Fuzzy Filtering: A Mathematical Theory and Applications in Life Science

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Ein regionaler Arbeitsmarkt im Umbruch : wirtschaftliche Situation und Beschäftigung im Kreis Pirna (Sachsen) beim Übergang zur Marktwirtschaft

"Im Sommer 1990 führte eine Arbeitsgruppe des Zentralen Forschungsinstituts für Arbeit, Dresden (ZFA) eine regionale Analyse zur wirtschaftlichen Situation und zur Arbeitsmarktlage im Kreis Pirna durch. Die Auswertung verschiedener statistischer Materialien zur Beschäftigungsstruktur, zum Ausbildungsstellenmarkt sowie eine Betriebsbefragung bildeten die Basis, den Umstrukturierungsprozeß ansatzweise transparent zu machen. Schwerpunkte der Analyse lagen in der Darstellung der Qualifikationsstruktur des Erwerbstätigenpotentials und der Strukturierung der Arbeitslosigkeit im Juli 1990. Die genutzten arbeitsmarktpolitischen Instrumente - FuU, ABM und Kurzarbeit - werden zusammenfassend abgebildet. Einen weiteren Schwerpunkt bildet die Ableitung und Interpretation der Tendenzen des regionalen Arbeitsmarktes im Kontext der wirtschaftlichen Entwicklung. Es wird deutlich, daß auch weiterhin Arbeitsplätze abgebaut werden; diese werden weder quantitativ noch qualitativ durch neugeschaffene Arbeitsplätze kompensiert." (Autorenreferat)regionaler Arbeitsmarkt, Erwerbspersonenpotenzial, Qualifikationsstruktur, Beschäftigtenstruktur, Ausbildungsstellenmarkt, Arbeitslosigkeit, Wirtschaftszweige, Wirtschaftssystem - Reform, Arbeitsmarktpolitik, Pirna, DDR, Sachsen

A Context-Aware mHealth System for Online Physiological Monitoring in Remote Healthcare

Physiological or biological stress is an organism’s response to a stressor such as an environmental condition or a stimulus. The identification of physiological stress while performing the activities of daily living is an important field of health research in preventive medicine. Activities initiate a dynamic physiological response that can be used as an indicator of the overall health status. This is especially relevant to high risk groups; the assessment of the physical state of patients with cardiovascular diseases in daily activities is still very difficult. This paper presents a context-aware telemonitoring platform, IPM-mHealth, that receives vital parameters from multiple sensors for online, real-time analysis. IPM-mHealth provides the technical basis for effectively evaluating patients’ physiological conditions, whether inpatient or at home, through the relevance between physical function and daily activities. The two core modules in the platform include: 1) online activity recognition algorithms based on 3-axis acceleration sensors and 2) a knowledge-based, conditional-reasoning decision module which uses context information to improve the accuracy of determining the occurrence of a potentially dangerous abnormal heart rate. Finally, we present relevant experiments to collect cardiac information and upper-body acceleration data from the human subjects. The test results show that this platform has enormous potential for use in long-term health observation, and can help us define an optimal patient activity profile through the automatic activity analysis

A Knowledge-based Telemonitoring Platform for Application in Remote Healthcare

Telemonitoring systems have been shown to greatly reduce medical costs while improving the quality of medical care. Today, the main factors restricting the development and popularization of Telemonitoring systems include scalability and compatibility. The challenge for the remote healthcare lies in the variety of heterogeneous medical sensors which need to be dynamically removed or added to the environment according to the health care needs. This paper presents the design for an ontology-based context model and related middleware that provides a reusable and extensible application platform for Remote Healthcare. We designed the ontology context model to describe physiological parameters, medical tasks and the patient’s personal profile. Developers may extend the ontology model by considering new requirements as needed

