Reading Between the Lines of Qualitative Data – How to Detect Hidden Structure Based on Codes

While qualitative research is experiencing broad acceptance in the information systems discipline, growing volumes of heterogeneous data pose challenges to manual qualitative analysis. We introduce an unsupervised machine learning approach based on graph partitioning to detect hidden information and structure in qualitative data samples. With the clustering technique, we map coded data to a graph and formulate a partitioning problem which is solved by integer linear programming. As a result, clusters of information sources are identified based on similarities given in the coded data. We demonstrate the approaches’ ability to detect hidden information in coded qualitative data by application on coded interview transcripts. With the approach, we draw on a technique from the operations research discipline and expand the repertoire of approaches being used to analyze qualitative data in the context of information systems

Codebook and documentation of the panel study 'Labour Market and Social Security' (PASS) : Volume I: Introduction and overview. Wave 2 (2007/2008)

"The panel study 'Labour Market and Social Security' (PASS), established by the Institute for Employment Research (IAB), is a new dataset for labour market, welfare state and poverty research in Germany, creating a new empirical basis for the scientific community and for policy advice. This Datenreport provides an overview of the second survey wave, for which 12,487 individuals were interviewed in 8,429 households between December 2007 and July 2008. 10,114 individuals and 7,342 households were interviewed for the second time in the context of PASS. The spectrum of questions and the design of PASS are intended to close gaps in the existing stock of data. PASS has three main characteristics that extend analysis potential beyond that of the Federal Employment Agency's administrative data: 1. The panel takes the household context into account - including the situation before and after receipt of Unemployment Benefit II. 2. The panel is complete in that it covers all groups of persons and all employment biographies, not only people in dependent employment, unemployed people and those in need of assistance. The dataset also provides information on the status during phases of economic inactivity, self-employment or employment as civil servants. 3. The panel collects additional or significantly more detailed data on relevant characteristics such as attitudes, employment potential or job-search behaviour." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en)) Additional Information Questionnaires of the second wave. Here you can find the German version. Further information about the panel study "Labour Market and Social Security".IAB-Haushaltspanel, Datengewinnung, Erhebungsmethode, Stichprobe, Panel - Methode, Datenaufbereitung

Codebuch und Dokumentation des 'Panel Arbeitsmarkt und soziale Sicherung' (PASS) : Welle 2 (2007/2008)

"The panel study 'Labour Market and Social Security' (PASS), established by the Institute for Employment Research (IAB), is a new dataset for labour market, welfare state and poverty research in Germany, creating a new empirical basis for the scientific community and for policy advice. This "Datenreport" written in German provides an overview of the second survey wave, for which 12,487 individuals were interviewed in 8,429 households between December 2007 and July 2008. 10,114 individuals and 7,342 households were interviewed for the second time in the context of PASS. The spectrum of questions and the design of PASS are intended to close gaps in the existing stock of data. PASS has three main characteristics that extend analysis potential beyond that of the Federal Employment Agency's administrative data: 1. The panel takes the household context into account - including the situation before and after receipt of Unemployment Benefit II. 2. The panel is complete in that it covers all groups of persons and all employment biographies, not only people in dependent employment, unemployed people and those in need of assistance. The dataset also provides information on the status during phases of economic inactivity, self-employment or employment as civil servants. 3. The panel collects additional or significantly more detailed data on relevant characteristics such as attitudes, employment potential or job-search behaviour." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en)) The english version of this "Datenreport" you can find here: http://fdz.iab.de/187/section.aspx/Publikation/k100607a04 Additional Information Hier finden Sie Band I des Datenreports: Einführung und Überblick Hier finden Sie Band II: Codebuch Haushaltsdatensatz Hier finden Sie Band III: Codebuch Personendatensatz Hier finden Sie Band IV: Codebuch Spelldaten, Registerdaten und Gewichte Fragebögen der 2. Welle Hier finden Sie die englische Version des Datenreports. Weitere Informationen zum Panel "Arbeitsmarkt und Soziale Sicherung".IAB-Haushaltspanel, Datengewinnung, Erhebungsmethode, Stichprobe, Panel - Methode, Datenaufbereitung

