In the last couple of years, several extended half-life factor VIII and factor IX preparations were intensively studied and gained approval. In order to extend half-lives, techniques like fusion to ...protein conjugates (Fc part of IgG 1 or albumin), chemical modification (PEGylation), and protein sequence modification are implemented. With these techniques, it is possible to extend half-lives of factor IX products 4- to 6- fold, while half-life extension of factor VIII products is limited to 1.5- to 2-fold due to their interaction with von Willebrand factor. Nevertheless, both extended half-life factor VIII and IX products have improved and facilitated prophylactic factor replacement therapy in hemophilia A and B, respectively. Extended half-life factor concentrates pose challenges to coagulation laboratories because accurate therapy monitoring is not possible with all factor activity assays currently used.
The European Universities Initiative (EUI), created by the European Commission in 2017, is a recent novel phenomenon within the European Union policy toolkit that explicitly targets the development ...of transnational cooperation in higher education (HE). To date, the EUI counts 44 European university alliances, involving around 340 HE institutions. In this paper, we argue that the EUI can be seen as a case of a transnational institution building process representing a potentially significant structural reform for European higher education. Anchored in new institutionalism, we explore the regulative, normative, and cultural-cognitive dimensions of the EUI. Methodologically, this study analyzes the perspectives of European policy actors (n = 4), a set of policy documents (n = 13) and the mission statements of the EUI’s partnerships funded before 2022 (n = 41). The results show that the EUI emerges as the ‘next level of cooperation’ in European HE since it aims to transform European cooperation (regulative dimension), to create and diffuse a new model for European HE following a challenge-based approach (normative dimension), and to work as a way to reinforce and institutionalize European and global scripts for European HE (cultural-cognitive dimension).
Instantaneous dynamic equilibrium (IDE) is a standard game-theoretic concept in dynamic traffic assignment in which individual flow particles myopically select en route currently shortest paths ...towards their destination. We analyze IDE within the Vickrey bottleneck model, where current travel times along a path consist of the physical travel times plus the sum of waiting times in all the queues along a path. Although IDE have been studied for decades, several fundamental questions regarding equilibrium computation and complexity are not well understood. In particular, all existence results and computational methods are based on fixed-point theorems and numerical discretization schemes and no exact finite time algorithm for equilibrium computation is known to date. As our main result we show that a natural extension algorithm needs only finitely many phases to converge leading to the first finite time combinatorial algorithm computing an IDE. We complement this result by several hardness results showing that computing IDE with natural properties is NP-hard.
Golden jackals (
Canis aureus
) display a complex repertoire of calls, utilized in different communication types (e.g., marking territories, attraction of mating partners). Resident golden jackal ...groups can successfully be detected by active bioacoustic stimulation, as well as with passive recording devices. For monitoring, basic knowledge of the calls of the focal species and potential restrictions and strengths of the monitoring devices should be considered. We therefore tested possible applications of a low-budget autonomous recording unit for bioacoustic golden jackal monitoring and examined the following research questions: How far can group calls be detected? Can the distance to the recording device be estimated? To answer these questions, we placed 11 AudioMoth recording devices in a linear transect to record live imitated and replayed howls. For the estimation of the number of responding animals, the number of howling individuals was determined based on the maximum number of simultaneously visible fundamental frequencies in a spectrogram. To predict the distance of the playback howls to the recording devices, the relative sound level (RSL) of each call was measured and fitted in linear models. Reliable distance estimations using RSL were possible up to 400 m. Estimated number of responding animals showed a negative relationship with distance. Our results present a baseline for future studies and show that AudioMoths can be a helpful asset in distance estimation of golden jackal packs—both in passive but also active monitoring.
Motivated by nonzero neutrino masses and the possibility of new physics discovery, a number of experiments search for neutrinoless double beta decay. While hunting for this hypothetical nuclear ...process, a significant amount of two-neutrino double beta decay data have become available. Although these events are regarded and studied mostly as the background of neutrinoless double beta decay, they can also be used to probe physics beyond the standard model. In this Letter, we show how the presence of right-handed leptonic currents would affect the energy distribution and angular correlation of the outgoing electrons in two-neutrino double beta decay. Consequently, we estimate constraints imposed by currently available data on the existence of right-handed neutrino interactions without having to assume their nature. In this way, our results complement the bounds coming from the nonobservation of neutrinoless double beta decay as they limit also the exotic interactions of Dirac neutrinos. We perform a detailed calculation of two-neutrino double beta decay under the presence of exotic (axial-) vector currents, and we demonstrate that current experimental searches can be competitive to existing limits.
The Copernicus Sentinel-2 (S2) satellite mission acquires high spatial resolution optical imagery over land and coastal areas. Delivering uncertainty estimates and spectral error correlation ...alongside S2 data products facilitates the constrain of retrieval algorithms, propagates further downstream the retrieval uncertainty, and, finally, makes informed decisions to end-users. This study presents a framework to produce uncertainty estimates and spectral error correlation associated with the S2 L2A data products (i.e., surface reflectance). This framework has been implemented in a prototype code available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11971517 . The uncertainty considers both the Level-1 (L1) uncertainty estimates for the top-of-atmosphere (TOA) reflectance factor and the atmospheric correction. The L2A error distribution cannot be systematically described as a normal distribution; the transformation can be nonlinear and without an explicit mathematical model. Thus, a multivariate Monte Carlo model (MCM) rather than the law of propagation of uncertainty (LPU) is selected for uncertainty propagation. We show results for surface reflectance uncertainty over the Amazon forest and Libya4 desert site. It illustrates the large uncertainty and spectral error correlation variations depending on the scene. The comparison of a multivariate MCM against an LPU propagation methodology indicates the limitations of the latter for scenes dominated by the atmospheric path. Its implementation as an operational per-pixel processing and dissemination of both the uncertainty and spectral error correlation becomes challenging. Therefore, this methodology is not expected to run at an operational level but serves as the basis to define a strategy for an operational one.
We distinguish between social and liberal collective skill formation systems and demonstrate that the German VET system is a social system with a strong (parity) role for trade unions in its ...governance. In contrast, unions play a considerably weaker role in the more liberal Swiss system, which privileges employers’ interests. We show that the different position of unions in VET systems has the expected consequences on a range of indicators. We further examine why unions are less important in Switzerland and show how, after the First World War, differences in the institutional environment and power resources of the union movements set Germany and Switzerland on different paths, which are still visible today.
We study dynamic network flows and introduce a notion of
instantaneous dynamic equilibrium
(
IDE
) requiring that for any positive inflow into an edge, this edge must lie on a currently shortest path ...towards the respective sink. We measure current shortest path length by current waiting times in queues plus physical travel times. As our main results, we show:
existence and constructive computation of IDE flows for multi-source single-sink networks assuming constant network inflow rates,
finite termination of IDE flows for multi-source single-sink networks assuming bounded and finitely lasting inflow rates,
the existence of IDE flows for multi-source multi-sink instances assuming general measurable network inflow rates,
the existence of a complex single-source multi-sink instance in which any IDE flow is caught in cycles and flow remains forever in the network.
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