268 research outputs found
Verbesserung der Wundheilung durch wassergefiltertes Infrarot A (wIRA) bei Patienten mit chronischen venösen Unterschenkel-Ulzera einschließlich infrarot-thermographischer Beurteilung
No full textBackground: Water-filtered infrared-A (wIRA) is a special form of heat radiation with a high tissue-penetration and with a low thermal burden to the surface of the skin. wIRA is able to improve essential and energetically meaningful factors of wound healing by thermal and non-thermal effects.
Aim of the study: prospective study (primarily planned randomised, controlled, blinded, de facto with one exception only one cohort possible) using wIRA in the treatment of patients with recalcitrant chronic venous stasis ulcers of the lower legs with thermographic follow-up.
Methods: 10 patients (5 males, 5 females, median age 62 years) with 11 recalcitrant chronic venous stasis ulcers of the lower legs were treated with water-filtered infrared-A and visible light irradiation (wIRA(+VIS), Hydrosun® radiator type 501, 10 mm water cuvette, water-filtered spectrum 550–1400 nm) or visible light irradiation (VIS; only possible in one patient). The uncovered wounds of the patients were irradiated two to five times per week for 30 minutes at a standard distance of 25 cm (approximately 140 mW/cm2 wIRA and approximately 45 mW/cm2 VIS). Treatment continued for a period of up to 2 months (typically until closure or nearly closure of the ulcer). The main variable of interest was “percent change of ulcer size over time” including complete wound closure. Additional variables of interest were thermographic image analysis, patient’s feeling of pain in the wound, amount of pain medication, assessment of the effect of the irradiation (by patient and by clinical investigator), assessment of feeling of the wound area (by patient), assessment of wound healing (by clinical investigator) and assessment of the cosmetic state (by patient and by clinical investigator). For these assessments visual analogue scales (VAS) were used.
Results: The study showed a complete or nearly complete healing of lower leg ulcers in 7 patients and a clear reduction of ulcer size in another 2 of 10 patients, a clear reduction of pain and pain medication consumption (e.g. from 15 to 0 pain tablets per day), and a normalization of the thermographic image (before the beginning of the therapy typically hyperthermic rim of the ulcer with relative hypothermic ulcer base, up to 4.5°C temperature difference). In one patient the therapy of an ulcer of one leg was performed with the fully active radiator (wIRA(+VIS)), while the therapy of an ulcer of the other leg was made with a control group radiator (only VIS without wIRA), showing a clear difference in favour of the wIRA treatment. All mentioned VAS ratings improved remarkably during the period of irradiation treatment, representing an increased quality of life. Failures of complete or nearly complete wound healing were seen only in patients with arterial insufficiency, in smokers or in patients who did not have venous compression garment therapy.
Discussion and conclusions: wIRA can alleviate pain considerably (with an impressive decrease of the consumption of analgesics) and accelerate wound healing or improve a stagnating wound healing process and diminish an elevated wound exudation and inflammation both in acute and in chronic wounds (in this study shown in chronic venous stasis ulcers of the lower legs) and in problem wounds including infected wounds. In chronic recalcitrant wounds complete healing is achieved, which was not reached before. Other studies have shown that even without a disturbance of wound healing an acute wound healing process can be improved (e.g. reduced pain) by wIRA.
