IT-Supported Management of Mass Casualty Incidents: The e-Triage Project

Emergencies arise out of disasters and are characterized by limited resources in terms of medical personnel and infrastructure, underlining the importance of mobilizing regional, supra-regional and/or international help to the affected regions. Effective deployment of this help is crucial, but only possible if a common operational picture among authorities, coordination centers, and staff working in the field is developed as quickly as possible. Since mass casualty incidents (MCIs) normally overwhelm the regularly available rescue resources (rescue personnel, transport vehicles, hospital capacity, etc.), a particularly effective crisis management has to be applied. In general, for co-ordination centers it is a challenge to get an immediate and accurate situation overview (i.e. number of victims, injury categories and their location). Indeed, triage and registration performed at different places by different teams maintaining different lists are indubitably an error-prone approach. Furthermore, it can happen that all later attempts to track the way of single patient, their attendants and transport vehicles are not very successful, although this could be of key interest in scenarios with nuclear, biological or chemical hazards. Within the e-Triage project, which is sponsored by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, an integrated concept for electronic registration of affected persons is under development

Dynamic Composition of Cyber-Physical Systems

Future cyber-physical systems must fulfill strong demands on timeliness and reliability, so that the safety of their operational environment is never violated. At the same time, such systems are networked computers with the typical demand for reconfigurability and software modification. The combination of both expectations makes established modeling and analysis techniques difficult to apply, since they cannot scale with the number of possible operational constellations resulting from the dynamics. The problem increases when components with different non-functional demands are combined to one cyber-physical system and updated independent from each other. We propose a new approach for the design and development of composable, dynamic and dependable software architectures, with a focus on the area of networked embedded systems. Our key concept is the specification of software components and their non-functional composition constraints in the formal language TLA+. We discuss how this technique can be embedded in an overall software design workflow, and show the practical applicability with a detailed resource scheduling example

CorePig - Prävention ausgewählter Erkrankungen und Parasiten in biologischen Schweinebetrieben durch ein HACCP basiertes Management- und Überwachungssystem

The overall objective of the project CorePig is to promote animal health and welfare in organic pig herds in Europe. The variation in pig health between organic herds is likely to be caused by different management routines in the herds. To improve animal welfare it is therefore important to investigate the correlation between management and parasite/disease occurrence, and based on this, to develop a disease management tool applicable on farm. This will be achieved by carrying out the following three components: • To conduct an international knowledge synthesis for identifying needs for future research into disease and parasite prevention in organic pig production • To estimate risk factors for selected diseases and parasites in pigs in European organic herds by conducting an epidemiological survey in European organic pig herds. • To develop and evaluate a HACCP based management and surveillance system for organic pig herds that will enable the organic pig farmer to prevent selected pig diseases and welfare problems by monitoring and controlling the risk factors The results obtained in this study will benefit animal health and welfare of pigs in organic production systems, as well as the productivity in these herds. Knowledge of risk factors for disease in organic pigs will facilitate efforts to improve animal health in organic pig production, and organic pig producers will benefit from improved animal welfare on-farm by applying an efficient and feasible disease management tool. This will assist in promoting more sustainable farming systems and supporting the rural economy with special relevance to small farmers. The expected improvement in animal welfare in organic pig production is expected to enhance consumer interest in organic pork, and consequently lead to an increased market share of organic meat for the benefit of the economy in organic pig production. Furthermore, the project aims to identify relevant research needs related to parasite and disease management in organic pig production. This can be applied to target future research to the actual problems experienced in commercial organic production

Characterization of an fdxN mutant of Rhodobacter capsulatus indicates that ferredoxin I serves as electron donor to nitrogenase

AbstractA mutant of Rhodobacter capsulatus, carrying an insertion into the fdxN gene encoding ferredoxin I (FdI), has been studied by biochemical analysis and genetic complementation experiments. When compared to the wild-type strain, the fdxN mutant exhibited altered nitrogen fixing ability and 20-fold lower levels of nitrogenase activity as assayed in vivo. When assayed in vitro with an artificial reductant, nitrogenase activity was only 3- to 4-fold lower than in the wild type. These results suggested that the FdI-deleted mutant had impaired electron transport to nitrogenase. Immunochemical assay of both nitrogenase components showed that the fdxN mutant contained about 4-fold less enzyme than wild-type cells. Results of pulse-chase labeling experiments using [35S]methionine indicated that nitrogenase was significantly less stable in the FdI-deleted mutant. When a copy of fdxN was introduced in the mutant in trans, the resulting strain appeared to be fully complemented with respect to both diazotrophic growth and nitrogenase activity. Depending on whether fdxN expression was driven by a nif promoter or a fructose-inducible promoter. FdI was synthesized either at wild-type level or in 10-fold lower amounts. The strain producing 10-fold less FdI did, however, display normal N2-fixing ability. Analysis of cytosolic proteins by bidimensional electrophoresis revealed that the fdxN mutant produced a 14 kDa polypeptide in amounts about 3-fold greater than wild-type cells. This protein was identified by N-terminal microsequencing as a recently purified [2Fe-2S] ferredoxin, called FdV, which cannot reduce nitrogenase. It is concluded that FdI serves as the main electron donor to nitrogenase in R. capsulatus and that an ancillary electron carrier, distinct of FdV, is responsible for the residual nitrogenase activity observed in the FdI-deleted mutant