Strategien entwickeln, Potenziale nutzen: Fachkräftebedarf; Angebot an Arbeitskräften wird knapper

"Das IAB nimmt nach einer allgemeinen Einschätzung des Fachkräftebedarfs und einer Darstellung der Erwartungen für die Zukunft Stellung zu den folgenden Punkten der Anträge der Fraktionen Die Linke und Bündnis 90/Die Grünen: Ausbau von Ganztagsschulen, Konzept DualPlus, Grüner Pakt für Hochschulen, Bildungsberatung, Finanzierung der Berufsberatung durch Umlagesystem, Kürzungen bei der Förderung der beruflichen Weiterbildung, Weiterbildung Geringqualifizierter und beschäftigter älterer Arbeitnehmer in Unternehmen (WeGebAU)-Programm, Weiterbildung in Klein- und Großbetrieben, stärkere Erwerbsbeteiligung von Frauen, Erwerbsbeteiligung älterer Arbeitnehmer, Erwerbsbeteiligung von Menschen mit Behinderung, Anerkennung ausländischer Qualifikationen, Fachkräfteeinwanderung, Punktesystem, Weiterentwicklung des bisherigen Rechtssystems, Blue Card-Richtlinie, Anwerbung ausländischer Studenten, flächendeckender gesetzlicher Mindestlohn, Zurückdrängen prekärer Beschäftigungsformen, Anhebung der Hartz-IV-Regelsätze auf 500 Euro, Senkung des Renteneintrittsalters und kürzere Wochenarbeitszeiten." (Autorenreferat)"Preceded by a general assessment of qualified labour demand and a presentation of respective expectations for the future, the IAB comments on the following issues in the Left (Die Linke) and Green (Bündnis 90/DieGrünen) parliamentary parties’ petitions: expansion of fulltime schools, the concept "DualPlus", the Green Pact for institutions of higher education, educational counselling, funding of vocational edu-cation and training by a pay-as-you-go scheme, cuts in the promotion of continued vocational education, continued education of low-qualified workers and older employees in private companies (WeGebAU programme), continued education in small- and large-sized establishments, increased employment participation of women, employment participation of elderly employees, employment participation of handicapped people, recognition of foreign-country qualifications, immigration of skilled labour, labour immigration credit system, further development of the current legal system, the Blue Card guideline, attracting international university students, general minimum wage, confining precarious forms of employment, raising Hartz IV unemployment benefits to 500 Euros, lowering the retirement age, and reduced weekly working hours." (author's abstract

Human Practice. Digital Ecologies. Our Future. : 14. Internationale Tagung Wirtschaftsinformatik (WI 2019) : Tagungsband