Critical connectivity in banking networks

The financial crisis of 2007-2009 demonstrated the need to understand the macrodynamics of interconnected financial systems. A fruitful approach to this problem regards financial infrastructures as weighted directed networks, with banks as nodes and loans as links. Using a simple banking model in which banks are linked through interbank lending, with an exogenous shock applied to a single bank, we find a closedform analytical solution for the degree at which failures begin to propagate in the network. This critical degree is expressed as a function of four financial parameters: banking leverage; interbank exposure; return on the investment opportunity; and interbank lending rate. While the transition to failure propagation is sharpest with regular networks, we observe it numerically for random and scale-free networks as well. We find that, if the expected number of failures is not strongly dependent on the network topology and is well captured by the notion of critical degree, the frequency of catastrophic cascades (with a single shock inducing all or most banks in the network to fail) tends to be much larger on scale-free networks than on classical random networks. We interpret this finding as a manifestation of the “robust-yet-fragile” property of scale-free networks

D7.3 Report on simulator test results and driver acceptance of PROSPECT functions

The process of developing new automotive systems includes various testing cycles to assure a save operation in traffic. Physical system testing on test tracks is very important for this purpose, but rather expensive and might only become possible in later stages of the development process. Using a virtual simulation environment offers a safe possibility of testing new systems in early stages of development. Aditionally, driver-in-the-loop tests at test track and in a virtual simulator make it possible to evaluate driver reaction and potential acceptance by the future users of those systems. Within PROSPECT the new functions are investigated under various aspects in several simulator studies and test track studies. This deliverable D7.3 gives detailed information of conduction and results of the each study. Three studies focus exclusively on the for Vulnerable Road Users (VRUs) specifically dangerous urban intersection scenarios. The first of those studies examines the driver behaviour in a turning situation when a byciclist might be crossing. The described phenomena are looked-but-failed-to-see and failed-to-look. The second study, which provides an initial step in this line of research, analyzed the acceptance of issued forward collision warning times. The positioning of the potential accident opponent and the subjective feeling towards the criticality of the situation by the driver were key parameters taken into account. Last, but not least the acceptance of an intersection assist autonomous emergency braking systems was tested regarding the acceptance of potential buyers. The study was run for five days in a row for each participant to be able to judge the behaviour in a comuting situation. Two studies focused on longitudinal scenarios. Both studies followed the same design, but one was conducted on a test track and the other one in a simulator. The main objective was to investigate drivers reactions to FCW warnings and Active Steering interventions in critical VRU scenarios in case of a distraction of the driver. Additionally, the test track study was used to validate the results from the simulator study. The results of those studies are the basis for a wide acceptance evaluation of the systems. No system is an asset in increasing road safety if it is not accepted by the user and therefore turned off, if it is not required the system to be default on in consumer tests. Complemented by an additional acceptance study where the participants had to give their opinion of those systems after they watched videos of dangerous situations, the acceptance was analyzed based on questionnaires developed in PROSPECT and reported in Deliverable 7.2. This wholistic approach allows an expert discussion on the potentials of the PROSPECT functions in the future

Complex morphology and functional dynamics of vital murine intestinal mucosa revealed by autofluorescence 2-photon microscopy

The mucosa of the gastrointestinal tract is a dynamic tissue composed of numerous cell types with complex cellular functions. Study of the vital intestinal mucosa has been hampered by lack of suitable model systems. We here present a novel animal model that enables highly resolved three-dimensional imaging of the vital murine intestine in anaesthetized mice. Using intravital autofluorescence 2-photon (A2P) microscopy we studied the choreographed interactions of enterocytes, goblet cells, enteroendocrine cells and brush cells with other cellular constituents of the small intestinal mucosa over several hours at a subcellular resolution and in three dimensions. Vigorously moving lymphoid cells and their interaction with constituent parts of the lamina propria were examined and quantitatively analyzed. Nuclear and lectin staining permitted simultaneous characterization of autofluorescence and admitted dyes and yielded additional spectral information that is crucial to the interpretation of the complex intestinal mucosa. This novel intravital approach provides detailed insights into the physiology of the small intestine and especially opens a new window for investigating cellular dynamics under nearly physiological conditions

