Photo- und Elektropionproduktion in chiraler effektiver Feldtheorie

In der vorliegenden Arbeit werden Photopionproduktion (PPP) und Elektropionproduktion (EPP) im Rahmen der manifest lorentzinvarianten baryonischen chiralen Störungstheorie untersucht. Dabei werden zwei verschiedene Ansätze verfolgt. Zum einen wird eine Rechnung auf Einschleifenniveau bis zur chiralen Ordnung O(q^4) mit Pionen und Nukleonen als Freiheitsgrade durchgeführt, um die Energieabhängigkeit der Reaktionen über einen möglichst großen Bereich zu beschreiben. Um die Abhängigkeit von der Photonvirtualität in der EPP zu verbessern, werden zum anderen in einer zweiten Rechnung Vektormesonen in die Theorie einbezogen. Diese Rechnung wird bis zur chiralen Ordnung O(q^3) auf Einschleifenniveau durchgeführt. rnrnVon den vier physikalischen Prozessen in PPP und EPP sind nur drei experimentell zugänglich. Untersucht werden diese Reaktionen an mehreren verschiedenen Anlagen, z.B. in Mainz, Bonn oder Saskatoon. Die dort gewonnenen Daten werden hier verwendet, um die Grenzen der chiralen Störungstheorie auszuloten. rnrnDiese Arbeit stellt die erste, vollständige, manifest lorentzinvariante Rechnung in O(q^4) für PPP und EPP, und die erste jemals durchgeführte Rechnung mit Vektormesonen als Freiheitsgrade für diesen Prozess, dar. Neben der Berechnung der physikalischen Observablen wird auch eine Partialwellenzerlegung durchgeführt und die wichtigsten Multipole untersucht. Diese lassen sich aus den gewonnenen Amplituden extrahieren und bieten eine gute Möglichkeit das Nukleon und Resonanzen zu untersuchen. rnrnUm das Matrixelement für die Prozesse berechnen zu können, wurden verschiedene Routinen für das Computeralgebrasystem Mathematica entwickelt, da die Anzahl der zu bestimmenden Diagramme sehr groß ist. Für die Multipolzerlegung werden zwei verschiedene Programme verwendet. Zum einen das bereits existierende Programm XMAID, welches für diese Arbeit entsprechend modifiziert wurde. Zum anderen wurden vergleichbare Routinen für Mathematica entwickelt. Am Ende der Analysen werden die verschiedenen Rechnungen bezüglich ihrer Anwendbarkeit auf PPP und EPP verglichen.

The Structure of Financial Supervision: Consolidation or Fragmentation for Financial Regulators?

This research was designed to answer the question of which direction the restructuring of financial regulators should take – consolidation or fragmentation. This research began by examining the need for financial regulation and its related costs. It then continued to describe what types of regulatory structures exist in the world; surveying the regulatory structures in 15 jurisdictions, comparing them and discussing their strengths and weaknesses. This research analyzed the possible regulatory structures using three methodological tools: Game-Theory, Institutional-Design, and Network-Effects. The incentives for regulatory action were examined in Chapter Four using game theory concepts. This chapter predicted how two regulators with overlapping supervisory mandates will behave in two different states of the world (where they can stand to benefit from regulating and where they stand to lose). The insights derived from the games described in this chapter were then used to analyze the different supervisory models that exist in the world. The problem of information-flow was discussed in Chapter Five using tools from institutional design. The idea is based on the need for the right kind of information to reach the hands of the decision maker in the shortest time possible in order to predict, mitigate or stop a financial crisis from occurring. Network effects and congestion in the context of financial regulation were discussed in Chapter Six which applied the literature referring to network effects in general in an attempt to conclude whether consolidating financial regulatory standards on a global level might also yield other positive network effects. Returning to the main research question, this research concluded that in general the fragmented model should be preferable to the consolidated model in most cases as it allows for greater diversity and information-flow. However, in cases in which close cooperation between two authorities is essential, the consolidated model should be used.