Erschienen bei: universi - Universitätsverlag Siegen. - ISBN: 978-3-96182-063-4Aus dem Inhalt: Track 1: Produktion & Cyber-Physische Systeme Requirements and a Meta Model for Exchanging Additive Manufacturing Capacities Service Systems, Smart Service Systems and Cyber- Physical Systems—What’s the difference? Towards a Unified Terminology Developing an Industrial IoT Platform – Trade-off between Horizontal and Vertical Approaches Machine Learning und Complex Event Processing: Effiziente Echtzeitauswertung am Beispiel Smart Factory Sensor retrofit for a coffee machine as condition monitoring and predictive maintenance use case Stakeholder-Analyse zum Einsatz IIoT-basierter Frischeinformationen in der Lebensmittelindustrie Towards a Framework for Predictive Maintenance Strategies in Mechanical Engineering - A Method-Oriented Literature Analysis Development of a matching platform for the requirement-oriented selection of cyber physical systems for SMEs Track 2: Logistic Analytics An Empirical Study of Customers’ Behavioral Intention to Use Ridepooling Services – An Extension of the Technology Acceptance Model Modeling Delay Propagation and Transmission in Railway Networks What is the impact of company specific adjustments on the acceptance and diffusion of logistic standards? Robust Route Planning in Intermodal Urban Traffic Track 3: Unternehmensmodellierung & Informationssystemgestaltung (Enterprise Modelling & Information Systems Design) Work System Modeling Method with Different Levels of Specificity and Rigor for Different Stakeholder Purposes Resolving Inconsistencies in Declarative Process Models based on Culpability Measurement Strategic Analysis in the Realm of Enterprise Modeling – On the Example of Blockchain-Based Initiatives for the Electricity Sector Zwischenbetriebliche Integration in der Möbelbranche: Konfigurationen und Einflussfaktoren Novices’ Quality Perceptions and the Acceptance of Process Modeling Grammars Entwicklung einer Definition für Social Business Objects (SBO) zur Modellierung von Unternehmensinformationen Designing a Reference Model for Digital Product Configurators Terminology for Evolving Design Artifacts Business Role-Object Specification: A Language for Behavior-aware Structural Modeling of Business Objects Generating Smart Glasses-based Information Systems with BPMN4SGA: A BPMN Extension for Smart Glasses Applications Using Blockchain in Peer-to-Peer Carsharing to Build Trust in the Sharing Economy Testing in Big Data: An Architecture Pattern for a Development Environment for Innovative, Integrated and Robust Applications Track 4: Lern- und Wissensmanagement (e-Learning and Knowledge Management) eGovernment Competences revisited – A Literature Review on necessary Competences in a Digitalized Public Sector Say Hello to Your New Automated Tutor – A Structured Literature Review on Pedagogical Conversational Agents Teaching the Digital Transformation of Business Processes: Design of a Simulation Game for Information Systems Education Conceptualizing Immersion for Individual Learning in Virtual Reality Designing a Flipped Classroom Course – a Process Model The Influence of Risk-Taking on Knowledge Exchange and Combination Gamified Feedback durch Avatare im Mobile Learning Alexa, Can You Help Me Solve That Problem? - Understanding the Value of Smart Personal Assistants as Tutors for Complex Problem Tasks Track 5: Data Science & Business Analytics Matching with Bundle Preferences: Tradeoff between Fairness and Truthfulness Applied image recognition: guidelines for using deep learning models in practice Yield Prognosis for the Agrarian Management of Vineyards using Deep Learning for Object Counting Reading Between the Lines of Qualitative Data – How to Detect Hidden Structure Based on Codes Online Auctions with Dual-Threshold Algorithms: An Experimental Study and Practical Evaluation Design Features of Non-Financial Reward Programs for Online Reviews: Evaluation based on Google Maps Data Topic Embeddings – A New Approach to Classify Very Short Documents Based on Predefined Topics Leveraging Unstructured Image Data for Product Quality Improvement Decision Support for Real Estate Investors: Improving Real Estate Valuation with 3D City Models and