Early diagnosis of sleep related breathing disorders

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) being the most frequent sleep related breathing disorder results in non-restorative sleep, an increased cardiovascular morbidity and mortality as well as an elevated number of accidents. In Germany at least two million people have to be expected. If obstructive sleep apnea is diagnosed early enough then sleep may regain its restorative function, daytime performance may be improved and accident risk as well as cardiovascular risk may be normalised. This review critically evaluates anamnestic parameters, questionnaires, clinical findings and unattended recordings during sleep regarding their diagnostic accurracy in recognising OSA

Optimal Investment Policies for Hybrid Pension Plans - Analyzing the Perspective of Sponsors and Members

This paper analyzes investment strategies in the context of alternative hybrid pension plans which are optimal either from the perspective of the plan sponsor or the beneficiaries. The focus is in particular on how the introduction of minimum and maximum limits for pension benefits as well as minimum guarantees and caps on the return of the members’ individual investment accounts affect the investment decision. The study finds that portfolio choice of sponsor and beneficiaries shows substantial differences depending on the exact plan design and the beneficiaries’ risk aversion. The introduction of caps on investment returns emerged a possible means to reduce such differences and to share investment risks and returns more equally between sponsor and beneficiaries.

06311 Executive Summary -- Sensor Data and Information Fusion in Computer Vision and Medicine

Today many technical systems are equipped with multiple sensors and information sources, like cameras, ultrasound sensors or web data bases. It is no problem to generate an exorbitantly large amount of data, but it is mostly unsolved how to take advantage of the expectation that the collected data provide more information than the sum of its parts. The design and analysis of algorithms for sensor data and information acquisition and fusion as well as the usage in a differentiated application field was the major focus of the Seminar held in the International Conference and Research Center (IBFI), Schloss Dagstuhl. 24 researchers, practitioners, and application experts from different areas met to summarize the current state-of-the-art technology in data and information fusion, to discuss current research problems in fusion, and to envision future demands of this challenging research field. The considered application scenarios for data and information fusion were in the fields of computer vision and medicine

06311 Abstracts Collection -- Sensor Data and Information Fusion in Computer Vision and Medicine

From 30.07.06 to 04.08.06, the Dagstuhl Seminar 06311 ``Sensor Data and Information Fusion in Computer Vision and Medicine\u27\u27 was held in the International Conference and Research Center (IBFI), Schloss Dagstuhl. Sensor data fusion is of increasing importance for many research fields and applications. Multi-modal imaging is routine in medicine, and in robitics it is common to use multi-sensor data fusion. During the seminar, researchers and application experts working in the field of sensor data fusion presented their current research, and ongoing work and open problems were discussed. Abstracts of the presentations given during the seminar as well as abstracts of seminar results and ideas are put together in this paper. The first section describes the seminar topics and goals in general. The second part briefly summarizes the contributions

Die Marineärztliche Akademie 1940-1945: kurzer Abriß ihrer Geschichte

"The systematic improvements in the training of field surgeons, hospital surgeons and, finally, physicians in the Prussian Army from 1713 on found no counterpart in the German Navy. The first independent naval medical officer cadets were hired by the Reich Navy in the mid 1920s to form the Kiel-Wik Naval Hospital parent unit. When the Military Medical Academy was founded anew in Berlin in 1934, medical officer cadets were brought together from all three branches of the army. They carried out their studies in civilian dress at the Friedrich Wilhelm University, the military playing only a marginal role in their lives. As time went on, the Navy felt the need to train its medical officer cadets in a manner better befitting naval concerns, and above all to provide them with military training that corresponded more closely with other officers' careers. These aspirations, as well as the lack of space at the Military Medical Academy, led to the establishment of the Naval Medical Academy in Kiel on January 2, 1940. From the very beginning, there were conflicts between the commander on the one hand and three officers as well as the 'Berlin Crews' on the other, due to the fact that the latter had not been properly informed of the training goal as determined by the chief naval medical officer and the inspectorate of the naval educational system. The situation, which was difficult primarily on the interpersonal level, was solved in an 'elegant' manner by the transfer of the academy to Tübingen. Following the studies required of them by the qualification regulations and the relatively small amount of time occupied with military service, the cadets had ample opportunity to pursue their artistic, cultural and sports interests or even a second course of study. The studies comprised no political activities or indoctrination efforts. The dissolution of the academy in 1944-45 was carried out in a relatively disorderly fashion and in a manner little suited to the purposes of the various crews. The success later enjoyed by the former cadets as physicians and university professors as well as in non-medical professions nevertheless testified to the fact that both their selection and their training had provided excellent foundations for their post-war careers." (author's abstract

Ökonometrische Modellierung von Transaktionsintensitäten auf Finanzmärkten : eine Anwendung von Autoregressive-conditional-duration-Modellen auf die IPO der Deutschen Telekom

Wir verwenden eine neue, auf der Burr-Verteilung basierende Spezifikation aus der Familie der Autoregressive Conditional Duration (ACD) Modelle zur ökonometrischen Analyse der Transaktionsintensitäten während der Börseneinführung (IPO) der Deutsche Telekom Aktie. In diesem Fallbeispiel wird die Leistungsfähigkeit des neu entwickelten Burr-ACD-Modells mit den Standardmodellen von Engle und Russell verglichen, die im Burr-ACD Modell als Spezialfälle enthalten sind. Wir diskutieren außerdem alternative Möglichkeiten, Intra- Tagessaisonalitäten der Handelsintensität in ACD Modellen zu berücksichtigen

Batch anaerobic digestion of banana waste - energy potential and modelling of methane production kinetics

Different fractions of banana (stalk, peel, and flesh) as well as the whole unpeeled banana were studied in a laboratory Biochemical Methane Potential (BMP) assay. After completion of 35-day digestion at 37°C in 2L-reactors, specific methane yields reached 0.256, 0.322, 0.367 and 0.349 m³/kg VS (volatile solids) for stalk, peel, flesh, and unpeeled banana respectively. Considering the country of Uganda, East Africa, the collection of peels and stalks from banana production would yield a theoretical potential of about 60 GWh of electrical energy per year in biogas plants. In order to verify the suitability of banana fractions to the biogas process, their chemical composition was analyzed, and their methane production kinetics was estimated with exponential and logistic models. Banana peel was found to be easily degradable, and well suited for biogas production. Banana flesh had the fastest degradation rate of all banana fractions, and banana stalk had the slowest degradation rate, respectively. Methane production kinetics was fitted with first order and logistic models. The kinetics of methane production from banana flesh correlated well with a logistic model, but did not with exponential models. Alternately, methane production kinetics from banana stalk correlated well with exponential models, but did not with the logistic model. Methane production kinetics from banana peel did not correlate well with any model. Hence, the biochemistry of anaerobic processes may follow different patterns depending on substrate degradability, explaining the difficulty of finding a universal explanatory model of methane production kinetics in batch mode