A follow-up on Acute Pain Services in Germany compared to international survey data.

BACKGROUND After the introduction of instruments for benchmarking, certification and a national guideline for acute pain management, the aim of this study was to describe the current structure, processes and quality of German acute pain services (APS). METHODS All directors of German departments of anaesthesiology were invited to complete a postal questionnaire on structures und processes of acute pain management. The survey asked for staff, techniques and quality criteria, which enabled a comparison to previous data from 1999 and surveys from other countries. RESULTS Four hundred and eight (46%) questionnaires were returned. APS have increased considerably and are now available in 81% of the hospitals, mainly anaesthesia based. However, only 45% fulfilled the minimum quality criteria, such as the assignment of personnel, the organization of patient care during nights and weekends, written protocols for postoperative pain management, regular assessments and documenting pain scores. Staff resources varied considerably, but increased compared to 1999. Two daily rounds were performed in 71%, either by physicians and nurses (42%), by physicians only (25%) or by supervised nurses (31%). Most personnel assigned to the APS shared this work along with other duties. Only 53% of the hospitals had an integrated rotation for training their specialty trainees. CONCLUSIONS The availability of APS in Germany and other countries has increased over the last decade; however, the quality of nearly half of the APS is questionable. Against the disillusioning background of recently reported unfavourable pain-related patient outcomes, the structures, organization and quality of APS should be revisited.

The bona fide mouse U7 snRNA gene maps to a different chromosome than two U7 pseudogenes.

The U7 snRNA, together with both common and unique snRNP proteins, forms the U7 snRNP particle. This particle is a major component of the 3' processing machinery that converts histone pre-mRNA into mature mRNA in the eukaryotic nucleus. The genes for many snRNAs are present in multiple copies and often have many pseudogenes. Southern blot experiments using U7 oligonucleotide and gene probes have identified only one strongly hybridizing band and three weakly hybridizing bands in mouse genomic DNA. Previously, two laboratories isolated genomic clones encoding one functional U7 gene and three presumed pseudogenes. Since all the genes were isolated on separate, nonoverlapping genomic fragments, the four genes are not tightly clustered in the mouse genome. In this study, we use fluorescence in situ hybridization to determine the chromosomal locations of these clones and their possible linkage to histone loci. Two of the pseudogenes map to mouse Chromosome 1, but are many megabases apart, whereas the active U7 gene maps to Chromosome 6. Possible mechanisms for this localization pattern are discussed.

WOCAT - World Overview of Conservation Approaches and Technologies - Preliminary results from Eastern and Southern Africa

The World Overview of Conservation Approaches and Technologies (WOCAT) is a program of the World Association of Soil and Water Conservation (WASWC), organized as a consortium of several international institutions. The overall goal of WOCAT is to contribute to sustainable utilization of soil and water. WOCAT collects and analyzes information on soil and water conservation (SWC) technologies and approaches world-wide, and presents the collected information in computer databases and decision support systems, and in the form of handbooks, reports and maps readily accessible to SWC specialists and policy-makers world-wide. WOCAT has prepared a framework for the evaluation of soil and water conservation and has started data collection. The paper presents preliminary results with promising SWC technologies and approaches used in Eastern and Southern Africa. The first finding is that hardly any promising SWC activities could be found on common grazing lands. Analysis of the cropland shows some of the bio-physical and socioeconomic conditions under which certain SWC technologies and approaches are used, including land use types, climatic zones and land tenure, and looks at issues such as participation and costs. Furthermore, classification criteria for SWC technologies and approaches are discussed.

Risk of severe hypoglycemia in sulfonylurea-treated patients from diabetes centers in Germany/Austria: how big is the problem? which patients are at risk?

