Neuropsychological Studies in older adults: A comprehensive MMSE-MoCA conversion table – Prevention of postoperative delirium – Cognitive sequelae of atrial fibrillation

As life expectancy increases, so does the proportion of elderly individuals in most industrialized countries. As people age, they undergo both physical and cognitive changes. Thus, cognitive difficulties and other agerelated pathologies such as cardiovascular and neurological diseases increase with age. In this context, atrial fibrillation (AF) and delirium are of great clinical relevance not only because of their epidemiological data but also, in particular, because of their major role in the development of cognitive dysfunction. Hence, sufficient knowledge and identification of potential risk factors of AF and delirium as well as early recognition are essential to take preventive measures. The present doctoral thesis aims to define corresponding scores for two widely used cognitive screening tools and provide insights into cognitive changes in elderly adults with atrial fibrillation and the validity of a preexisting preoperative delirium prediction model after cardiac surgery. In study I, a comprehensive conversion table of two commonly used cognitive screening tests was created. We could define corresponding scores for the Mini-Mental Status Examination (MMSE) and the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) in 803 German-speaking Memory Clinic outpatients. Further, a systematic review of existing MMSE-MoCA conversions was conducted to create a comprehensive conversion table. This enables a direct comparison of cognitive test scores at screening examinations and over the course of disease in patients with predominantly neurocognitive disorders. Study II investigated the associations between AF and cognition in aging. A small, constant increase in cognitive functioning over a median duration of 3.97 years in AF patients was found, presumably explained by learning effects that were less pronounced in non-paroxysmal AF patients, specifically in processing speed and executive functions. Some evidence suggests diabetes, history of stroke/transient ischemic attack (TIA) and depression being associated with faster cognitive decline in AF patients. In study III, an independent external validation of an existing preoperative risk prediction model for delirium was provided in 348 patients who had undergone cardiac surgery. The evaluated predictive model showed poor discriminative capacity but fair calibration. As an outlook, reflections on future directions concerning the role of cognitive performance in AF and delirium are given as well as discussed

Snakes and Witches: On Temptation, Morality and Death in The Chronicles of Narnia and His Dark Materials

The goal of this thesis is to show the ways in which C. S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia and Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials depict Biblical themes, and to illustrate the worldview and moral values they represent by making use of these Biblical themes. I discuss the differences and similarities of the two series in their portrayal of themes like temptation, sin, morality, death and the afterlife. For my theoretical background and secondary material, I draw on theological literary criticism and thematics, as well as previous research on both Lewis’ and Pullman’s work. Using these as my background, I analyse the primary material through close reading. I show that the two series make use of a variety Biblical references and themes to create a moral framework and present their respective views on these themes. My main result is that their portrayal of morality and the other ideologies that they portray vary drastically, but that their overall goal is very similar. Both The Chronicles of Narnia and His Dark Materials aims to provide young readers with ideas about what is moral, how to live a morally good life, and where this life ultimately leads. In their own ways, both series also provide reassurance to their young audience when it comes to the topic of death. In their work, both Lewis and Pullman treat existential questions about what it means to be human, and they give different answers to these questions that I present in this thesis. I also demonstrate the relevance of this topic by discussing some of the critical opinions on both series, pointing to the underlying issue of deciding what is appropriate for young audiences to read. This is an important and ongoing cultural and societal discussion, in which our moral values and the ideologies we want to pass on to the next generation are constantly re-negotiated. Analysing the ways in which these values are represented on a textual level can give us an increased understanding of the issues at stake. With this thesis, I hope to be able to contribute to this discussion

Apprenticeship Training and the Business Cycle

Dual apprenticeship training is a market-driven form of education at the upper secondary level, taking place in firms as well as in vocational schools. So far, little is known about the impact of the business cycle on the number of apprenticeship programs offered by firms. Using panel-data of Swiss cantons from 1988-2004, we find that the influence of the business cycle is statistically significant, but small in size. Instead, supply of apprenticeship programs is driven to a much greater extent by demographic change. Conversely, the number of first-year high school students is not affected by the business cycle. We find, however, that enrollment increases if the population at age 16 grows, but access to high schools does not become more restricted in times of negative growth.apprenticeship training, business cycle, high school enrollment

Voter preferences as a source of descriptive (mis)representation by social class

This paper presents the results of a conjoint survey experiment in which Swiss citizens were asked to choose among parliamentary candidates with different class profiles determined by occupation, education and income. Existing survey-experimental literature on this topic suggests that respondents are indifferent to the class profiles of candidates or biased against candidates with high-status occupations and high incomes. We find that respondents are biased against upper middle-class candidates as well as routine working-class candidates. While the bias against upper middle-class candidates is primarily a bias among working-class individuals, the bias against routine working-class candidates is most pronounced among middle-class individuals. Our supplementary analysis of observational data confirms the bias against routine working-class candidates, but not the bias against upper middle-class candidates.publishedVersio

