An XML-based Multimedia Middleware for Mobile Online Auctions

Pervasive Internet services today promise to provide users with a quick and convenient access to a variety of commercial applications. However, due to unsuitable architectures and poor performance user acceptance is still low. To be a major success mobile services have to provide device-adapted content and advanced value-added Web services. Innovative enabling technologies like XML and wireless communication may for the first time provide a facility to interact with online applications anytime anywhere. We present a prototype implementing an efficient multimedia middleware approach towards ubiquitous value-added services using an auction house as a sample application. Advanced multi-feature retrieval technologies are combined with enhanced content delivery to show the impact of modern enterprise information systems on today’s e-commerce applications

Analyse des Rentenpakets II: Trotz Kapitaldeckung einseitige Belastung jüngerer Generationen

Das im März 2024 vorgestellte Rentenpaket II der Ampelregierung sieht vor, das Rentenniveau zu stabilisieren und gleichzeitig eine schuldenfinanzierte Kapitaldeckung (Generationenkapital) einzuführen. Allerdings führen diese Maßnahmen im Umlageverfahren zu einer einseitigen Belastung der jüngeren Generationen, die auch nicht durch den Aufbau des Generationenkapitals gemildert wird, wie die Ausführungen in diesem Artikel zeigen

Progressive Content Delivery for Mobile E-Services

In this paper we present a framework for the progressive delivery of Web documents in mobile Internet services. Progressive delivery enables users to get fast access to the most relevant parts of a document. Given the reduced bandwidth and the high costs of mobile communication the idea of progressive delivery offers a promising improvement especially for mobile e-services. The central part of the delivery consists of innovative concepts for content selection to determine the most relevant document parts for successive delivery maintaining the documents' readability. To make this selection as flexible and effective as possible we consider the user's notion of relevance together with semantic author annotations and structural document characteristics. Using XML technology documents are automatically adapted to fit both personal user profiles and device constraints. A prototypical mobile news service exemplifies our approach to content selection, but our framework promises to be applicable to a broad range of future Internet services

The HERON Project - Multimedia Database Support for History and Human Sciences

The interdisciplinary HERON project investigates the impact of multimedia applications from the humanities, in particular heraldry, on future database technology. We present first evaluation results of querying image databases by visual content. Also the requirements of a digital workbench for art historians are described. Here we present an approach how to tackle the complex problem of exchanging multimedia documents over the internet

Das HERON-Projekt - Ein Zwischenbericht

Das interdisziplinäre HERON-Projekt untersucht die Auswirkungen multimedialer Datenbanktechnologie auf weite Anwendungsbereiche in den Geisteswissenschaften am Beispiel der Heraldik. Besonderer Wert wird dabei sowohl auf fachspezifische Erschließung und intuitive Zugänge zu Bildmaterialien durch den Einsatz einer inhaltsbasierten Suche, als auch effiziente Internetanbindung gelegt. Während für die Erschließung des Bildmaterials effektive Segmentierungsalgorithmen zur Vorbearbeitung entwickelt wurden, werden die fachspezifische Anwendung bildinhaltlicher Merkmale, sowie die Architektur des prototypischen HERON-Recherchesystems präsentiert und offene Probleme für den praktischen Einsatz angesprochen

An XML-based Multimedia Middleware for Mobile Online Auctions

Pervasive Internet services today promise to provide users with a quick and convenient access to a variety of commercial applications. However, due to unsuitable architectures and poor performance user acceptance is still low. To be a major success mobile services have to provide device-adapted content and advanced value-added Web services. Innovative enabling technologies like XML and wireless communication may for the first time provide a facility to interact with online applications anytime anywhere. We present a prototype implementing an efficient multimedia middleware approach towards ubiquitous value-added services using an auction house as a sample application. Advanced multi-feature retrieval technologies are combined with enhanced content delivery to show the impact of modern enterprise information systems on today’s e-commerce applications

Towards a Recommendation for Good Health Data Modeling (GHDM) – Results of Expert Interviews

