Ellen Evans Cathcart Papers - Accession 238 - M111 (143)

The Ellen Evans Cathcart Papers consist of biographical sketches of Mrs. Ellen Evans Cathcart (1869-1952), first woman member of the Democratic National Committee who was also instrumental in the founding of the Children’s Bureau. Also included in the collection are newspaper clippings, magazine articles, correspondence, reports, certificates, citations, and photographs relating to her work as supervisor of the Children’s Bureau of South Carolina and her involvement in the women’s suffrage movement. Of particular note is an annual report of the South Carolina Council of Defense which outlines the achievements of women of South Carolina in war work and a program book of the 47th annual convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association.

Presentación de trabajos en formato de vídeo con sistema de evaluación por pares

[ES]Los procedimientos de evaluación tradicionales están orientados hacia el resultado y medir la cantidad de conocimiento. Estos procedimientos, en el Espacio Europeo de Educación Superior (EEES), no son apropiados para la evaluación de competencias, y menos cuando se trata de competencias transversales. Es necesario diseñar nuevos sistemas de evaluación orientadas al proceso que complementen a los tradicionales. De igual forma, los formatos de soporte para la realización de trabajos deben actualizarse y aprovechar los nuevos entornos desarrollados bajo las Tecnologías de la Información y la Comunicación (TIC), no centrándose estos únicamente en el uso de la Web. En este artículo presentamos la experiencia de uso de un sistema de evaluación formativa, bien dimensionada en tiempo y recursos, que aglutina tanto la actividad presencial como la no presencial del estudiante.

La responsabilidad de los agentes de la edificación en la Ley de ordenación de la edificación

Programa de doctorado: Derecho Privado

la necesidad de un proceso de homologacion para los acuerdos de refinanciación en la ley española

En esta tesis doctoral he encontrado un enorme problema en la regulación de los Acuerdos de Refinanciación en la Ley Concursal. Impide el derecho de defensa de los acreedores y de cualquier otro interesado. Por ello en aplicación de la Ley Concursal Italiana (modelo elegido por el legislador español) los problemas serían solucionados. La solución la encontramos mediante la inserción del proceso de homologación de los Acuerdos de Refinanciación en la Ley Concursal Española.

Reserva de ley y transposición de directivas europeas

La presente tesis analiza el problema de la validez de las disposiciones de transposición de las Directivas Europeas en los ordenamientos nacionales desde la perspectiva del principio constitucional de reserva de ley. En el primer capítulo se desarrolla un análisis del estado de la cuestión en las jurisprudencias española e italiana. En el segundo se afronta el estudio de los requisitos impuestos por la jurisprudencia del TJUE en relación con las normas por las que se procede a la incorporación en los ordenamientos internos del contenido de las Directivas; teniendo en cuenta que ha de partirse del principio de autonomía institucional y procedimental de los Estados Miembros y que las Directivas, en tanto carentes por razón de su forma de directa aplicabilidad, no pueden sustituir a la ley nacional, el principio de reserva de ley ha de aplicarse en este tipo de operaciones siempre que así lo exija la Constitución nacional. En el tercer capítulo se estudian los efectos que han producido en los ordenamientos italiano, francés y alemán las cláusulas constitucionales "europeas", alcanzándose la fundamental conclusión de que las mismas no han supuesto quiebra alguna de la disciplina general de producción normativa en lo que se refiere a las operaciones de ejecución interna del Derecho Europeo. En el cuarto y último capítulo, en fin, se analiza el sistema italiano de ejecución de las políticas europeas mediante normas reglamentarias y la posible toma en consideración del mismo para la formulación de propuestas de lege ferenda en relación con el Derecho Español.