Trombe Curtain Wall Façade

In times of energy use awareness, decarbonisation, and resource efficiency, the performance of well-known façade components must be pushed beyond current limits through innovative designs and new combinations in construction. This paper presents an unconventional redesign of a double skin façade (DSF), based on Trombe wall principles, to enlarge solar gains in heating seasons and avoid overheating issues in summertime. The DSF variant is equipped with a thermal storage mass in the DSF cavity and interior insulation. The thermal mass, in this case concrete, is of a dark colour for high solar absorption, whereas the shading device is highly reflective. In contrast to traditional Trombe wall systems, this TCW is not supposed to actively heat interior space or transfer thermal energy. Instead, the TCW aims to regulate heat flux within the façade level by the management of solar thermal energy fluxes. The potential to reduce buildings’ heat losses through solar energy use is shown and compared to a traditional external thermal insulation composite system (ETICS) with an appropriate insulation thickness for renovation purposes in Switzerland. The U-Value is therefore considerably lower, 0.25 instead of 0.41 for the TCW. Due to the innovative design and fully transient operation, a highly detailed and flexible simulation tool is needed to analyse and assess the façade performance. The decision to simulate the novel system was made for Modelica-Dymola, with its object-oriented, equation-based simulation language. The simulations of both TCW and ETICS show potential for heat loss reduction due to solar energy storage on every orientation. However, the TCW shows a high solar energy usage due to its ‘natural’ overheating tendency. Furthermore, heat losses are significantly lower than the U-Value predicts and, in some cases, even lower than the ETICS heat losses. In addition, due to its lower use of material and lower weight, the system can be used as a curtain wall system instead of traditional DSFs, which have higher heat losses in winter and higher solar gains in summer

Glass design in Switzerland

In the past glass design in Switzerland was based on foreign standards and regulations. Questions raised whether the application of these standards is suitable, as they do not comply with the Swiss Standard SIA 260 – Basis of design. The most used standards are the German technical regulations for the use of glazing with linear supports (TRLV) and the DIN 18008. The Swiss society of engineers and architects (SIA) initiated a structural glass standard committee with the task to develop a Swiss glass design standard. The new Swiss glass design standard is based on the same concept as the Eurocode10 "Design of Structural Glass", which is currently in preparation. In future, this standard will be the basis of the Swiss national annex of the Eurocode. An important issue in glass design practice is the shear coupling effect in laminated glass. The standard allows taking into the shear coupling effects and thus will lead to more economic pane thickness. A new concept was developed to meet post failure requirements without time-consuming and costly tests. A new approach for the determination of temperatures in IGU was established to determine the climate loads of insulated glazing units (IGU)

Tweetocracy Switzerland: exploring the representativeness, structuration and content of swiss party politics on twitter

This contribution puts forward an explorative account of the Swiss political parties' presence on Twitter. Social media in general, and the Twitter microblogging service more in particular, have recently received a lot of attention by scholars who try to harvest the new data source for the social sciences. However, the validity of these data sources is heavily disputed. Therefore, this contribution takes one step back and tries to establish the usefulness of political communication on Twitter for the political sciences in Switzerland, a context which is not well studied so far. More precisely, this study serves two main purposes. First, a descriptive overview over the geographical distribution, network structure and basic dynamic trends of Swiss Twitter accounts which are related to one of the political parties in Switzerland is presented. Subsequently, social network and text analyses are applied to provide evidence on the following questions. In terms of its representativeness, it can be shown that the Swiss partisan Twitter sphere is systematically biases towards the political left and urban areas. As for the structuration of the Twitter sphere, it is revealed that users are separated into a handful of highly networked actors and many peripheral ones. Furthermore, there are clear signs of political homophily among users of the same party. In terms of the Tweets communicated, left and small center parties show a more conversational style than right parties

Spontaneous emission of a nanoscopic emitter in a strongly scattering disordered medium

Fluorescence lifetimes of nitrogen-vacancy color centers in individual diamond nanocrystals were measured at the interface between a glass substrate and a strongly scattering medium. Comparison of the results with values recorded from the same nanocrystals at the glass-air interface revealed fluctuations of fluorescence lifetimes in the scattering medium. After discussing a range of possible systematic effects, we attribute the observed lengthening of the lifetimes to the reduction of the local density of states. Our approach is very promising for exploring the strong three-dimensional localization of light directly on the microscopic scale.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figure

Variable sediment oxygen uptake in response to dynamic forcing

Seiche-induced turbulence and the vertical distribution of dissolved oxygen above and within the sediment were analyzed to evaluate the sediment oxygen uptake rate (JO2), diffusive boundary layer thickness (δDBL), and sediment oxic zone depth (zmax) in situ. High temporal-resolution microprofiles across the sediment-water interface and current velocity data within the bottom boundary layer in a medium-sized mesotrophic lake were obtained during a 12-h field study. We resolved the dynamic forcing of a full 8-h seiche cycle and evaluated JO2 from both sides of the sediment-water interface. Turbulence (characterized by the energy dissipation rate, ε), the vertical distribution of dissolved oxygen across the sediment-water interface (characterized by δDBL and zmax), JO2, and the sediment oxygen consumption rate (RO2) are all strongly correlated in our freshwater system. Seiche-induced turbulence shifted from relatively active (ε = 1.2 × 10-8 W kg-1) to inactive (ε = 7.8 × 10-12 W kg-1). In response to this dynamic forcing, δDBL increased from 1.0 mm to the point of becoming undefined, zmax decreased from 2.2 to 0.3 mm as oxygen was depleted from the sediment, and JO2 decreased from 7.0 to 1.1 mmol m-2 d-1 over a time span of hours. JO2 and oxygen consumption were found to be almost equivalent (within ~ 5% and thus close to steady state), with RO2 adjusting rapidly to changes in JO2. Our results reveal the transient nature of sediment oxygen uptake and the importance of accurately characterizing turbulence when estimating JO2