roland Rosenstock: Evangelische Presse im 20. Jahrhundert (Michael Schmolke) Klaus Arnold: Kalter Krieg im Äther. Der Deutschlandsender und die Westpropaganda der SED (Dietrich Schwarzkopf) Thomas Thuna: Tödlicher Chat (Walter Hömberg) Hansjürgen Koschwitz: Wider das "Journal- und Tageblattsverzeddeln". Goethes Pressesicht und Pressenutzung (Markus Behmer)Margit Böck (Hg.): Abenteuer Journalismus (Ferdinand Oertel

PTB-XL+, a comprehensive electrocardiographic feature dataset

Machine learning (ML) methods for the analysis of electrocardiography (ECG) data are gaining importance, substantially supported by the release of large public datasets. However, these current datasets miss important derived descriptors such as ECG features that have been devised in the past hundred years and still form the basis of most automatic ECG analysis algorithms and are critical for cardiologists’ decision processes. ECG features are available from sophisticated commercial software but are not accessible to the general public. To alleviate this issue, we add ECG features from two leading commercial algorithms and an open-source implementation supplemented by a set of automatic diagnostic statements from a commercial ECG analysis software in preprocessed format. This allows the comparison of ML models trained on clinically versus automatically generated label sets. We provide an extensive technical validation of features and diagnostic statements for ML applications. We believe this release crucially enhances the usability of the PTB-XL dataset as a reference dataset for ML methods in the context of ECG data

Ventricular tachycardia, premature ventricular contractions, and mortality in unselected patients with lung, colon, or pancreatic cancer: a prospective study

Aims: Many cancer patients die due to cardiovascular disease and sudden death, but data on ventricular arrhythmia prevalence and prognostic importance are not known. Methods and results: Between 2005 and 2010, we prospectively enrolled 120 unselected patients with lung, colon, or pancreatic cancer due to one of three diagnoses: colorectal (n = 33), pancreatic (n = 54), or non-small cell lung cancer (n = 33). All were free of manifest cardiovascular disease. They were compared to 43 healthy controls similar in age and sex distribution. Each participant underwent 24 h electrocardiogram recording and cancer patients were followed for up to 12.5 years for survival (median 21 months). Ninety-six cancer patients (80%) died during follow-up [5-year survival: 27% (95% confidence interval 19–35%)]. Non-sustained ventricular tachycardia (NSVT) was more frequent in cancer patients vs. controls (8% vs. 0%, P = 0.021). The number of premature ventricular contractions (PVCs) over 24 h was not increased in cancer patients vs. controls (median 4 vs. 9, P = 0.2). In multivariable analysis, NSVT [hazard ratio (HR) 2.44, P = 0.047] and PVCs (per 100, HR 1.021, P = 0.047) were both significant predictors of mortality, independent of other univariable mortality predictors including tumour stage, cancer type, potassium concentration, prior surgery, prior cardiotoxic chemotherapy, and haemoglobin. In patients with colorectal and pancreatic cancer, ≥50 PVCs/24 h predicted mortality (HR 2.30, P = 0.0024), and was identified in 18% and 26% of patients, respectively. Conclusions: Non-sustained ventricular tachycardia is more frequent in unselected patients with colorectal, pancreatic, and non-small cell lung cancer and together with PVCs predict long-term mortality. This raises the prospect of cardiovascular mortality being a target for future treatment interventions in selected cancers

A hall plate based instrument to measure the snapback in the Large Hadron Collider superconducting dipole magnets

The decay and snapback of the magnetic field multipoles in superconducting particle accelerators like the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) could result in a significant particle beam loss unless adequately compensated. Whilst standard instrumentation used to measure the field quality of the superconducting magnets is good enough to measure the harmonic decay, it is not fast enough to measure the snapback. Therefore, a state of the art instrument was recently developed at CERN to measure the most important harmonics with a high measurement frequency and hence improve the understanding of the snapback phenomenon. In this paper we describe the instrument's principle of operation, its mechanical arrangement, its compensation system and its digital acquisition system. We also compare the performance of two different techniques implemented to achieve the necessary measurement resolution of 6 orders of magnitude lower than the main superimposed dipole field.peer-reviewe

