Gesundheitsökonomische Analyse des Apothekensystems. Mit Fokus auf den Vertrieb von nicht-verschreibungspflichtigen Arzneimitteln

Das Ziel der Studie besteht darin, gesundheitsökonomische Aspekte des Apothekensystems sowie des Arzneimittelvertriebsmarktes zu beleuchten und mögliche Auswirkungen einer Vertriebsderegulierung von nicht-verschreibungspflichtigen Arzneimitteln (NVA) herauszuarbeiten. Zu diesem Zweck werden sowohl theoretische Literatur als auch bereits existierende empirische Evidenz aufgearbeitet. Die empirische Evidenz zu solchen Auswirkungen konzentriert sich dabei in erster Linie auf sechs ausgewählte Länder, die in den letzten Jahren Deregulierungsmaßnahmen gesetzt haben (Dänemark, Niederlande, Norwegen, Schweden) bzw. deren Vertriebssysteme grundsätzlich einem geringen Maß an Regulierung im NVA-Bereich unterliegen (England, USA)

Diattenuation of Brain Tissue and its Impact on 3D Polarized Light Imaging

3D-Polarized Light Imaging (3D-PLI) reconstructs nerve fibers in histological brain sections by measuring their birefringence. This study investigates another effect caused by the optical anisotropy of brain tissue - diattenuation. Based on numerical and experimental studies and a complete analytical description of the optical system, the diattenuation was determined to be below 4 % in rat brain tissue. It was demonstrated that the diattenuation effect has negligible impact on the fiber orientations derived by 3D-PLI. The diattenuation signal, however, was found to highlight different anatomical structures that cannot be distinguished with current imaging techniques, which makes Diattenuation Imaging a promising extension to 3D-PLI.Comment: 32 pages, 15 figure

Thermoresponsive Colloidal Molecules

We fabricated thermoresponsive colloidal molecules of ca. 250 nm size. Electron- and scanning force microscopy reveal the dumbbell-shaped morphology. The temperature dependence of the size and aspect ratio (ca. 1.4 to 1.6) is analyzed by depolarized dynamic light scattering and found to be in good agreement with microscopic evidence

A Jones matrix formalism for simulating three-dimensional polarized light imaging of brain tissue

The neuroimaging technique three-dimensional polarized light imaging (3D-PLI) provides a high-resolution reconstruction of nerve fibres in human post-mortem brains. The orientations of the fibres are derived from birefringence measurements of histological brain sections assuming that the nerve fibres - consisting of an axon and a surrounding myelin sheath - are uniaxial birefringent and that the measured optic axis is oriented in direction of the nerve fibres (macroscopic model). Although experimental studies support this assumption, the molecular structure of the myelin sheath suggests that the birefringence of a nerve fibre can be described more precisely by multiple optic axes oriented radially around the fibre axis (microscopic model). In this paper, we compare the use of the macroscopic and the microscopic model for simulating 3D-PLI by means of the Jones matrix formalism. The simulations show that the macroscopic model ensures a reliable estimation of the fibre orientations as long as the polarimeter does not resolve structures smaller than the diameter of single fibres. In the case of fibre bundles, polarimeters with even higher resolutions can be used without losing reliability. When taking the myelin density into account, the derived fibre orientations are considerably improved.Comment: 20 pages, 8 figure

the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) as a new form of governance in climate protection

Die Bewältigung des Klimawandels ist heute eine der bedeutendsten politischen Herausforderungen. Das Kyoto-Protokoll ist der am weitesten fortgeschrittene Prozess der internationalen Staatengemeinschaft im Hinblick auf die Herausforderungen des Klimawandels. Einer der interessantesten und innovativsten Bausteine des Kyoto-Protokolls ist der Clean Development Mechanismus (CDM). Seit seiner Initiierung ist dieser so genannte flexible Mechanismus der Schlüssel zur Schaffung von volatilen und boomenden Märkten für Zertifikate für die Reduktion von Kohlenstoffemissionen (CERs). Diese Zertifikate, kurz CERs, sind die ersten international gehandelten Güter, die durch ein internationales Umweltabkommen geschaffen wurden. Während des Prozesses der Marktetablierung sind private Akteure wie Firmen, Projektverifizierer, Carbon Funds und Zertifikatshändler zu den führenden Akteuren des globalen Kohlenstoffmarktes aufgestiegen. Dennoch ist der Markt weiterhin stark von den politischen Rahmenbedingungen abhängig. Die Nachfrage wird durch die Festlegung von Emissionsreduktionen für Nationalstaaten und deren Emissionsallokationen geschaffen. Der vorliegende Artikel untersucht die Transformation des Markts, der zunächst von öffentlichen Akteuren initiiert, durch Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) angestoßen, sich zu einem Markt entwickelt, wo sich die Regierungen nach und nach zurückziehen und private Akteure immer stärker Governancefunktionen wahrnehmen. Weiterhin wird der Status quo des CDM evaluiert und auf verbleibende Forschungsfragen hingewiesen