The EU’s Trouble with Mashups: From Disabling to Enabling a Digital Art Form

New tools for editing of digital images, music and films have opened up new possibilities to enable wider circles of society to engage in ’artistic’ activities of different qualities. User-generated content has produced a plethora of new forms of artistic expression. One type of user-generated content is the mashup. Mashups are compositions that combine existing works (often) protected by copyright and transform them into new original creations. The European legislative framework has not yet reacted to the copyright problems provoked by mashups. Neither under the US fair use doctrine, nor under the strict corset of limitations and exceptions in Art 5 (2)-(3) of the Copyright Directive (2001/29/EC) have mashups found room to develop in a safe legal environment. The contribution analyzes the current European legal framework and identifies its insufficiencies with regard to enabling a legal mashup culture. By comparison with the US fair use approach, in particular the parody defense, a recent CJEU judgment serves as a comparative example. Finally, an attempt is made to suggest solutions for the European legislator, based on the policy proposals of the EU Commission’s “Digital Agenda” and more recent policy documents (e.g. “On Content in the Digital Market”, “Licenses for Europe”). In this context, a distinction is made between non-commercial mashup artists and the emerging commercial mashup scene.

Low-frequency drug-resistant HIV-1 and risk of virological failure to first-line NNRTI-based ART: a multicohort European case-control study using centralized ultrasensitive 454 pyrosequencing.

OBJECTIVES It is still debated if pre-existing minority drug-resistant HIV-1 variants (MVs) affect the virological outcomes of first-line NNRTI-containing ART. METHODS This Europe-wide case-control study included ART-naive subjects infected with drug-susceptible HIV-1 as revealed by population sequencing, who achieved virological suppression on first-line ART including one NNRTI. Cases experienced virological failure and controls were subjects from the same cohort whose viraemia remained suppressed at a matched time since initiation of ART. Blinded, centralized 454 pyrosequencing with parallel bioinformatic analysis in two laboratories was used to identify MVs in the 1%-25% frequency range. ORs of virological failure according to MV detection were estimated by logistic regression. RESULTS Two hundred and sixty samples (76 cases and 184 controls), mostly subtype B (73.5%), were used for the analysis. Identical MVs were detected in the two laboratories. 31.6% of cases and 16.8% of controls harboured pre-existing MVs. Detection of at least one MV versus no MVs was associated with an increased risk of virological failure (OR = 2.75, 95% CI = 1.35-5.60, P = 0.005); similar associations were observed for at least one MV versus no NRTI MVs (OR = 2.27, 95% CI = 0.76-6.77, P = 0.140) and at least one MV versus no NNRTI MVs (OR = 2.41, 95% CI = 1.12-5.18, P = 0.024). A dose-effect relationship between virological failure and mutational load was found. CONCLUSIONS Pre-existing MVs more than double the risk of virological failure to first-line NNRTI-based ART.

Image analysis of immunohistochemistry is superior to visual scoring as shown for patient outcome of esophageal adenocarcinoma.

Quantification of protein expression based on immunohistochemistry (IHC) is an important step in clinical diagnoses and translational tissue-based research. Manual scoring systems are used in order to evaluate protein expression based on staining intensities and distribution patterns. However, visual scoring remains an inherently subjective approach. The aim of our study was to explore whether digital image analysis proves to be an alternative or even superior tool to quantify expression of membrane-bound proteins. We analyzed five membrane-binding biomarkers (HER2, EGFR, pEGFR, β-catenin, and E-cadherin) and performed IHC on tumor tissue microarrays from 153 esophageal adenocarcinomas patients from a single center study. The tissue cores were scored visually applying an established routine scoring system as well as by using digital image analysis obtaining a continuous spectrum of average staining intensity. Subsequently, we compared both assessments by survival analysis as an end point. There were no significant correlations with patient survival using visual scoring of β-catenin, E-cadherin, pEGFR, or HER2. In contrast, the results for digital image analysis approach indicated that there were significant associations with disease-free survival for β-catenin, E-cadherin, pEGFR, and HER2 (P = 0.0125, P = 0.0014, P = 0.0299, and P = 0.0096, respectively). For EGFR, there was a greater association with patient survival when digital image analysis was used compared to when visual scoring was (visual: P = 0.0045, image analysis: P < 0.0001). The results of this study indicated that digital image analysis was superior to visual scoring. Digital image analysis is more sensitive and, therefore, better able to detect biological differences within the tissues with greater accuracy. This increased sensitivity improves the quality of quantification.