Charge transport in organic photovoltaic cells

Die vorliegende Dissertation dient dazu, das Verständnis des Ladungstransportes in organischen Solarzellen zu vertiefen. Mit Hilfe von Computersimulationen wird die Bewegung von Ladungsträgern in organischen Materialien rekonstruiert, und zwar ausgehend von den quantenmechanischen Prozessen auf mikroskopischer Ebene bis hin zur makroskopischen Skala, wo Ladungsträgermobilitäten quantifizierbar werden. Auf Grundlage dieses skalenübergreifenden Ansatzes werden Beziehungen zwischen der chemischen Struktur organischer Moleküle und der makroskopischen Mobilität hergestellt (Struktur-Eigenschafts-Beziehungen), die zu der Optimierung photovoltaischer Wirkungsgrade beitragen. Das Simulationsmodell beinhaltet folgende drei Schlüsselkomponenten. Erstens eine Morphologie, d. h. ein atomistisch aufgelöstes Modell der molekularen Anordnung in dem untersuchten Material. Zweitens ein Hüpfmodell des Ladungstransportes, das Ladungswanderung als eine Abfolge von Ladungstransferreaktionen zwischen einzelnen Molekülen beschreibt. Drittens ein nichtadiabatisches Modell des Ladungstransfers, das Übergangsraten durch drei Parameter ausdrückt: Reorganisationsenergien, Lageenergien und Transferintegrale. Die Ladungstransport-Simulationen richten sich auf die Materialklasse der dicyanovinyl-substituierten Oligothiophene und umfassen Morphologien von Einkristallen, Dünnschichten sowie amorphen/smektischen Mesophasen. Ein allgemeiner Befund ist, dass die molekulare Architektur, bestehend aus einer Akzeptor-Donor-Akzeptor-Sequenz und einem flexiblen Oligomergerüst, eine erhebliche Variation molekularer Dipolmomente und damit der Lageenergien bewirkt. Diese energetische Unordnung ist ungewöhnlich hoch in den Kristallen und umso höher in den Mesophasen. Für die Einkristalle wird beobachtet, dass Kristallstrukturen mit ausgeprägter π-Stapelung und entsprechend großer Transferintegrale zu verhältnismäßig niedrigen Mobilitäten führen. Dieses Verhalten wird zurückgeführt auf die Ausbildung bevorzugter Transportrichtungen, die anfällig für energetische Störungen sind. Für die Dünnschichten bestätigt sich diese Argumentation und liefert ein mikroskopisches Verständnis für experimentelle Mobilitäten. In der Tat korrelieren die Simulationsergebnisse sowohl mit gemessenen Mobilitäten als auch mit photovoltaischen Wirkungsgraden. Für die amorphen/smektischen Systeme steigt die energetische Unordnung mit der Oligomerlänge, sie führt aber auch zu einer unerwarteten Mobilitätsabnahme in dem stärker geordneten smektischen Zustand. Als Ursache dafür erweist sich, dass die smektische Schichtung der räumlichen Korrelation der energetischen Unordnung entgegensteht.

Bitext alignment: building and evaluating a bilingual corpus and translation memory of academic course descriptions

Following the internationalization of contemporary higher education, academic institutions based in non-English speaking countries are increasingly urged to produce contents in English to address international prospective students and personnel, as well as to increase their attractiveness. The demand for English translations in the institutional academic domain is consequently increasing at a rate exceeding the capacity of the translation profession. Resources for assisting non-native authors and translators in the production of appropriate texts in L2 are therefore required in order to help academic institutions and professionals streamline their translation workload. Some of these resources include: (i) parallel corpora to train machine translation systems and multilingual authoring tools; and (ii) translation memories for computer-aided tools. The purpose of this study is to create and evaluate reference resources like the ones mentioned in (i) and (ii) through the automatic sentence alignment of a large set of Italian and English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) institutional academic texts given as equivalent but not necessarily parallel (i.e. translated). In this framework, a set of aligning algorithms and alignment tools is examined in order to identify the most profitable one(s) in terms of accuracy and time- and cost-effectiveness. In order to determine the text pairs to align, a sample is selected according to document length similarity (characters) and subsequently evaluated in terms of extent of noisiness/parallelism, alignment accuracy and content leverageability. The results of these analyses serve as the basis for the creation of an aligned bilingual corpus of academic course descriptions, which is eventually used to create a translation memory in TMX format.

Premio "Capitale verde europea". Studio di una politica dell'Unione europea in tema di sostenibilità ambientale con approfondimento terminologico sul minieolico.