Listen to Your Heart: Evaluation of the Cardiologic Ecosystem

Modern implantable cardiologic devices communicate via radio frequency techniques and nearby gateways to a backend server on the internet. Those implanted devices, gateways, and servers form an ecosystem of proprietary hardware and protocols that process sensitive medical data and is often vital for patients’ health. This paper analyzes the security of this Ecosystem, from technical gateway aspects, via the programmer, to configure the implanted device, up to the processing of personal medical data from large cardiological device producers. Based on a real-world attacker model, we evaluated different devices and found several severe vulnerabilities. Furthermore, we could purchase a fully functional programmer for implantable cardiological devices, allowing us to re-program such devices or even induce electric shocks on untampered implanted devices. Additionally, we sent several Art. 15 and Art. 20 GDPR inquiries to manufacturers of implantable cardiologic devices, revealing non-conforming processes and a lack of awareness about patients’ rights and companies’ obligations. This, and the fact that many vulnerabilities are still to be found after many vulnerability disclosures in recent years, present a worrying security state of the whole ecosystem

Literatur-Rundschau

Ursula Rautenberg (Hg.): Reclams Sachlexikon des Buches (Walter Hömberg) Andreas Greis/ Gerfried W. Hunold/ Klaus Koziol (Hg.): Medienethik. Ein Arbeitsbuch Bemhard Debatin/Rüdiger Funiok (Hg.): Kommunikations- und Medienethik (Lars Rademacher) Ludger Verst: MedienpastoraL Bericht über ein Projekt (Susanne Haverkamp) Alexander Seibold: Katholische Filmarbeit in der DDR. "Wir haben eine gewisse Pfiffigkeit uns angenommen." (Peter Hasenberg) Michael Schenk: Medienwirkungsforschung. 2., vollständig überarbeitete Auflage (Hermann-Josef Große-Kracht) Ralf Hohlfeld: Joumalismus und Medienforschung. Theorie, Empirie, Transfer (Gabriele Siegert) Margaretha Ramm u.a.: Berufs- und Karriereplaner Medien und Kommunikation 2003/2004 (Steffen Hillebrecht) Peter Huemer: Warum das Fernsehen dümmer ist als das Radio. Reden über das Reden in den Medien (Verena Blaum) Richard W. Dill: Neue Demokratien – neuer Rundfunk. Erfahrungen mit der Medientransformation in Osteuropa (Klaus Brodbeck)Sten Nadolny: Ullsteinroman (Markus Behmer

Association of an impaired GH-IGF-I axis with cardiac wasting in patients with advanced cancer

Background Growth hormone (GH) resistance is characterized by high GH levels but low levels of insulin-like growth factor-I (IGF-I) and growth hormone binding protein (GHBP) and, for patients with chronic disease, is associated with the development of cachexia. Objectives We investigated whether GH resistance is associated with changes in left ventricular (LV) mass (cardiac wasting) in patients with cancer. Methods We measured plasma IGF-I, GH, and GHBP in 159 women and 148 men with cancer (83% stage III/IV). Patients were grouped by tertile of echocardiographic LVmass/height2 (women, < 50, 50–61, > 61 g/m2; men, < 60, 60–74, > 74 g/m2) and by presence of wasting syndrome with unintentional weight loss (BMI < 24 kg/m2 and weight loss ≥ 5% in the prior 12 months). Repeat echocardiograms were obtained usually within 3–6 months for 85 patients. Results Patients in the lowest LVmass/height2 tertile had higher plasma GH (median (IQR) for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd tertile women, 1.8 (0.9–4.2), 0.8 (0.2–2.2), 0.5 (0.3–1.6) ng/mL, p = 0.029; men, 2.1 (0.8–3.2), 0.6 (0.1–1.7), 0.7 (0.2–1.9) ng/mL, p = 0.003). Among women, lower LVmass was associated with higher plasma IGF-I (68 (48–116), 72 (48–95), 49 (35–76) ng/mL, p = 0.007), whereas such association did not exist for men. Patients with lower LVmass had lower log IGF-I/GH ratio (women, 1.60 ± 0.09, 2.02 ± 0.09, 1.88 ± 0.09, p = 0.004; men, 1.64 ± 0.09, 2.14 ± 0.11, 2.04 ± 0.11, p = 0.002). GHBP was not associated with LVmass. Patients with wasting syndrome with unintentional weight loss had higher plasma GH and GHBP, lower log IGF-I/GH ratio, and similar IGF-I. Overall, GHBP correlated inversely with log IGF-I/GH ratio (women, r =  − 0.591, p < 0.001; men, r =  − 0.575, p < 0.001). Additionally, higher baseline IGF-I was associated with a decline in LVmass during follow-up (r =  − 0.318, p = 0.003). Conclusion In advanced cancer, reduced LVmass is associated with increased plasma GH and reduced IGF-I/GH ratio, suggesting increasing GH resistance, especially for patients with wasting syndrome with unintentional weight loss. Higher baseline IGF-I was associated with a decrease in relative LVmass during follow-up