Control of stomatal aperture and carbon uptake by deficit irrigation in two grapevine cultivars

odels for the Mediterranean region. In recent years, deficit irrigation, including partial root drying (PRD), has been proposed as an irrigation technique to improve water use efficiency and standardize grapevine yield and quality. The objective of this study was to evaluate the impact of deficit irrigation on photosynthetic responses of field grown grapevines of cv. Moscatel and Castela˜o. The treatments were: full irrigation (FI), corresponding to 100% ETc; non-irrigated, but rain fed (NI) and partial root zone drying (PRD) and deficit irrigation (DI), both corresponding to an irrigation of 50% ETc. While in the DI treatment water was applied to both sides of the root system, in the PRD treatment, water was supplied to only one side of the root system, alternating sides periodically. In both cultivars, PRD and DI vines showed intermediate pre-dawn leaf water potential (ψpd) values (around -0.4 MPa) while FI vines, showed ψpd around -0.2 MPa during the growing season. NI showed the lowest cpd, reaching -0.6 MPa in Moscatel and -0.8 MPa in Castelão, at the end of growing season. Water status of PRD vines remained closer to FI than DI, especially at midday. Photosynthetic rates and fluorescence parameters of the deficit irrigation treatments (PRD and DI) did not show significant differences from FI vines, for most of the season. In Moscatel, although PRD generally showed gs, relative stomatal limitation (RSL) and intrinsic water use efficiency (A/gs) values closer to NI than DI, most of the differences between PRD and DI were not statistically significant. Our results showed a stability of the photosynthetic machinery in grapevines under low-to-moderate water availabilities, as demonstrated by the maintenance of the activity of three Calvin Cycle enzymes and of the Vcmax values. However, a decline in Jmax was observed in NI vines, that can be a result either of a decrease in ATP production or, alternatively, of decreased mesophyll conductance to CO2 diffusion. In general terms, stomatal limitation of photosynthesis is likely to be dominant in non-irrigated plants. Deficit irrigation had no negative impact on CO2 assimilation, despite less water application than in full-irrigation. Differences among varieties may be related to differences in sensitivity of stomata, shoot growth and/or the interaction between rootstock and cultivar to soil water availability

Reducing the Clinical and Public Health Burden of Familial Hypercholesterolemia A Global Call to Action

Q1Q1Artículo completoE1-E13IMPORTANCE Familial hypercholesterolemia (FH) is an underdiagnosed and undertreated genetic disorder that leads to premature morbidity and mortality due to atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. Familial hypercholesterolemia affects 1 in 200 to 250 people around the world of every race and ethnicity. The lack of general awareness of FH among the public and medical community has resulted in only 10% of the FH population being diagnosed and adequately treated. The World Health Organization recognized FH as a public health priority in 1998 during a consultation meeting in Geneva, Switzerland. The World Health Organization report highlighted 11 recommendations to address FH worldwide, from diagnosis and treatment to family screening and education. Research since the 1998 report has increased understanding and awareness of FH, particularly in specialty areas, such as cardiology and lipidology. However, in the past 20 years, there has been little progress in implementing the 11 recommendations to prevent premature atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease in an entire generation of families with FH. OBSERVATIONS In 2018, the Familial Hypercholesterolemia Foundation and the World Heart Federation convened the international FH community to update the 11 recommendations. Two meetings were held: one at the 2018 FH Foundation Global Summit and the other during the 2018 World Congress of Cardiology and Cardiovascular Health. Each meeting served as a platform for the FH community to examine the original recommendations, assess the gaps, and provide commentary on the revised recommendations. The Global Call to Action on Familial Hypercholesterolemia thus represents individuals with FH, advocacy leaders, scientific experts, policy makers, and the original authors of the 1998 World Health Organization report. Attendees from 40 countries brought perspectives on FH from low-, middle-, and high-income regions. Tables listing country-specific government support for FH care, existing country-specific and international FH scientific statements and guidelines, country-specific and international FH registries, and known FH advocacy organizations around the world were created. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE By adopting the 9 updated public policy recommendations created for this document, covering awareness; advocacy; screening, testing, and diagnosis; treatment; family-based care; registries; research; and cost and value, individual countries have the opportunity to prevent atherosclerotic heart disease in their citizens carrying a gene associated with FH and, likely, all those with severe hypercholesterolemia as well