Bathymetry of Lake Constance - State-of-the-art in surveying a large lake

In 2014 the by far largest German lake has been newly surveyed. The transnational project is funded by the European Union and delivers a detailed 3D-model of the lake- floor. The German project name is »Tiefenschärfe – Hochauflösende Vermessung Bo- densee«, which in English roughly means: high-resolution survey of Lake Constance. The German term »Tiefenschärfe« (in optics and photography: depth of field) plays with the meanings of »Tiefe« (depth) and »Schärfe« (sharpness). The result of the sur- vey shall be a clear and sharp image of the deep and shallow lake- floor. At present the LiDAR and multibeam data are still processed, but first results are presented in this article.

State of the art: Reproduction and pregnancy in rheumatic diseases

Throughout the last decade, increasing awareness has been raised on issues related to reproduction in rheumatic diseases including basic research to clarify the important role of estrogens in the etiology and pathophysiology of immune/inflammatory diseases. Sub- or infertility is a heterogeneous condition that can be related to immunological mechanisms, to pregnancy loss, to disease burden, to therapy, and to choices in regard to family size. Progress in reproductive medicine has made it possible for more patients with rheumatic disease to have children. Active disease in women with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) affects their children's birth weight and may have long-term effects on their future health status. Pregnancy complications as preeclampsia and intrauterine growth restriction are still increased in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and antiphospholipid syndrome (APS), however, biomarkers can monitor adverse events, and several new therapies may improve outcomes. Pregnancies in women with APS remain a challenge, and better therapies for the obstetric APS are needed. New prospective studies indicate improved outcomes for pregnancies in women with rare diseases like systemic sclerosis and vasculitis. TNF inhibitors hold promise for maintaining remission in rheumatological patients and may be continued at least in the first half of pregnancy. Pre-conceptional counseling and interdisciplinary management of pregnancies are essential for ensuring optimal pregnancy outcomes.

Evaluation of Three State-of-the-Art Classifiers for Recognition of Activities of Daily Living from Smart Home Ambient Data

Smart homes for the aging population have recently started attracting the attention of the research community. The "health state" of smart homes is comprised of many different levels; starting with the physical health of citizens, it also includes longer-term health norms and outcomes, as well as the arena of positive behavior changes. One of the problems of interest is to monitor the activities of daily living (ADL) of the elderly, aiming at their protection and well-being. For this purpose, we installed passive infrared (PIR) sensors to detect motion in a specific area inside a smart apartment and used them to collect a set of ADL. In a novel approach, we describe a technology that allows the ground truth collected in one smart home to train activity recognition systems for other smart homes. We asked the users to label all instances of all ADL only once and subsequently applied data mining techniques to cluster in-home sensor firings. Each cluster would therefore represent the instances of the same activity. Once the clusters were associated to their corresponding activities, our system was able to recognize future activities. To improve the activity recognition accuracy, our system preprocessed raw sensor data by identifying overlapping activities. To evaluate the recognition performance from a 200-day dataset, we implemented three different active learning classification algorithms and compared their performance: naive Bayesian (NB), support vector machine (SVM) and random forest (RF). Based on our results, the RF classifier recognized activities with an average specificity of 96.53%, a sensitivity of 68.49%, a precision of 74.41% and an F-measure of 71.33%, outperforming both the NB and SVM classifiers. Further clustering markedly improved the results of the RF classifier. An activity recognition system based on PIR sensors in conjunction with a clustering classification approach was able to detect ADL from datasets collected from different homes. Thus, our PIR-based smart home technology could improve care and provide valuable information to better understand the functioning of our societies, as well as to inform both individual and collective action in a smart city scenario.