High β-1,4-Galactosyltransferase-I expression in peripheral T-lymphocytes is associated with a low risk of relapse in germ-cell cancer patients receiving high-dose chemotherapy with autologous stem cell reinfusion.

Survival of patients with germ-cell cancer (GCC) and primary progression or relapse after cisplatin-based first-line chemotherapy is highly heterogeneous, ranging from close to zero to more than 70%. We investigated β-1,4-Galactosyltransferase-I () expression levels in peripheral lymphocytes in a cohort of 46 testicular cancer patients. enhances immune cell crosstalk via glycosylation of surface molecules. A high expression level of in T-lymphocytes, but not in monocytes, was associated with a lower risk of relapse with a hazard ratio (HR) of 0.66 (95% confidence interval (CI) of HR: 0.45-0.97; = 0.02) upon multivariate Cox regression analysis. Correspondingly, interleukin 10 (IL10), a cytokine released by cytotoxic T-cells, was likewise significantly elevated in T-lymphocytes of non-relapse GCC patients (HR: 0.3; 95% CI of HR: 0.14-0.65; = 0.002). Our data indicate that glycosylation and activation of T-lymphocytes may play a pivotal role in disease control in GCC patients with primary progressive or relapsed disease

State of the climate in 2018

In 2018, the dominant greenhouse gases released into Earth’s atmosphere—carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide—continued their increase. The annual global average carbon dioxide concentration at Earth’s surface was 407.4 ± 0.1 ppm, the highest in the modern instrumental record and in ice core records dating back 800 000 years. Combined, greenhouse gases and several halogenated gases contribute just over 3 W m−2 to radiative forcing and represent a nearly 43% increase since 1990. Carbon dioxide is responsible for about 65% of this radiative forcing. With a weak La Niña in early 2018 transitioning to a weak El Niño by the year’s end, the global surface (land and ocean) temperature was the fourth highest on record, with only 2015 through 2017 being warmer. Several European countries reported record high annual temperatures. There were also more high, and fewer low, temperature extremes than in nearly all of the 68-year extremes record. Madagascar recorded a record daily temperature of 40.5°C in Morondava in March, while South Korea set its record high of 41.0°C in August in Hongcheon. Nawabshah, Pakistan, recorded its highest temperature of 50.2°C, which may be a new daily world record for April. Globally, the annual lower troposphere temperature was third to seventh highest, depending on the dataset analyzed. The lower stratospheric temperature was approximately fifth lowest. The 2018 Arctic land surface temperature was 1.2°C above the 1981–2010 average, tying for third highest in the 118-year record, following 2016 and 2017. June’s Arctic snow cover extent was almost half of what it was 35 years ago. Across Greenland, however, regional summer temperatures were generally below or near average. Additionally, a satellite survey of 47 glaciers in Greenland indicated a net increase in area for the first time since records began in 1999. Increasing permafrost temperatures were reported at most observation sites in the Arctic, with the overall increase of 0.1°–0.2°C between 2017 and 2018 being comparable to the highest rate of warming ever observed in the region. On 17 March, Arctic sea ice extent marked the second smallest annual maximum in the 38-year record, larger than only 2017. The minimum extent in 2018 was reached on 19 September and again on 23 September, tying 2008 and 2010 for the sixth lowest extent on record. The 23 September date tied 1997 as the latest sea ice minimum date on record. First-year ice now dominates the ice cover, comprising 77% of the March 2018 ice pack compared to 55% during the 1980s. Because thinner, younger ice is more vulnerable to melting out in summer, this shift in sea ice age has contributed to the decreasing trend in minimum ice extent. Regionally, Bering Sea ice extent was at record lows for almost the entire 2017/18 ice season. For the Antarctic continent as a whole, 2018 was warmer than average. On the highest points of the Antarctic Plateau, the automatic weather station Relay (74°S) broke or tied six monthly temperature records throughout the year, with August breaking its record by nearly 8°C. However, cool conditions in the western Bellingshausen Sea and Amundsen Sea sector contributed to a low melt season overall for 2017/18. High SSTs contributed to low summer sea ice extent in the Ross and Weddell Seas in 2018, underpinning the second lowest Antarctic summer minimum sea ice extent on record. Despite conducive conditions for its formation, the ozone hole at its maximum extent in September was near the 2000–18 mean, likely due to an ongoing slow decline in stratospheric chlorine monoxide concentration. Across the oceans, globally averaged SST decreased slightly since the record El Niño year of 2016 but was still far above the climatological mean. On average, SST is increasing at a rate of 0.10° ± 0.01°C decade−1 since 1950. The warming appeared largest in the tropical Indian Ocean and smallest in the North Pacific. The deeper ocean continues to warm year after year. For the seventh consecutive year, global annual mean sea level became the highest in the 26-year record, rising to 81 mm above the 1993 average. As anticipated in a warming climate, the hydrological cycle over the ocean is accelerating: dry regions are becoming drier and wet regions rainier. Closer to the equator, 95 named tropical storms were observed during 2018, well above the 1981–2010 average of 82. Eleven tropical cyclones reached Saffir–Simpson scale Category 5 intensity. North Atlantic Major Hurricane Michael’s landfall intensity of 140 kt was the fourth strongest for any continental U.S. hurricane landfall in the 168-year record. Michael caused more than 30 fatalities and $25 billion (U.S. dollars) in damages. In the western North Pacific, Super Typhoon Mangkhut led to 160 fatalities and$6 billion (U.S. dollars) in damages across the Philippines, Hong Kong, Macau, mainland China, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands. Tropical Storm Son-Tinh was responsible for 170 fatalities in Vietnam and Laos. Nearly all the islands of Micronesia experienced at least moderate impacts from various tropical cyclones. Across land, many areas around the globe received copious precipitation, notable at different time scales. Rodrigues and Réunion Island near southern Africa each reported their third wettest year on record. In Hawaii, 1262 mm precipitation at Waipā Gardens (Kauai) on 14–15 April set a new U.S. record for 24-h precipitation. In Brazil, the city of Belo Horizonte received nearly 75 mm of rain in just 20 minutes, nearly half its monthly average. Globally, fire activity during 2018 was the lowest since the start of the record in 1997, with a combined burned area of about 500 million hectares. This reinforced the long-term downward trend in fire emissions driven by changes in land use in frequently burning savannas. However, wildfires burned 3.5 million hectares across the United States, well above the 2000–10 average of 2.7 million hectares. Combined, U.S. wildfire damages for the 2017 and 2018 wildfire seasons exceeded $40 billion (U.S. dollars)