Appropriate data models are essential for the systematic collection, aggregation, and integration of health data and for subsequent analysis. However, recommendations for modeling health data are often not publicly available within specific projects. Therefore, the project Zukunftslabor Gesundheit investigates recommendations for modeling. Expert interviews with five experts were conducted and analyzed using qualitative content analysis. Based on the condensed categories “governance”, “modeling” and “standards”, the project team generated eight hypotheses for recommendations on health data modeling. In addition, relevant framework conditions such as different roles, international cooperation, education/training and political influence were identified. Although emerging from interviewing a small convenience sample of experts, the results help to plan more extensive data collections and to create recommendations for health data modeling

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on non-COVID induced sepsis survival

$\bf Background:$ The COVID-19 pandemic has taken a toll on health care systems worldwide, which has led to increased mortality of different diseases like myocardial infarction. This is most likely due to three factors. First, an increased workload per nurse ratio, a factor associated with mortality. Second, patients presenting with COVID-19-like symptoms are isolated, which also decreases survival in cases of emergency. And third, patients hesitate to see a doctor or present themselves at a hospital. To assess if this is also true for sepsis patients, we asked whether non-COVID-19 sepsis patients had an increased 30-day mortality during the COVID-19 pandemic. $\bf Methods:$ This is a post hoc analysis of the SepsisDataNet.NRW study, a multicentric, prospective study that includes septic patients fulfilling the SEPSIS-3 criteria. Within this study, we compared the 30-day mortality and disease severity of patients recruited pre-pandemic (recruited from March 2018 until February 2020) with non-COVID-19 septic patients recruited during the pandemic (recruited from March 2020 till December 2020). $\bf Results:$ Comparing septic patients recruited before the pandemic to those recruited during the pandemic, we found an increased raw 30-day mortality in sepsis-patients recruited during the pandemic (33% vs. 52%, $\it p$ = 0.004). We also found a significant difference in the severity of disease at recruitment (SOFA score pre-pandemic: 8 (5 - 11) vs. pandemic: 10 (8 - 13); $\it p$ < 0.001). When adjusted for this, the 30-day mortality rates were not significantly different between the two groups (52% vs. 52% pre-pandemic and pandemic, $\it p$ = 0.798). $\bf Conclusions:$ This led us to believe that the higher mortality of non-COVID19 sepsis patients during the pandemic might be attributed to a more severe septic disease at the time of recruitment. We note that patients may experience a delayed admission, as indicated by elevated SOFA scores. This could explain the higher mortality during the pandemic and we found no evidence for a diminished quality of care for critically ill sepsis patients in German intensive care units

The aquaporin 3 polymorphism (rs17553719) is associated with sepsis survival and correlated with IL-33 secretion

Sepsis is a common life-threatening disease caused by dysregulated immune response and metabolic acidosis which lead to organ failure. An abnormal expression of aquaporins plays an important role in organ failure. Additionally, genetic variants in aquaporins impact on the outcome in sepsis. Thus, we investigated the polymorphism (rs17553719) and expression of aquaporin-3 ($\it AQP3$) and correlated these measurements with the survival of sepsis patients. Accordingly, we collected blood samples on several days (plus clinical data) from 265 sepsis patients who stayed in different ICUs in Germany. Serum plasma, DNA, and RNA were then separated to detect the promotor genotypes of $\it AQP3$ mRNA expression of AQP3 and several cytokines. The results showed that the homozygote CC genotype exhibited a significant decrease in 30-day survival (38.9%) compared to the CT (66.15%) and TT genotypes (76.3%) ($\it p$ = 0.003). Moreover, $\it AQP3$ mRNA expression was significantly higher and nearly doubled in the CC compared to the CT ($\it p$ = 0.0044) and TT genotypes ($\it p$ = 0.018) on the day of study inclusion. This was accompanied by an increased IL-33 concentration in the CC genotype (day 0: $\it p$ = 0.0026 and day 3: $\it p$ = 0.008). In summary, the C allele of the $\it AQP3$ polymorphism (rs17553719) shows an association with increased $\it AQP3$ expression and IL-33 concentration accompanied by decreased survival in patients with sepsis