Points of Interest Knowledge Discovery from CVs: A Topic Modeling Procedure Online Product Descriptions – Boost for your Sales? Entscheidungsunterstützung durch historienbasierte Dienstreihenfolgeplanung mit Pattern A Semi-Automated Approach for Generating Online Review Templates Machine Learning goes Measure Management: Leveraging Anomaly Detection and Parts Search to Improve Product-Cost Optimization Bedeutung von Predictive Analytics für den theoretischen Erkenntnisgewinn in der IS-Forschung Track 6: Digitale Transformation und Dienstleistungen Heuristic Theorizing in Software Development: Deriving Design Principles for Smart Glasses-based Systems Mirroring E-service for Brick and Mortar Retail: An Assessment and Survey Taxonomy of Digital Platforms: A Platform Architecture Perspective Value of Star Players in the Digital Age Local Shopping Platforms – Harnessing Locational Advantages for the Digital Transformation of Local Retail Outlets: A Content Analysis A Socio-Technical Approach to Manage Analytics-as-a-Service – Results of an Action Design Research Project Characterizing Approaches to Digital Transformation: Development of a Taxonomy of Digital Units Expectations vs. Reality – Benefits of Smart Services in the Field of Tension between Industry and Science Innovation Networks and Digital Innovation: How Organizations Use Innovation Networks in a Digitized Environment Characterising Social Reading Platforms— A Taxonomy-Based Approach to Structure the Field Less Complex than Expected – What Really Drives IT Consulting Value Modularity Canvas – A Framework for Visualizing Potentials of Service Modularity Towards a Conceptualization of Capabilities for Innovating Business Models in the Industrial Internet of Things A Taxonomy of Barriers to Digital Transformation Ambidexterity in Service Innovation Research: A Systematic Literature Review Design and success factors of an online solution for cross-pillar pension information Track 7: IT-Management und -Strategie A Frugal Support Structure for New Software Implementations in SMEs How to Structure a Company-wide Adoption of Big Data Analytics The Changing Roles of Innovation Actors and Organizational Antecedents in the Digital Age Bewertung des Kundennutzens von Chatbots für den Einsatz im Servicedesk Understanding the Benefits of Agile Software Development in Regulated Environments Are Employees Following the Rules? On the Effectiveness of IT Consumerization Policies Agile and Attached: The Impact of Agile Practices on Agile Team Members’ Affective Organisational Commitment The Complexity Trap – Limits of IT Flexibility for Supporting Organizational Agility in Decentralized Organizations Platform Openness: A Systematic Literature Review and Avenues for Future Research Competence, Fashion and the Case of Blockchain The Digital Platform Otto.de: A Case Study of Growth, Complexity, and Generativity Track 8: eHealth & alternde Gesellschaft Security and Privacy of Personal Health Records in Cloud Computing Environments – An Experimental Exploration of the Impact of Storage Solutions and Data Breaches Patientenintegration durch Pfadsysteme Digitalisierung in der Stressprävention – eine qualitative Interviewstudie zu Nutzenpotenzialen User Dynamics in Mental Health Forums – A Sentiment Analysis Perspective Intent and the Use of Wearables in the Workplace – A Model Development Understanding Patient Pathways in the Context of Integrated Health Care Services - Implications from a Scoping Review Understanding the Habitual Use of Wearable Activity Trackers On the Fit in Fitness Apps: Studying the Interaction of Motivational Affordances and Users’ Goal Orientations in Affecting the Benefits Gained Gamification in Health Behavior Change Support Systems - A Synthesis of Unintended Side Effects Investigating the Influence of Information Incongruity on Trust-Relations within Trilateral Healthcare Settings Track 9: Krisen- und Kontinuitätsmanagement Potentiale von IKT beim Ausfall kritischer Infrastrukturen: Erwartungen, Informationsgewinnung und Mediennutzung der Zivilbevölkerung in Deutschland Fake News Perception in Germany: A Representative Study of People’s Attitudes and Approaches to Counteract Disinformation Analyzing the Potential