Baseline and lifetime alcohol consumption and risk of differentiated thyroid carcinoma in the EPIC study

Background: Results from several cohort and case–control studies suggest a protective association between current alcohol intake and risk of thyroid carcinoma, but the epidemiological evidence is not completely consistent and several questions remain unanswered. Methods: The association between alcohol consumption at recruitment and over the lifetime and risk of differentiated thyroid carcinoma was examined in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition. Among 477 263 eligible participants (70% women), 556 (90% women) were diagnosed with differentiated thyroid carcinoma over a mean follow-up of 11 years. Hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were estimated using multivariable Cox proportional hazards models. Results: Compared with participants consuming 0.1–4.9 g of alcohol per day at recruitment, participants consuming 15 or more grams (approximately 1–1.5 drinks) had a 23% lower risk of differentiated thyroid carcinoma (HR=0.77; 95% CI=0.60–0.98). These findings did not differ greatly when analyses were conducted for lifetime alcohol consumption, although the risk estimates were attenuated and not statistically significant anymore. Similar results were observed by type of alcoholic beverage, by differentiated thyroid carcinoma histology or according to age, sex, smoking status, body mass index and diabetes. Conclusions: Our study provides some support to the hypothesis that moderate alcohol consumption may be associated with a lower risk of papillary and follicular thyroid carcinomas

Mit der GND arbeiten – Datenabgleich und -anreicherung mithilfe von OpenRefine

Vortrag beim GND-Forum Archiv, DNB Frankfurt, 5. Oktober 2022 OpenRefine ist ein mächtiges Hilfsmittel, um tabellarische Daten zu bereinigen und umzuwandeln. Allein dadurch ist es schon gut geeignet, um Daten – etwa vor Lieferungen an Portale wie das Archivportal-D oder für anderweitige Veröffentlichungen – aufzubereiten. Neben diesen Anwendungen in der Datenaufbereitung bietet OpenRefine auch die Möglichkeit, über integrierte Schnittstellen Daten mit externen Normdateien wie der Gemeinsamen Normdatei (GND) abzugleichen und die eigenen Daten aus diesen anzureichern. Genau dieser Abgleich mit der GND und die folgende Anreicherung der Daten nach einer umfassenden Bereinigung der Ausgangsdaten soll in diesem Vortrag exemplarisch aufgezeigt werden. Genutzt wird dafür ein Ausschnitt der Gurs-Datenbank, die als Themenmodul auf LEO-BW veröffentlicht wurde und mehr als 6.500 Biogramme zu 1.940 deportierten Personen aus dem deutschen Südwesten zur Verfügung stellt. Dabei werden häufige Problemfälle und Schwierigkeiten beim Datenabgleich aufgezeigt und verschiedene Möglichkeiten vorgestellt, wie mit diesen umgegangen werden kann

The Fingerprints of Fraud : An In-depth Study of Election Forensics with Digit Tests

publishe

Election fraud, digit tests and how humans fabricate vote counts: an experimental approach