Why climate change adaptation in cities needs customised and flexible climate services

AbstractCities are key players in climate change adaptation and mitigation due to a spatial concentration of assets, people and economic activities. They are thus contributing to and especially vulnerable to climate change. Identifying, planning, implementing and monitoring respective measures in cities is challenging and resource consuming. The paper outlines challenges for adaptation, discusses most common approaches and argues why implementation of theoretical methods has its shortcomings. Based on case studies, an innovative, practice-oriented approach has been tested to develop a climate service prototype product. It provides a general framework that allows a flexible and customised support for cities to adapt to expected impacts of a changing climate

Die Anbauwürdigkeit der Blauen Lupine in Bayern

Blue lupin (Lupinus angustifolius L.) could be an additional local protein crop in Bavaria for animal and human food production. It would also enlarge crop rotation in organic agriculture. At the moment, this crop is mainly cultivated in the northeastern parts of Germany. It is adapted to pH until 6.8 and sandy loamy soils. Currently, it is not re-commended for cultivation in Bavaria. In field trials, different varieties of blue lupins proved to be worth cultivating on organically managed sandy loam and loamy sand on three sites in Bavaria. Boregine and Probor were tested for four years, Mirabor and Boruta for one year. All varieties showed high crop and protein yield, also compared to white lupins. Boregine had the highest crop yield, whereas Probor the highest content of protein. Thus, blue lupin can be cultivated successfully on suitable sites in Bavaria

On the Value of Accurate Demand Information in Public-Private Emergency Collaborations

In cases where the private sector struggles to cope with the impact of a disaster, authorities try to reduce the burden on the population and set up supply chains to distribute essential goods. Therefore, they estimate demand and location of the affected people and open points of distribution to supply goods from, e.g. public buildings or sports facilities. However, the location of these points of distribution depends heavily on accurate demand estimations. Combined with a high time pressure that prevents the collection of detailed data, inefficient decisions result. However, these decisions improve significantly if private actors share their market knowledge. Since this information is strictly confidential for companies and at the same time requires a lot of coordination effort from public actors to acquire, the quantification of the benefits of the collaboration is important for both sides. Moreover, the time at which the information is received and the way the information is utilized regarding different intervention intensities is supposed to be crucial. Therefore, we develop a framework to quantify the consequences of shared information for both actors and apply it to a case study for a tap water contamination in the city of Berlin. We highlight that both actors benefit from the collaboration and that the time the information is received has a comparably low effect on the total supply. Moreover, we show that private actors can reduce the impact of market interventions on their processes significantly by actively collaborating with authorities

COMBINING HOLOLENS WITH INSTANT-NERFS: ADVANCED REAL-TIME 3D MOBILE MAPPING

This work represents a large step into modern ways of fast 3D reconstruction based on RGB camera images. Utilizing a Microsoft HoloLens 2 as a multisensor platform that includes an RGB camera and an inertial measurement unit for SLAM-based camera-pose determination, we train a Neural Radiance Field (NeRF) as a neural scene representation in real-time with the acquired data from the HoloLens. The HoloLens is connected via Wifi to a high-performance PC that is responsible for the training and 3D reconstruction. After the data stream ends, the training is stopped and the 3D reconstruction is initiated, which extracts a point cloud of the scene. With our specialized inference algorithm, five million scene points can be extracted within 1 second. In addition, the point cloud also includes radiometry per point. Our method of 3D reconstruction outperforms grid point sampling with NeRFs by multiple orders of magnitude and can be regarded as a complete real-time 3D reconstruction method in a mobile mapping setup