This dissertation is divided into four chapters and combines the study of the European Green Capital Award with a terminology research on small wind turbines, a technical subject in the macro-area of sustainable cities. Chapter I aims at giving an overview of the development of environmental policies and treaties both at the international and European level. Then, after highlighting the crucial role of cities for the global environment, the chapter outlines the urban dimension of the EU environmental policies and defines the vision of a sustainable city promoted by the European Union. Chapter II contains an in-depth analysis of the European Green Capital Award and illustrates its aims, the entire designation process, its communication campaign and its evolution. Chapter III focuses on applicant, finalist and winning cities in order to study the aspect of participation in the competition. It also contains a detailed analysis of two European Green Capitals, i.e. Nantes and Bristol, who respectively won the title in 2013 and 2015. Based on a variety of sources, this chapter examines the successful aspects of their bids and communication campaigns during their year as Green Capitals. Chapter IV presents the terminology research in the field of small wind turbines and the resulting bilingual glossary in English and Italian. The research was carried out using two terminology tools: TranslatorBank and InterpretBank. The former is composed by two software programmes, CorpusCreator and MiniConcordancer DB, which were used to semi-automatically create specialized corpora from the Web and then extract terminology and occurrences of terms from the collected texts. The latter is a software which has been specifically designed for interpreters in order to help them optimize their professional workflow, from gathering information and creating glossaries on a specific subject to the actual interpreting task at a conference. InterpretBank’s tool TermMode was used to create a glossary with term equivalents and additional information such as definitions and the contexts of use.

On a Problem of Burnside

Burnside posed the question as to whether or not there exist groups having an external automorphism that behaves in a certain, specific way like an inner automorphism: we shall define such automorphisms to be nearly-inner. NI-groups are fairly rare. With the aid of the computer algebra system Magma - in particular with the aid of its small group database - we set out to test this hypothesis.

Changes in Psychological Characteristics of Working Adults in Different Stages of Economic Transition in Lithuania

Global economic changes have psychological consequences and Mr. Lepeska set out to assess these changes in working adults in Lithuania between 1993 and 1997. He surveyed two groups of working adults, with a total of 200 people, randomly selected and representing different organisations and professions. In both groups around 30% of participants were managers, with the remainder working in non-managerial positions. The participants were surveyed twice, once in 1993 and the second time in 1997,using various psychodiagnostic tools to measure their psychological characteristics. The results showed that strategies for coping with stress have changed, with problem solving strategies being used more often, and avoidance behaviour or seeking social support less. Men tended to have rejected these strategy more radically than women. Attitudes towards work had become more positive, with managers' attitudes having changed more significantly than those of employees from lower levels of organisations. Younger people were more positive towards work-related changes, while situational anxiety tended to increase with age, although overall it remained low. Mr. Lepeska found that while there were some indications of an increasing individualist in relation to peers, the traditional collective orientation of Lithuanian adults had if anything increased. People have become more accepting of an unequal distribution of power, making it difficult to increase the participation of subordinates in decision making. He also noted a tendency for Lithuanians to see their organisations as traditional families, expecting them to take care of them physically and economically in return for loyalty. The strong feminine orientation with its stress on interpersonal relations and overall quality of life has also strengthened, but the ability of Lithuanians to take initiative and control their environment was relatively low. Mr. Lepeska concludes that organisations should seek to recruit people who are able to adjust more easily to changes and consider measuring dominance, individualism, and attitudes to work-related change and situational anxiety in the process of professional selection. There should also be more emphasis on team building and on training managers to maintain closer relationships with their subordinates so as to increase the latter's participation in decision making. Good interpersonal relations can be a strong work motivator, as may be special attention to the security needs of older employees.

