Democratic freedom as an aesthetic achievement: Peirce, Schiller and Cavell on aesthetic experience, play and democratic freedom

In this essay, I reconsider the constitution of democratic freedom in aesthetic terms. My interest is in articulating a conception of aesthetic freedom that can be mapped onto a conception of democratic freedom. For this purpose, I bring together Charles Sanders Peirce’s ontology, which comprises fragments of an aesthetic theory, Friedrich Schiller’s concept of aesthetic play and Stanley Cavell’s democratic perfectionism. By providing a philosophical framework for constructing an aesthetics and politics that supports the recent aesthetic turn in political theory, which urges overcoming political theory’s excessive dependence on an epistemological theory of representation, and by proposing a modification to the turn’s heavy reliance on theories of affect, my reading of Peirce, Schiller and Cavell offers a new way to think about the political significance of the autonomy of aesthetic experience and affect for democratic freedom

Transient injection site reaction to alirocumab during immune system activation: a case series.

Background Injection site reactions (ISRs) are known side effects of the proprotein convertase subtilisin kexin 9 (PCSK9) inhibitor alirocumab. Transient ISR to alirocumab after a long phase of good tolerability have not been reported previously. Case summary A 55-year-old woman (Patient 1) and a 77-year-old man (Patient 2) were treated with alirocumab for the management of dyslipidaemia. Both patients tolerated the treatment without side effects for 7 and 2 months, respectively. After an upper respiratory tract infection in Patient 1 and a first COVID-19 vaccination in Patient 2, both patients suddenly developed ISR with erythema, calor, and itching upon 2 (Patient 1) and 1 (Patient 2) subsequent injection(s), respectively. Symptoms resolved with local steroids, oral antihistamines, and cooling. After termination of the presumed immune system activated state, alirocumab was well tolerated again in both patients without recurrence of any ISR upon repeated applications. Discussion These are the first cases to report transient ISR to a PCSK9 inhibitor, possibly triggered by activation of the immune system, after prolonged good tolerability. Based on the transient and benign nature of the reaction, such patients should be encouraged to continue supervised treatment, as tolerability may return after resolution of the pro-inflammatory state

Comparison of biolimus eluted from an erodible stent coating with bare metal stents in acute ST-elevation myocardial infarction (COMFORTABLE AMI trial): rationale and design

Aims: Compared with bare metal stents (BMS), early generation drug-eluting stents (DES) reduce the risk of revascularisation in patients with ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) at the expense of an increased risk of very late stent thrombosis (ST). Durable polymer coatings for controlled drug release have been identified as a potential trigger for these late adverse events and this has led to the development of newer generation DES with durable and biodegradable polymer surface coatings with improved biocompatibility. In a recent all-comers trial, biolimus-eluting stents with a biodegradable polymer surface coating were found to reduce the risk of very late ST by 80% compared with sirolimus-eluting stents with durable polymer, which also translated into a lower risk of cardiac death and myocardial infarction (MI) beyond one year. Methods and results: The multicentre COMFORTABLE AMI trial (NCT00962416) randomly assigned 1,161 patients to treatment with biolimus-eluting stents with biodegrable polymer and bare metal stents of otherwise identical design at 11 international sites. The primary endpoint is a composite of cardiac death, target-vessel MI and target lesion revascularisation at one year. Assuming a relative risk reduction of 40% in event rates of the primary endpoint in favour of biolimus-eluting stents with biodegradable polymer, 1,064 patients will provide 80% power to demonstrate superiority. Clinical follow-up will be continued through five years. Conclusions: The COMFORTABLE AMI trial will determine whether biolimus-eluting stents with biodegradable polymer are superior to bare metal stents of otherwise identical design. This is the first randomised controlled trial (RCT) investigating DES with a biodegradable polymer surface coating for drug release in the treatment of patients with STEM

Analysis of a three-phase AC chopper with high power factor for the use in “PV-to-Heat” applications

​© 2019 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.The decreasing cost of photovoltaic (PV) systems allows the production of cheap renewable electricity. This has led to an increasing number of installed systems during the past years. Since the storage of electrical energy is still rather expensive, the optimization of the self-consumption coverage gains importance. One solution to higher self-consumption is a method called “PV-to-Heat”, where excess PV energy is not fed into the grid but stored in the form of hot water in the domestic boiler. This article describes a simplified hardware approach for a three-phase PWM chopper for AC/AC conversion. It is suited for low inductive loads like electric heaters. Compared to existing systems, the proposed converter design offers equal or better performance at very low cost and small size. The circuit allows full control of the power flow and provides sinusoidal and symmetrical load currents. The average electrical efficiency is 94.7% for a 6 kW test system. Unlike certain commercial products, there is no need to use a custom heater or access the star point of the load resistor