The Last Digit test is a notable method to detect election fraud. It is based on an assumption that a manipulator replaces the vote counts of an election result sheet with man-made numbers, but will fail to make the numbers look random. Allegations of election fraud are based on this mechanism, but the strategic behaviour of humans when manipulating election results could make it difficult to detect fraudulent activities. This paper is the first to use a laboratory experiment to evaluate the ability of the Last Digit test to detect human manipulation of election results. Only a small share of participants’ manipulations are detected by the Last Digit test. The small sensitivity is due to the strategic behaviour of participants. Participants in the experiment manipulate as few polling stations as necessary to reach their manipulation aim, manipulate leading digits when the requested intensity of fraud is extremely high, and use alternative strategies that are difficult to detect using the test. The analysis of the experiment further shows that only if participants alter a substantial share of last digits in the experiment the test indicates fraudulent activities

Judges' behaviour and relationship with political parties in a non-common-law country : the case of the German Federal Constitutional Court

In contrast to common-law countries, in civil-law countries it is difficult to investigate individual judges as political actors. It is mainly due to the legal norm under the civil-law tradition which is averse to disclosing individual judges' behavior. An exception is the German Federal Constitutional Court, permitting their judges to publish dissenting opinions. This paper identifies individual judges' political orientation on an underlying dimension by applying an unfolding-type of item-response model to those dissenting opinions. We find different degrees of congruence between political parties' and judges' political orientation, which we explain by the principal-agent theory. More specifically, we argue that some characteristics of potential judges are crucial for the screening by political parties in the selection process of the judges. Our empirical analysis shows that judges' party membership and former political career promise more screening success by parties, while lifetime appointment decreases congruence of nominating parties and judges

Detecting election fraud: is it possible to identify manipulated vote counts?

In the quest to tackle electoral malpractice, election observers and political scientists have sought ways to identify when vote counts have been manipulated. One proposed method is to analyse non-random patterns in the last digits of vote counts. Verena Mack and Lukas F. Stoetzer tested this technique and found that it cannot reliably identify fraud, but that such experiments are a useful way to build up a set of potential identifiers of vote manipulation

Bereicherung für jede Datenbank – warum auch kleinere und mittlere Archive von Normdaten profitieren können

Vortrag auf der 26. Tagung des "Arbeitskreises Unterlagen aus digitalen Systemen (AudS)" am 22. März 2023 im MARCHIVUM Mannheim Normdaten sind ein idealer Ansatz, um Kulturgüter, Bibliotheksbestände und Forschungsdaten fächer- und spartenübergreifend miteinander zu verbinden. Die Gemeinsame Normdatei (GND) vereint in sich Normdatensätze für Personen, Körperschaften, Sachbegriffe, Geografika, Werke sowie Konferenzen und Veranstaltungen, die zunehmend auch von Archiven, Museen und anderen Kultureinrichtungen genutzt werden. Die GND ist organisatorisch, fachlich und technisch allerdings noch immer stark auf die Nutzung durch Bibliotheken ausgerichtet und wird den Bedarfen anderer Kultur- und Wissenseinrichtungen nur eingeschränkt gerecht. Das von der DFG geförderte Projekt "GND4C – GND für Kulturdaten" setzt hier an: Das Vorhaben soll die entsprechenden organisatorischen und technischen Voraussetzungen schaffen, um das bisher auf eine bibliothekarische Nutzung ausgerichtete Angebot in ein spartenübergreifendes Produkt zu überführen. Der Vortrag erläutert das Potenzial von Normdaten und führt kurz in die GND ein. Außerdem wird mit LEO-BW-Regional die erste nicht-bibliothekarische GND-Agentur vorgestellt, die im Rahmen des GND4C-Projekts Ende 2020 entstanden ist. Die Agenturkooperation zwischen dem Bibliotheksservice-Zentrum Baden-Württemberg (BSZ) und dem Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg (LABW) beruht auf einer langjährigen erfolgreichen Partnerschaft und Zusammenarbeit der beiden Landeseinrichtungen, die mit einer Schwerpunktsetzung auf Archive und Museen ihre jeweilige Community- und projektspezifische Sicht in die GND-Agentur einbringen. Als Kompetenzzentrum und Beratungsstelle für Normdatenbelange aller baden-württembergischen Institutionen aus dem Kulturbereich wird die GND-Agentur LEO-BW-Regional stetig ausgebaut, insbesondere für die teilnehmenden Partnerinstitutionen am landeskundlichen Informationssystem und Kulturgutportal LEO-BW. Der Vortrag erläutert den kooperativen Ansatz von BSZ und LABW bei der GND-Agentur und gibt Einblicke in das Service-Portfolio und die Tätigkeitsschwerpunkte

archiv.gut.normieren: Das Projekt GND4C am Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg

Vortrag beim 90. Deutschen Archivtag am 28. September 2023 in Bielefeld INHALT: - GND4C-Phase 1: Aller Anfang ist schwer… : Ausgangslage - GND4C-Phase 2: …aber am Ende wird (fast) alles gut : Ergebniss