of Graphical Building Information for Fire Emergency Responses: Findings from a Controlled Experiment Track 10: Human-Computer Interaction Towards a Taxonomy of Platforms for Conversational Agent Design Measuring Service Encounter Satisfaction with Customer Service Chatbots using Sentiment Analysis Self-Tracking and Gamification: Analyzing the Interplay of Motivations, Usage and Motivation Fulfillment Erfolgsfaktoren von Augmented-Reality-Applikationen: Analyse von Nutzerrezensionen mit dem Review-Mining-Verfahren Designing Dynamic Decision Support for Electronic Requirements Negotiations Who is Stressed by Using ICTs? A Qualitative Comparison Analysis with the Big Five Personality Traits to Understand Technostress Walking the Middle Path: How Medium Trade-Off Exposure Leads to Higher Consumer Satisfaction in Recommender Agents Theory-Based Affordances of Utilitarian, Hedonic and Dual-Purposed Technologies: A Literature Review Eliciting Customer Preferences for Shopping Companion Apps: A Service Quality Approach The Role of Early User Participation in Discovering Software – A Case Study from the Context of Smart Glasses The Fluidity of the Self-Concept as a Framework to Explain the Motivation to Play Video Games Heart over Heels? An Empirical Analysis of the Relationship between Emotions and Review Helpfulness for Experience and Credence Goods Track 11: Information Security and Information Privacy Unfolding Concerns about Augmented Reality Technologies: A Qualitative Analysis of User Perceptions To (Psychologically) Own Data is to Protect Data: How Psychological Ownership Determines Protective Behavior in a Work and Private Context Understanding Data Protection Regulations from a Data Management Perspective: A Capability-Based Approach to EU-GDPR On the Difficulties of Incentivizing Online Privacy through Transparency: A Qualitative Survey of the German Health Insurance Market What is Your Selfie Worth? A Field Study on Individuals’ Valuation of Personal Data Justification of Mass Surveillance: A Quantitative Study An Exploratory Study of Risk Perception for Data Disclosure to a Network of Firms Track 12: Umweltinformatik und nachhaltiges Wirtschaften Kommunikationsfäden im Nadelöhr – Fachliche Prozessmodellierung der Nachhaltigkeitskommunikation am Kapitalmarkt Potentiale und Herausforderungen der Materialflusskostenrechnung Computing Incentives for User-Based Relocation in Carsharing Sustainability’s Coming Home: Preliminary Design Principles for the Sustainable Smart District Substitution of hazardous chemical substances using Deep Learning and t-SNE A Hierarchy of DSMLs in Support of Product Life-Cycle Assessment A Survey of Smart Energy Services for Private Households Door-to-Door Mobility Integrators as Keystone Organizations of Smart Ecosystems: Resources and Value Co-Creation – A Literature Review Ein Entscheidungsunterstützungssystem zur ökonomischen Bewertung von Mieterstrom auf Basis der Clusteranalyse Discovering Blockchain for Sustainable Product-Service Systems to enhance the Circular Economy Digitale Rückverfolgbarkeit von Lebensmitteln: Eine verbraucherinformatische Studie Umweltbewusstsein durch audiovisuelles Content Marketing? Eine experimentelle Untersuchung zur Konsumentenbewertung nachhaltiger Smartphones Towards Predictive Energy Management in Information Systems: A Research Proposal A Web Browser-Based Application for Processing and Analyzing Material Flow Models using the MFCA Methodology Track 13: Digital Work - Social, mobile, smart On Conversational Agents in Information Systems Research: Analyzing the Past to Guide Future Work The Potential of Augmented Reality for Improving Occupational First Aid Prevent a Vicious Circle! The Role of Organizational IT-Capability in Attracting IT-affine Applicants Good, Bad, or Both? Conceptualization and Measurement of Ambivalent User Attitudes Towards AI A Case Study on Cross-Hierarchical Communication in Digital Work Environments ‘Show Me Your People Skills’ - Employing CEO Branding for Corporate Reputation Management in Social Media A Multiorganisational Study of the Drivers and Barriers of Enterprise Collaboration Systems-Enabled Change The More the Merrier? The Effect of Size of Core Team Subgroups