BACKGROUND We investigated the rate of severe hypoglycemic events and confounding factors in patients with type-2-diabetes treated with sulfonylurea (SU) at specialized diabetes centers, documented in the German/Austrian DPV-Wiss-database. METHODS Data from 29,485 SU-treated patients were analyzed (median[IQR] age 70.8[62.2-77.8]yrs, diabetes-duration 8.2[4.3-12.8]yrs). The primary objective was to estimate the event-rate of severe hypoglycemia (requiring external help, causing unconsciousness/coma/convulsion and/or emergency.hospitalization). Secondary objectives included exploration of confounding risk-factors through group-comparison and Poisson-regression. RESULTS Severe hypoglycemic events were reported in 826(2.8%) of all patients during their most recent year of SU-treatment. Of these, n = 531(1.8%) had coma, n = 501(1.7%) were hospitalized at least once. The adjusted event-rate of severe hypoglycemia [95%CI] was 3.9[3.7-4.2] events/100 patient-years (coma: 1.9[1.8-2.1]; hospitalization: 1.6[1.5-1.8]). Adjusted event-rates by diabetes-treatment were 6.7 (SU + insulin), 4.9 (SU + insulin + other OAD), 3.1 (SU + other OAD), and 3.8 (SU only). Patients with ≥1 severe event were older (p < 0.001) and had longer diabetes-duration (p = 0.020) than patients without severe events. Participation in educational diabetes-programs and indirect measures of insulin-resistance (increased BMI, plasma-triglycerides) were associated with fewer events (all p < 0.001). Impaired renal function was common (N = 3,113 eGFR ≤30 mL/min) and associated with an increased rate of severe events (≤30 mL/min: 7.7; 30-60 mL/min: 4.8; >60 mL/min: 3.9). CONCLUSIONS These real-life data showed a rate of severe hypoglycemia of 3.9/100 patient-years in SU-treated patients from specialized diabetes centers. Higher risk was associated with known risk-factors including lack of diabetes-education, older age, and decreased eGFR, but also with lower BMI and lower triglyceride-levels, suggesting that SU-treatment in those patients should be considered with caution. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Report of the Second European Zebrafish Principal Investigator Meeting in Karlsruhe, Germany, March 21-24, 2012.

The second European Zebrafish Principal Investigator (PI) Meeting was held in March, 2012, in Karlsruhe, Germany. It brought together PIs from all over Europe who work with fish models such as zebrafish and medaka to discuss their latest results, as well as to resolve strategic issues faced by this research community. Scientific discussion ranged from the development of new technologies for working with fish models to progress in various fields of research such as injury and repair, disease models, and cell polarity and dynamics. This meeting also marked the establishment of the European Zebrafish Resource Centre (EZRC) at Karlsruhe that in the future will serve as an important focus and community resource for zebrafish- and medaka-based research.

Temporally Coherent Disparity Maps Using CRFs with Fast 4D Filtering

State of the art methods for disparity estimation achieve good results for single stereo frames, but temporal coherence in stereo videos is often neglected. In this paper we present a method to compute temporally coherent disparity maps. We define an energy over whole stereo sequences and optimize their Conditional Random Field (CRF) distributions using mean-field approximation. We introduce novel terms for smoothness and consistency between the left and right views, and perform CRF optimization by fast, iterative spatio-temporal filtering with linear complexity in the total number of pixels. Our results rank among the state of the art while having significantly less flickering artifacts in stereo sequences.

Lipschitz extensions of maps between Heisenberg groups

Let $\H^n$ be the Heisenberg group of topological dimension 2n+1 . We prove that if n is odd, the pair of metric spaces $(\H^n, \H^n)$ does not have the Lipschitz extension property.

Enhanced Knowledge Management by Synchronizing Mind Maps and Fuzzy Cognitive Maps

This paper presents a conceptual approach to enhance knowledge management by synchronizing mind maps and fuzzy cognitive maps. The use of mind maps allows taking advantage of human creativity, while the application of fuzzy cognitive maps enables to store information expressed in natural language. By applying cognitive computing, it makes possible to gather and extract relevant information out of a data pool. Therefore, this approach is supposed to give a framework that enhances knowledge management. To demonstrate the potential of this framework, a use case concerning the development of a smart city app is presented.

Coastal Survey Maps: From Historical Documents to Digital Databases

This paper describes the spatial data handling procedures used to create a vector database of the Connecticut shoreline from Coastal Survey Maps. The appendix contains detailed information on how the procedures were implemented using Geographic Transformer Software 5 and ArcGIS 8.3. The project was a joint project of the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection and the University of Connecticut Center for Geographic Information and Analysis.