Einführung und Monitoring von „Betriebsentwicklungs–Plänen (BEP) für Tiergesundheit und Wohlbefinden“ auf österreichischen Bioschweinebetrieben

Verbesserung von Gesundheit und Wohlbefinden und Reduktion des Tierarzneimitteleinsatzes in der österreichischen Bio-Schweineerzeugung als Teil eines Qualitätssicherungssystems durch (1) Einführung eines betriebsindividuellen dynamischen Beratungs- und Betreuungsinstrumentes (=BetriebsEntwicklungsPlan), (2) Verknüpfung von bereits vorhandenen landwirtschaftlichen und veterinärmedizinischen Beratungs- und Betreuungsleistungen (z.B. Berater-Datenbank Bio Austria) und (3) Beurteilung der Effektivität, Akzeptanz und betriebswirtschaftlichen Auswirkungen dieses Instrumente

BEP in die Zukunft! Einführung von Tiergesundheitsplänen in österreichischen Bio-Schweinebetrieben

Das Forschungsprojekt „Einführung und Monitoring von 'BetriebsEntwicklungsPlänen(BEP) Tiergesundheit und Wohlbefinden' in österreichischen Bioschweinebetrieben hatte zum Ziel, durch Einführung des Konzeptes der Betriebsentwicklungspläne zur Verbesserung von Gesundheit und Wohlbefinden und zur Reduktion des Tierarzneimitteleinsatzes als Teil eines Qualitätssicherungssystems beizutragen. Gleichzeitig sollten die Effektivität, Akzeptanz und betriebswirtschaftlichen Auswirkungen dieses Instrumentes überprüft werden. Dazu wurden auf insgesamt 60 marktrelevanten Betrieben (20 Ferkelerzeugung, 20 kombinierte Betriebe, 20 Schweinemast) Erhebungen durchgeführt. 'BEP‘ kann als innovatives und praxistaugliches Beratungs- und Betreuungsinstrument angesehen werden, dessen Umsetzung in verschieden Bereichen (TGD, Erzeugerverbände, Arbeitskreise etc.) denkbar ist

Ovulation inhibition with four variations of a four-phasic estradiol valerate/dienogest combined oral contraceptive : results of two prospective, randomized, open-label studies

Background: Attempts to improve the tolerability of combined oral contraceptives (COCs) have included the substitution of ethinylestradiol (EE) with 17beta-estradiol (E2). However, this has proved unsatisfactory, specifically in terms of cycle control. To improve upon the poor cycle control seen previously, E2 (in the form of estradiol valerate [E2V], 1 mg E2V contains 0.76 mg E2) was combined with dienogest (DNG) in a novel four-phasic regimen. In the current studies the ovulation inhibition potency of four variations of this regimen was assessed. Study design: Two randomized, open-label, phase II studies were performed. The first study compared two regimens (1A, 2A) with similar dosages of DNG but different lengths of application. Having established in Study 1 that the length of application of regimen 2A was most suitable but that the dosages of DNG were too low for effective ovulation inhibition, a second study was undertaken, which compared two regimens (2B, 2C) with similar lengths of application but increased dosages of DNG. The primary efficacy variable in both studies was the proportion of women with a Hoogland score of 5/6 during Cycle 2. Results: The full analysis set comprised 192 and 203 women in Study 1 and 2, respectively. In Study 1, 10 women (10.9%) in regimen 1A and 6 women (6.4%) in regimen 2A had a Hoogland score of 5/6. In Study 2, 3 women (3.1 %) in regimen 2B and 1 woman (1.0%) in regimen 2C had a Hoogland score of 5/6. There were no safety concerns with any of the regimens

Between achievement demand and care. Perspectives of the secondary school (Hauptschule) between professional teaching and support

Üblicherweise wird die Hauptschule als "Problemschule" beurteilt. "Es darf aber nicht übersehen werden, dass an Hauptschulen, gerade in der Auseinandersetzung mit... äußerst schwierigen Voraussetzungen auf Seiten der Schüler, pädagogische Kulturen entstanden sind, die durch eine hohe Achtung und emotionale Anerkennung der Hauptschüler gekennzeichnet sind. ... Die bildungspolitische und pädagogische Forderung nach einer Abschaffung der Hauptschule besitzt somit eine janusköpfige Gestalt: Die Auflösung strukturell erzeugter Probleme und Belastungen in einem integrierten Bildungssystem korrespondiert mit der Auflösung pädagogischer Anerkennungskulturen im Umgang mit massiv benachteiligten und belasteten Jugendlichen. Diese Zwiespältigkeit ist nur dann zu entschärfen, wenn Elemente dieser pädagogischen Kultur im Rahmen eines neuen integrierten Schulsystems insgesamt gestärkt werden könnten und mit Modellen flexibler, differenzierter und fördernder Unterrichtschoreographien verbunden werden könnten." (DIPF/Orig.)The German Hauptschule (upper classes of the elementary school) is usually judged as a "problem school". But it is easily disregarded that in many cases in spite of unfavorable conditions impressive educational work is performed. If the structural problems of this school are more exactly analyzed, it can be discussed more differentiated whether the "abolition" of this school form is sensible. (DIPF/Orig.