on Success of Open Source Projects The Impact of Anthropomorphic and Functional Chatbot Design Features in Enterprise Collaboration Systems on User Acceptance Digital Feedback for Digital Work? Affordances and Constraints of a Feedback App at InsurCorp The Effect of Marker-less Augmented Reality on Task and Learning Performance Antecedents for Cyberloafing – A Literature Review Internal Crowd Work as a Source of Empowerment - An Empirical Analysis of the Perception of Employees in a Crowdtesting Project Track 14: Geschäftsmodelle und digitales Unternehmertum Dividing the ICO Jungle: Extracting and Evaluating Design Archetypes Capturing Value from Data: Exploring Factors Influencing Revenue Model Design for Data-Driven Services Understanding the Role of Data for Innovating Business Models: A System Dynamics Perspective Business Model Innovation and Stakeholder: Exploring Mechanisms and Outcomes of Value Creation and Destruction Business Models for Internet of Things Platforms: Empirical Development of a Taxonomy and Archetypes Revitalizing established Industrial Companies: State of the Art and Success Principles of Digital Corporate Incubators When 1+1 is Greater than 2: Concurrence of Additional Digital and Established Business Models within Companies Special Track 1: Student Track Investigating Personalized Price Discrimination of Textile-, Electronics- and General Stores in German Online Retail From Facets to a Universal Definition – An Analysis of IoT Usage in Retail Is the Technostress Creators Inventory Still an Up-To-Date Measurement Instrument? Results of a Large-Scale Interview Study Application of Media Synchronicity Theory to Creative Tasks in Virtual Teams Using the Example of Design Thinking TrustyTweet: An Indicator-based Browser-Plugin to Assist Users in Dealing with Fake News on Twitter Application of Process Mining Techniques to Support Maintenance-Related Objectives How Voice Can Change Customer Satisfaction: A Comparative Analysis between E-Commerce and Voice Commerce Business Process Compliance and Blockchain: How Does the Ethereum Blockchain Address Challenges of Business Process Compliance? Improving Business Model Configuration through a Question-based Approach The Influence of Situational Factors and Gamification on Intrinsic Motivation and Learning Evaluation von ITSM-Tools für Integration und Management von Cloud-Diensten am Beispiel von ServiceNow How Software Promotes the Integration of Sustainability in Business Process Management Criteria Catalog for Industrial IoT Platforms from the Perspective of the Machine Tool Industry Special Track 3: Demos & Prototyping Privacy-friendly User Location Tracking with Smart Devices: The BeaT Prototype Application-oriented robotics in nursing homes Augmented Reality for Set-up Processe Mixed Reality for supporting Remote-Meetings Gamification zur Motivationssteigerung von Werkern bei der Betriebsdatenerfassung Automatically Extracting and Analyzing Customer Needs from Twitter: A “Needmining” Prototype GaNEsHA: Opportunities for Sustainable Transportation in Smart Cities TUCANA: A platform for using local processing power of edge devices for building data-driven services Demonstrator zur Beschreibung und Visualisierung einer kritischen Infrastruktur Entwicklung einer alltagsnahen persuasiven App zur Bewegungsmotivation für ältere Nutzerinnen und Nutzer A browser-based modeling tool for studying the learning of conceptual modeling based on a multi-modal data collection approach Exergames & Dementia: An interactive System for People with Dementia and their Care-Network Workshops Workshop Ethics and Morality in Business Informatics (Workshop Ethik und Moral in der Wirtschaftsinformatik – EMoWI’19) Model-Based Compliance in Information Systems - Foundations, Case Description and Data Set of the MobIS-Challenge for Students and Doctoral Candidates Report of the Workshop on Concepts and Methods of Identifying Digital Potentials in Information Management Control of Systemic Risks in Global Networks - A Grand Challenge to Information Systems Research Die Mitarbeiter von morgen - Kompetenzen künftiger Mitarbeiter im Bereich Business Analytics Digitaler Konsum: Herausforderungen und Chancen der Verbraucherinformati