Activation of T cells by carbamazepine and carbamazepine metabolites

BACKGROUND: T-cell-mediated hypersensitivity is a rare but serious manifestation of drug therapy. OBJECTIVES: To explore the mechanisms of drug presentation to T cells and the possibility that generation of metabolite-specific T cells may provoke cross-sensitization between drugs. METHODS: A lymphocyte transformation test was performed on 13 hypersensitive patients with carbamazepine, oxcarbazepine, and carbamazepine metabolites. Serial dilution experiments were performed to generate drug (metabolite)-specific T-cell clones to explore the structural basis of the T-cell response and mechanisms of antigen presentation. 3-Dimensional energy-minimized structures were generated by using computer modeling. The role of drug metabolism was analyzed with 1-aminobenzotriazole. RESULTS: Lymphocytes and T-cell clones proliferated with carbamazepine, oxcarbazepine, and some (carbamazepine 10,11 epoxide, 10-hydroxy carbamazepine) but not all stable carbamazepine metabolites. Structure activity studies using 29 carbamazepine (metabolite)-specific T-cell clones revealed 4 patterns of drug recognition, which could be explained by generation of preferred 3-dimensional structural conformations. T cells were stimulated by carbamazepine (metabolites) bound directly to MHC in the absence of processing. The activation threshold for T-cell proliferation varied between 5 minutes and 4 hours. 1-Aminobenzotriazole, which inhibits cytochrome P450 activity, did not prevent carbamazepine-related T-cell proliferation. Substitution of the terminal amine residue of carbamazepine with a methyl group diminished T-cell proliferation. CONCLUSION: These data show that carbamazepine and certain stable carbamazepine metabolites stimulate T cells rapidly via a direct interaction with MHC and specific T-cell receptors. CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS: Some patients with a history of carbamazepine hypersensitivity possess T cells that cross-react with oxcarbazepine, providing a rationale for cross-sensitivity between the 2 drugs.

Hip damage occurs at the zone of femoroacetabular impingement

Although current concepts of anterior femoroacetabular impingement predict damage in the labrum and the cartilage, the actual joint damage has not been verified by computer simulation. We retrospectively compared the intraoperative locations of labral and cartilage damage of 40 hips during surgical dislocation for cam or pincer type femoroacetabular impingement (Group I) with the locations of femoroacetabular impingement in 15 additional hips using computer simulation (Group II). We found no difference between the mean locations of the chondrolabral damage of Group I and the computed impingement zone of Group II. The standard deviation was larger for measures of articular damage from Group I in comparison to the computed values of Group II. The most severe hip damage occurred at the zone of highest probability of femoroacetabular impact, typically in the anterosuperior quadrant of the acetabulum for both cam and pincer type femoroacetabular impingements. However, the extent of joint damage along the acetabular rim was larger intraoperatively than that observed on the images of the 3-D joint simulations. We concluded femoroacetabular impingement mechanism contributes to early osteoarthritis including labral lesions. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Level II, diagnostic study. See the Guidelines for Authors for a complete description of levels of evidence.

Youth criminality and urban social conflict in the city of Rosario, Argentina. Analysis and proposals for conflict transformation

The present article describes and analyses youth criminality in the city of Rosario, Argentina between the years 2003-2006. Key actors’ understandings of and responses to the conflict were investigated by means of semi-structured interviews, observations, discourse analysis of policy documents, analysis of secondary data, and draw heavily on the experience of the author, a citizen and youth worker of Rosario. The actors examined were the police, the local government, young delinquents and youth organisations. Youth criminality is analysed from a conflict transformation approach using conflict analysis tools. Whereas, the provincial police understand the issue as a delinquency problem, other actors perceive it as an expression of a wider urban social conflict between those that are “included” and those that are “excluded” and as one of the negative effects of globalisation processes. The results suggest that police responses addressing only direct violence are ineffective, even contributing to increased tensions and polarisation, whereas strategies addressing cultural and structural violence are more suitable for this type of social urban conflict. Finally, recommendations for local youth policy are proposed to facilitate participation and inclusion of youth and as a tool for peaceful conflict transformation.

Effect of progressive mandibular advancement on pharyngeal airway size in anesthetized adults.

