Phasenkohärenz in Femtosekunden-Superkontinua aus Mikrostruktur-Glasfasern

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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

An application of economic theories and concepts to water management in New Zealand

This report describes an economic assessment of the policies and strategies used to manage water resources in New Zealand. A number of economic theories which relate to water allocation and water pollution control are outlined, with an emphasis on pricing theory. Results of a survey undertaken on charges made for municipal water and sewerage services and regional water board charges are given. The strategies used in New Zealand to manage water resources and to provide finance for water-related services are then evaluated in the light of overseas policies, and the strategies suggested by economic theory. It is concluded that a greater use of pricing policies based on marginal cost pricing, which relates charges to the cost of providing water services, would lead to a more efficient and equitable allocation of water resources. Specific recommendations for changes to water supply and sewerage service pricing, and for changes to existing water and soil management legislation are outlined

Trends in Atrial Fibrillation and Prescription of Oral Anticoagulants and Embolic Strokes in Germany

Background: The aim of the study was to compare trends in frequency of atrial fibrillation (AF) with the prescription rates of oral anticoagulants (OAC) and the incidence of embolic stroke (ES) from 2005 through 2014. Methods: Annual numbers of hospitalized patients with AF and ES were extracted from the Federal Bureau of Statistics. Defined daily doses (DDD) of prescribed OAC among outpatients were extracted from the insurance drug information system. Results: The number of cases hospitalized with the diagnosis AF increased continuously by 78.3% (1.25 Million in 2005 to 2.19 Million in 2014, p < 0.001), likewise frequency of ES increased by 89.0% (from 46,068 to 87,050, p < 0.001) and the number of prescribed DDD of OAC almost doubled by 105.4% (from 271,328 to 557,281, p < 0.001). There is an almost linear correlation between occurrence of AF and ES (R-2 = 0.9683). In contrast association between prescription rate of OAC and incidence of ES is not linear as there was a disproportional increase in OAC prescriptions beginning in the year 2010 that is not accompanied by a reduction of cases hospitalized with ES. Conclusions: Our analysis of drug treatment rates for OAC in outpatients and hospitalization rates for ES revealed a disproportional increase in prescription of OAC beginning in the year 2010 that does not affect the number of cases hospitalized with ES. (c) 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

La obtención de la prueba penal en el extranjero: análisis a la luz del Tratado de Asistencia Legal Mutua en asuntos penales entre los países centroamericanos y la experiencia en los tribunales costarricenses

Tesis (licenciatura en derecho)UCR::Vicerrectoría de Docencia::Ciencias Sociales::Facultad de Derech

Temporal dynamics in microbial soil communities at anthrax carcass sites

Background Anthrax is a globally distributed disease affecting primarily herbivorous mammals. It is caused by the soil-dwelling and spore-forming bacterium Bacillus anthracis. The dormant B. anthracis spores become vegetative after ingestion by grazing mammals. After killing the host, B. anthracis cells return to the soil where they sporulate, completing the lifecycle of the bacterium. Here we present the first study describing temporal microbial soil community changes in Etosha National Park, Namibia, after decomposition of two plains zebra (Equus quagga) anthrax carcasses. To circumvent state-associated-challenges (i.e. vegetative cells/spores) we monitored B. anthracis throughout the period using cultivation, qPCR and shotgun metagenomic sequencing. Results The combined results suggest that abundance estimation of spore-forming bacteria in their natural habitat by DNA-based approaches alone is insufficient due to poor recovery of DNA from spores. However, our combined approached allowed us to follow B. anthracis population dynamics (vegetative cells and spores) in the soil, along with closely related organisms from the B. cereus group, despite their high sequence similarity. Vegetative B. anthracis abundance peaked early in the time-series and then dropped when cells either sporulated or died. The time-series revealed that after carcass deposition, the typical semi-arid soil community (e.g. Frankiales and Rhizobiales species) becomes temporarily dominated by the orders Bacillales and Pseudomonadales, known to contain plant growth-promoting species. Conclusion Our work indicates that complementing DNA based approaches with cultivation may give a more complete picture of the ecology of spore forming pathogens. Furthermore, the results suggests that the increased vegetation biomass production found at carcass sites is due to both added nutrients and the proliferation of microbial taxa that can be beneficial for plant growth. Thus, future B. anthracis transmission events at carcass sites may be indirectly facilitated by the recruitment of plant-beneficial bacteria

Additional file 5: Table S2. of Temporal dynamics in microbial soil communities at anthrax carcass sites

Counts of mapped metagenomic reads of each sample against reference genomes. (XLSX 97 kb

Additional file 1: Table S1. of Temporal dynamics in microbial soil communities at anthrax carcass sites

Soil nutrients and soil composition at carcass sites. (DOCX 44 kb