Rare variants in NR2F2 cause congenital heart defects in humans

Congenital heart defects (CHDs) are the most common birth defect worldwide and are a leading cause of neonatal mortality. Nonsyndromic atrioventricular septal defects (AVSDs) are an important subtype of CHDs for which the genetic architecture is poorly understood. We performed exome sequencing in 13 parent-offspring trios and 112 unrelated individuals with nonsyndromic AVSDs and identified five rare missense variants (two of which arose de novo) in the highly conserved gene NR2F2, a very significant enrichment (p = 7.7 × 10?7) compared to 5,194 control subjects. We identified three additional CHD-affected families with other variants in NR2F2 including a de novo balanced chromosomal translocation, a de novo substitution disrupting a splice donor site, and a 3 bp duplication that cosegregated in a multiplex family. NR2F2 encodes a pleiotropic developmental transcription factor, and decreased dosage of NR2F2 in mice has been shown to result in abnormal development of atrioventricular septa. Via luciferase assays, we showed that all six coding sequence variants observed in individuals significantly alter the activity of NR2F2 on target promoters

Terrorist incidents: strategic treatment objectives, tactical diagnostic procedures and the estimated need of blood and clotting products

BACKGROUND Terrorism-related incidents that are associated with mass casualties (mass-casualty terrorist incidents) are a medical and organisational challenge for every hospital because of the special injury patterns involved, the time of the incident, the development of the situation, the initial lack of information, the number of injured, and the number of uninjured survivors who self-refer to a hospital. METHODS The Terror and Disaster Surgical Care (TDSC®) - Course was developed in order to address mass-casualty terrorist incidents and to provide surgeons with the specialist medical and surgical knowledge and skills required for these special situations. The focus of the TDSC® course is on how to provide surgical care and how to deploy scarce resources in a particular tactical situation in such a way that the number of survivors is maximised. RESULTS The effective management of such a tactical situation must be based on priorities and first and foremost requires the standardised sorting and categorisation of the injured at the hospital. The aim of triage, or the sorting of the injured, is to immediately identify patients with life-threatening injuries in environments with strained resources. The medical management of mass-casualty terrorist incidents requires tactical abbreviated surgical care (TASC) teams that have the skills needed to perform a primary survey and to provide care for casualties who need immediate surgery (triage category 1-T1). Initial fluid therapy should be restrictive (permissive hypotension) unless contraindicated. Clotting products are replaced in a standardised manner on the basis of patient requirements, which are calculated using rapidly available surrogates (blood gas analysis). Blood products can be administered or kept available depending on risks and triage categories. The highest priority should be given to the identification and management of haemodynamically unstable patients who require immediate surgery for injuries associated with bleeding into body cavities (T1 + +). CONCLUSION The recommendations and approaches described here should be considered as proposals for hospitals to develop standards or modify well-established standards that enable them to prepare themselves successfully for situations (e.g. mass-casualty terrorist or shooter incidents) in which their resources are temporarily overwhelmed

Photon upconverting nanoparticles for luminescent sensing of temperature

Photon upconverting nanoparticles convert near-infrared into visible light (anti-Stokes emission), which strongly reduces the background of autofluorescence and light scattering in biological materials. Hexagonal NaYF4 nanocrystals doped with Yb3+ as the sensitizer and Er3+/Ho3+/Tm3+ as the activator display at least two emission lines that respond differently to temperature changes. The ratio of the main emission line intensities enables a self-referenced optical readout of the temperature in the physiologically relevant range from 20 to 45 °C. Upconverting nanoparticles of the type NaYF4:Yb, Er covered by an inactive shell of NaYF4 are bright and allow for resolving temperature differences of less than 0.5 °C in the physiological range. The optical readout of this nanoparticle-based thermometer offers many options for imaging the two-dimensional distribution of temperature

HAX1 deletion impairs BCR internalization and leads to delayed BCR-mediated apoptosis

Deletion of HAX1 in mice causes a severe reduction in the numbers of lymphocytes in the bone marrow and in the spleen. Additionally, B220+ B progenitor cells in the bone marrow are reduced, suggesting an important function of HAX1 in B cell development. HAX1 is thought to play a protective role in apoptotic processes; therefore, we investigated the role of HAX1 in bone marrow B progenitor cells and splenic B cells. We did not observe an effect on the survival of Hax1/ bone marrow cells but detected enhanced survival of splenic Hax1/ B cells upon in vitro starvation/growth-factor withdrawal. To explain this apparent inconsistency with previous reports of HAX1 function, we also studied the B cell receptor (BCR)-induced apoptosis of IgM-stimulated splenic naïve B cells and found that apoptosis decreased in these cells. We further found impaired internalization of the BCR from Hax1/ splenic B cells after IgM crosslinking; this impaired internalization may result in decreased BCR signaling and, consequently, decreased BCR-mediated apoptosis. We measured HAX1 binding to the cytoplasmic domains of different Ig subtypes and identified KVKWI(V)F as the putative binding motif for HAX1 within the cytoplasmic domains. Because this motif can be found in almost all Ig subtypes, it is likely that HAX1 plays a general role in BCR-mediated internalization events and BCR-mediated apoptosis.(VLID)240564