BACKGROUND: General anesthesia in adult humans is associated with narrowing or complete closure of the pharyngeal airway. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of progressive mandibular advancement on pharyngeal airway size in normal adults during intravenous infusion of propofol for anesthesia. METHODS: Magnetic resonance imaging was performed in nine normal adults during wakefulness and during propofol anesthesia. A commercially available intraoral appliance was used to manually advance the mandible. Images were obtained during wakefulness without the appliance and during anesthesia with the participants wearing the appliance under three conditions: without mandibular advancement, advancement to 50% maximum voluntary advancement, and maximum advancement. Using computer software, airway area and maximum anteroposterior and lateral airway diameters were measured on the axial images at the level of the soft palate, uvula, tip of the epiglottis, and base of the epiglottis. RESULTS: Airway area across all four airway levels decreased during anesthesia without mandibular advancement compared with airway area during wakefulness (P < 0.007). Across all levels, airway area at 50% advancement during anesthesia was less than that at centric occlusion during wakefulness (P = 0.06), but airway area with maximum advancement during anesthesia was similar to that during wakefulness (P = 0.64). In general, anteroposterior and lateral airway diameters during anesthesia without mandibular advancement were decreased compared with wakefulness and were restored to their wakefulness values with 50% and/or maximal advancement. CONCLUSIONS: Maximum mandibular advancement during propofol anesthesia is required to restore the pharyngeal airway to its size during wakefulness in normal adults.

New results on ν μ → ν τ appearance with the OPERA experiment in the CNGS beam

The OPERA neutrino experiment is designed to perform the first observation of neutrino oscillations in direct appearance mode in the νμ→ντ channel, via the detection of the τ-leptons created in charged current ντ interactions. The detector, located in the underground Gran Sasso Laboratory, consists of an emulsion/lead target with an average mass of about 1.2 kt, complemented by electronic detectors. It is exposed to the CERN Neutrinos to Gran Sasso beam, with a baseline of 730 km and a mean energy of 17 GeV. The observation of the first ντ candidate event and the analysis of the 2008-2009 neutrino sample have been reported in previous publications. This work describes substantial improvements in the analysis and in the evaluation of the detection efficiencies and backgrounds using new simulation tools. The analysis is extended to a sub-sample of 2010 and 2011 data, resulting from an electronic detector-based pre-selection, in which an additional ντ candidate has been observed. The significance of the two events in terms of a νμ→ντ oscillation signal is of 2.40 σ.

Food Volume Computation for Self Dietary Assessment Applications

There is great demand for easily-accessible, user-friendly dietary self-management applications. Yet accurate, fully-automatic estimation of nutritional intake using computer vision methods remains an open research problem. One key element of this problem is the volume estimation, which can be computed from 3D models obtained using multi-view geometry. The paper presents a computational system for volume estimation based on the processing of two meal images. A 3D model of the served meal is reconstructed using the acquired images and the volume is computed from the shape. The algorithm was tested on food models (dummy foods) with known volume and on real served food. Volume accuracy was in the order of 90 %, while the total execution time was below 15 seconds per image pair. The proposed system combines simple and computational affordable methods for 3D reconstruction, remained stable throughout the experiments, operates in near real time, and places minimum constraints on users.

Effect of sedation level on the prevalence of delirium when assessed with CAM-ICU and ICDSC

Purpose We hypothesized that reduced arousability (Richmond Agitation Sedation Scale, RASS, scores −2 to −3) for any reason during delirium assessment increases the apparent prevalence of delirium in intensive care patients. To test this hypothesis, we assessed delirium using the Confusion Assessment Method for the Intensive Care Unit (CAM-ICU) and Intensive Care Delirium Screening Checklist (ICDSC) in intensive care patients during sedation stops, and related the findings to the level of sedation, as assessed with RASS score. Methods We assessed delirium in 80 patients with ICU stay longer than 48 h using CAM-ICU and ICDSC during daily sedation stops. Sedation was assessed using RASS. The effect of including patients with a RASS of −2 and −3 during sedation stop (“light to moderate sedation”, eye contact less than 10 s or not at all, respectively) on prevalence of delirium was analyzed. Results A total of 467 patient days were assessed. The proportion of CAM-ICU-positive evaluations decreased from 53 to 31 % (p < 0.001) if assessments from patients at RASS −2/−3 (22 % of all assessments) were excluded. Similarly, the number of positive ICDSC results decreased from 51 to 29 % (p < 0.001). Conclusions Sedation per se can result in positive items of both CAM-ICU and ICDSC, and therefore in a diagnosis of delirium. Consequently, apparent prevalence of delirium is dependent on how a depressed level of consciousness after sedation stop is interpreted (delirium vs persisting sedation). We suggest that any reports on delirium using these assessment tools should be stratified for a sedation score during the assessment.