Pseudoaneurysm Repair With a Septal Occluder

Introduction: New treatment options, like endovascular aortic repair, reduced the mortality rate of patients suffering from complications after an acute type A aortic dissection repair. Nevertheless, initial successful treatment of an aortic dissection does not fully eliminate the risk of later adverse aortic events like anastomotic pseudoaneurysm. Pseudoaneurysm of the anastomosis between the ascending and the arch graft could initiate complications like peripheral embolization, dysphagia or compression of mediastinum organs. Re-operation via re-sternotomy bears enormous morbidity and mortality for these patients. There is a high unmet need for percutaneous therapeutic options to treat pseudoaneurysms. Case Presentation: A 59-year-old-man treated 15 years ago for type A aortic dissection, was hospitalized due to intermittent abdominal pain. A detailed examination revealed 2 pseudoaneurysms: 1 symptomatic at the level of the reimplanted celiac trunk and 1 asymptomatic at the anastomosis between the brachiocephalic trunk and the aortic arch graft. Due to multiple co-morbidities and previous operations, the risk for surgery was considered too high. Both pseudoaneurysm were treated percutaneously, the symptomatic 1 with covered stent and the asymptomatic with Amplatzer septal-occluder. Discussion: We present an alternative percutaneous therapy approach for treatment of pseudoaneurysm using a septaloccluder. A follow-up computed tomography 3 months later showed successfully excluded pseudoaneurysm

A novel non-isolated active charge balancing architecture for lithium-ion batteries

Active charge balancing is an approved technique to implement high performance lithium-ion battery systems. Enhanced balancing speeds and reduced balancing losses are feasible compared to passive balancing. The new architecture proposed in this paper overcomes several drawbacks of other active balancing methods. It consists of only 2 non-isolated DC/DC converters. In combination with a MOSFET switch matrix it is able to balance arbitrary cells of a battery system at high currents. Adjacent cells can be balanced simultaneously. For the given setting, numerical simulations show an overall balancing efficiency of approx. 92.5%, compared to 89.4% for a stack-to-cell-to-stack method (St2C2St, bidirectional fly-back) at similar balancing times. The usable capacity increases from 97.1% in a passively balanced system to 99.5% for the new method

Suizidprävention bei Schweizer Jugendlichen : theoretische Konzeption und erste Erhebungen für die Umsetzung einer mobilen Applikation als ergänzende Präventionsmassnahme zur bestehenden Suizidprävention in der Schweiz

Überblick: Schweizweit nimmt sich jeden dritten Tag ein Jugendlicher oder ein junger Erwachsener das Leben. Zugleich leiden 30‘000 Schweizer Jugendliche täglich oder jeden zweiten Tag an Suizidgedanken. Aktuelle Statistiken zeigen keine Verbesserung der Situation. Obwohl die Problematik in der Schweiz erkannt wurde, fehlt es an konkreten Suizidpräventionsprojekten bzw. Interventionen. Ziel: Um diesem Umstand entgegen zu wirken, bestand das Ziel der vorliegenden Bachelorarbeit darin herauszufinden, ob eine mobile Suizidpräventions-Applikation als eine sinnvolle Ergänzung zu bestehenden Präventionsmassnahmen angesehen wird und dafür bei Fachstellen Unterstützungsbereitschaft besteht. Darüber hinaus stand die Eruierung möglicher Funktionen sowie eine effiziente Bekanntmachung der Applikation im Mittelpunkt. Methode: 42 Fachstellen, die sich direkt oder indirekt mit Suizidprävention befassen, wurden mittels einer Online-Umfrage zum Thema Suizidprävention befragt. Resultate: Die Antworten der Fachstellen lassen darauf schliessen, dass eine mobile Applikation als eine sinnvolle Suizidpräventionsmassnahme zu schon bestehenden Projekten angesehen wird. Die befragten Fachstellen würden eine Entwicklung der Applikation entsprechend unterstützen. Schlussfolgerung: Eine erste theoretische Konzeption der Applikation konnte entworfen werden. Ausserdem eruierte die Autorin gewinnbringende Funktionen für die Applikation. Es wurde darüber hinaus festgestellt, dass eine starke Zusammenarbeit und Einbindung der Fachstellen für die Umsetzung notwendig sind. Die entwickelte Applikation würde ein Tool darstellen, mit dem Jugendsuizid aktiv bekämpft werden könnte