In the recent years, short-term heart rate variability (HRV) describing complex variations of beat-to-beat interval series that are mainly controlled by the autonomic nervous system (ANS) has been ...increasingly analyzed to assess the ANS activity in different diseases and under various conditions. In contrast to long-term HRV analysis, short-term investigations (<30 min) provide a test result almost immediately. Thus, short-term HRV analysis is suitable for ambulatory care, patient monitoring and all those applications where the result is urgently needed. In a previous study, we could show significant variations of 5-min HRV indices according to age in almost all domains (linear and nonlinear) in 1906 healthy subjects from the KORA S4 cohort. Based on the same group of subjects, general gender-related influences on HRV indices are to be determined in this study. Short-term 5-min HRV indices from linear time and frequency domain and from nonlinear methods (compression entropy, detrended fluctuation analysis, traditional and segmented Poincaré plot analysis, irreversibility analysis, symbolic dynamics, correlation and mutual information analysis) were determined from 782 females and 1124 males. First, we examined the gender differences in two age clusters (25-49 years and 50-74 years). Secondly, we investigated the gender-specific development of HRV indices in five age decade categories, namely for ages 25-34, 35-44, 45-54, 55-64 and 65-74 years. In this study, significant modifications of the indices according to gender could be obtained, especially in the frequency domain and correlation analyses. Furthermore, there were significant modifications according to age in nearly all of the domains. The gender differences disappeared within the last two age decades and the age dependencies disappeared in the last decade. To summarize gender and age influences need to be considered when performing HRV studies even if these influences only partly differ.
Shared displays are important tools for promoting collaboration.Ubiquitous computing presents new requirements for the design of shared display systems.Contextualisation of information at shared ...displays is becoming more important. The ability to rapidly create shared display systems is motivated by the fact that shared displays play central roles in collaboration. Low level implementation issues, common to shared display systems can be an obstacle for this. A toolkit for creation of such systems is therefore needed to provide basic shared display functionality to developers. This master thesis presents a toolkit for creating shared display applications on UbiCollab, a platform supporting collaborative work in ubiquitous environments. The work shows the development of the toolkit and how the toolkit can be used to create a shared display system. The toolkit takes advantage of the opportunities the UbiCollab platform provides on contextualisation of information.
Shared displays are important tools for promoting collaboration.Ubiquitous computing presents new requirements for the design of shared display systems.Contextualisation of information at shared ...displays is becoming more important. The ability to rapidly create shared display systems is motivated by the fact that shared displays play central roles in collaboration. Low level implementation issues, common to shared display systems can be an obstacle for this. A toolkit for creation of such systems is therefore needed to provide basic shared display functionality to developers. This master thesis presents a toolkit for creating shared display applications on UbiCollab, a platform supporting collaborative work in ubiquitous environments. The work shows the development of the toolkit and how the toolkit can be used to create a shared display system. The toolkit takes advantage of the opportunities the UbiCollab platform provides on contextualisation of information.
Shared displays are important tools for promoting collaboration.Ubiquitous computing presents new requirements for the design of shared display systems.Contextualisation of information at shared displays is becoming more important. The ability to rapidly create shared display systems is motivated by the fact that shared displays play central roles in collaboration. Low level implementation issues, common to shared display systems can be an obstacle for this. A toolkit for creation of such systems is therefore needed to provide basic shared display functionality to developers. This master thesis presents a toolkit for creating shared display applications on UbiCollab, a platform supporting collaborative work in ubiquitous environments. The work shows the development of the toolkit and how the toolkit can be used to create a shared display system. The toolkit takes advantage of the opportunities the UbiCollab platform provides on contextualisation of information.
Zusammenfassung
Im Marketing existiert die Vorstellung, dass Kunden klare und eindeutige Produktpräferenzen besitzen. Neueste Forschung aus dem Bereich „Behavioral Economics“ zeigt, dass Kunden ihre ...Präferenzen für ein Produkt in vielen Fällen erst im Rahmen der Kaufentscheidung bilden. Welche Folgen das für die Gestaltung von Marketingaktivitäten hat, zeigt dieser Beitrag.
Substitution of hazardous substances is a prioritised objective in chemical regulation and risk management. However, it is experienced as a tough task with often inconsistent results. Based on ...thirteen case studies, this book analyzes substitution as an innovation process and attempts to give answers to the following questions: Why and under which circumstances are companies able and willing to substitute hazardous substances? What are the main drivers and the main barriers? In which way can communication along the supply chain support environmental innovation? How can risk management appropriately deal with the lack of knowledge, with uncertainties and incomplete knowledge about the possible effects of different substances? Recommendations for action are provided for commercial and state institutions and consumers and thus for all actors engaged in the European reform of chemicals policy following the REACH system.
Understanding the fundamental mechanisms governing fluctuating oscillations in large-scale cortical circuits is a crucial prelude to a proper knowledge of their role in both adaptive and pathological ...cortical processes. Neuroscience research in this area has much to gain from understanding the Kuramoto model, a mathematical model that speaks to the very nature of coupled oscillating processes, and which has elucidated the core mechanisms of a range of biological and physical phenomena. In this paper, we provide a brief introduction to the Kuramoto model in its original, rather abstract, form and then focus on modifications that increase its neurobiological plausibility by incorporating topological properties of local cortical connectivity. The extended model elicits elaborate spatial patterns of synchronous oscillations that exhibit persistent dynamical instabilities reminiscent of cortical activity. We review how the Kuramoto model may be recast from an ordinary differential equation to a population level description using the nonlinear Fokker-Planck equation. We argue that such formulations are able to provide a mechanistic and unifying explanation of oscillatory phenomena in the human cortex, such as fluctuating beta oscillations, and their relationship to basic computational processes including multistability, criticality, and information capacity.
Long-term immunological memory to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is crucial for the development of population-level immunity, which is the aim of vaccination approaches. ...Reports on rapidly decreasing antibody titers have led to questions regarding the efficacy of humoral immunity alone. The relevance of T cell memory after coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) remains unclear. Here, we investigated SARS-CoV-2 antibody and T cell responses in matched samples of COVID-19 convalescent individuals up to 6 months after infection. Longitudinal analysis revealed decreasing and stable spike- and nucleocapsid-specific antibody responses, respectively. In contrast, functional T cell responses remained robust, and even increased, in both frequency and intensity. Single peptide mapping of T cell diversity over time identified open reading frame-independent, dominant T cell epitopes mediating long-term SARS-CoV-2 T cell responses. Identification of these epitopes may be fundamental for COVID-19 vaccine design.
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