Job Matching and Wage Growth in the U.S. and Germany

This paper examines the contribution of job matching to wage growth in the U.S. and Germany using data drawn from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and the German Socio-Economic Panel from 1984 through 1992. Using a symmetrical set of variables and data handling procedures, real wage growth is found to be higher in the U.S. than in Germany during this period. Also, using two different estimators, job matches are found to enhance wage growth in the U.S. and retard it in Germany. The relationship of general skills to employment in each country appears responsible for this result.

Na 1 Nachlass Max Horkheimer, 640 - "Simmel and Freudian Philosophy", "Authoritarianism and the Family Today" und "The Chances of Democracy in Germany" (p. IX 18.1-3-IX 19a)

"Simmel and Freudian Philosophy" (GS 5, S. 396-405); 1. Nachruf, verlesen beim Memorial Meeting for Ernst Simmel; datiert: 13.12.1947; veröffentlicht in: International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 29. Jahrgang, 1948, S. 110-113; 2. Abschrift aus Werken und Briefen Siegmund Freuds; Typoskript, 9 Blatt; 3. Freeman, Burriel: 1 Brief mit Unterschirft an Max Horkheimer, Chicago, 10.06.1949; 1 Brief von Max Horkheimer, Los Angeles, 15.06.1949, 2 Blatt; "Authoritarianism and the Family Today" (GS 5, S. 377-395); 1. Aufsatz, datiert 1947, veröffentlicht in: Ruth Nanda Anshen (editor), "The Family: Its Function and Distiny", New York 1949. a) Typsokript, 20 Blatt b) Typoskript mit handschriftlichen Korrekturen, 20 Blatt c) Typoskript mit eigenhändigen Korrekturen, 20 Blatt d)-f) deutsche Fassung mit dem Titel "Autorität und Familie", übersetzt vom Institut für Sozialforschung, 1960; veröffentlicht in : "Erkenntnis und Verantwortung. Festschrift für Theodor Litt", Düsseldorft, 1960 d) Typoskript, 20 Blatt e) Typoskript, 20 Blatt f) Korrekturfahnen aus der Litt- Festschrift, mit dem Titel "Autorität und Familie in der Gegenwart"; 6 Blatt; 2. Schönbach, Peter: 1 Brief mit Unterschrift an Max Horkheier, ohne Ort, 23.06.1960; 1 Blatt; 3. Schönbach, Peter: 1 Brief mit Unterschrift an Friedrich Pollock, ohne Ort, 22.06.1960; 1 Blatt; "The Chances of Democracy in Germany" (GS 12, S. 184-194); 1947 [?] a) Typoskript, 10 Blatt b) Typoskript mit eigenhändigen Korrekturen, 11 Blatt c) Typoskript mit eigenhändigen Korrekturen ,11 Blatt;

Na 1 Nachlass Max Horkheimer, 685 - "Post War Antisemitism in Germany" (p. IX 147.1-6)

Gurland, A.R.L.: "Fight against Antisemitism within the Framwork of Germany's Education for Democracy. Draft Program", 1947. Als Typoskript vervielfältigt, 62 Blatt; Horkheimer, Max: "Momorandum on Post-War Antisemitism in Germany", 31.05.1945. Typoskript, 1 Blatt; Massing, Paul W.; Gurlach, A.R.L.: 2 Briefe mit Unterschrift an Max Horkheimer, ohne Ort, 1944; 1 Brief von Max Horkheimer, ohne Ort, 05.10.1944, 11 Blatt; Massig, Paul W.; Gurlach A.R.L.: "Some Remarks on Leo Löwenthals Memorandum" [September 1944]. Typoskript, 14 Blatt; [Löwenthal, Leo?]: "Post-War Antisemitism in Germany", a) Typoskript, 21 Blatt; b) Typoskript, 29 Blatt; Peck, Georg: "On the Problem of Antisemitism in Post-War Germany", 28.07.1943. Typoskript, 12 Blatt;