wIRA is a contact-free, easily used and pleasantly felt procedure without consumption of material with a good penetration effect, which is similar to solar heat radiation on the surface of the earth in moderate climatic zones. Wound healing and infection defence (e.g. granulocyte function including antibacterial oxygen radical formation of the granulocytes) are critically dependent on a sufficient energy supply (and on sufficient oxygen). The good clinical effect of wIRA on wounds and also on problem wounds and wound infections can be explained by the improvement of both the energy supply and the oxygen supply (e.g. for the granulocyte function). wIRA causes as a thermal effect in the tissue an improvement in three decisive factors: tissue oxygen partial pressure, tissue temperature and tissue blood flow. Besides this non-thermal effects of infrared-A by direct stimulation of cells and cellular structures with reactions of the cells have also been described. It is concluded that wIRA can be used to improve wound healing, to reduce pain, exudation, and inflammation and to increase quality of life.Hintergrund: Wassergefiltertes Infrarot A (wIRA) ist eine spezielle Form der Wärmestrahlung mit hoher Gewebepenetration bei geringer thermischer Oberflächenbelastung. wIRA vermag über thermische und nicht-thermische Effekte wesentliche und energetisch bedeutsame Faktoren der Wundheilung zu verbessern.
Ziel der Studie: prospektive Studie (primär randomisiert, kontrolliert, verblindet geplant, de facto mit einer Ausnahme nur eine Kohorte möglich) mit wassergefiltertem Infrarot A (wIRA) in der Therapie von Patienten mit therapierefraktären chronischen venösen Unterschenkel-Ulzera mit thermographischer Verlaufskontrolle.
Methoden: 10 Patienten (5 Männer, 5 Frauen, Median des Alters 62 Jahre) mit 11 therapierefraktären chronischen venösen Unterschenkel-Ulzera wurden mit wassergefiltertem Infrarot A und sichtbarem Licht (wIRA(+VIS), Hydrosun®-Strahler Typ 501, 10 mm Wasserküvette, wassergefiltertes Spektrum 550–1400 nm) oder mit sichtbarem Licht (VIS; nur bei einem Patienten möglich) bestrahlt. Die unbedeckten Wunden der Patienten wurden zwei- bis fünfmal pro Woche über bis zu 2 Monate (typischerweise bis zum Wundschluss oder Fast-Wundschluss des Ulkus) für jeweils 30 Minuten mit einem Standardabstand von 25 cm bestrahlt (ungefähr 140 mW/cm2 wIRA und ungefähr 45 mW/cm2 VIS). Hauptzielvariable war die „prozentuale Änderung der Ulkusgröße über die Zeit“ einschließlich des kompletten Wundschlusses. Zusätzliche Zielvariablen waren thermographische Bildanalyse, Schmerzempfinden des Patienten in der Wunde, Schmerzmittelverbrauch, Einschätzung des Effekts der Bestrahlung (durch Patient und durch klinischen Untersucher), Einschätzung des Patienten des Gefühls im Wundbereich, Einschätzung der Wundheilung durch den klinischen Untersucher sowie Einschätzung des kosmetischen Zustandes (durch Patienten und durch klinischen Untersucher). Für diese Erhebungen wurden visuelle Analogskalen (VAS) verwendet.
Ergebnisse: Die Studie ergab eine vollständige oder fast vollständige Abheilung der Unterschenkel-Ulzera bei 7 Patienten sowie eine deutliche Ulkusverkleinerung bei 2 weiteren der 10 Patienten, eine bemerkenswerte Minderung der Schmerzen und des Schmerzmittelverbrauchs (von z.B. 15 auf 0 Schmerztabletten täglich) und eine Normalisierung des thermographischen Bildes (vor Therapiebeginn typischerweise hyperthermer Ulkusrandwall mit relativ hypothermem Ulkusgrund, bis zu 4,5°C Temperaturdifferenz). Bei einem Patienten wurde ein Ulkus an einem Bein mit dem Vollwirkstrahler (wIRA(+VIS)) therapiert, während ein Ulkus am anderen Bein mit einem Kontrollgruppenstrahler (nur VIS, ohne wIRA) behandelt wurde, was einen deutlichen Unterschied zugunsten der wIRA-Therapie zeigte. Alle aufgeführten VAS-Einschätzungen verbesserten sich während der Bestrahlungstherapie-Periode sehr stark, was einer verbesserten Lebensqualität entsprach. Ein kompletter oder fast kompletter Wundschluss wurde nur bei Patienten mit peripherer arterieller Verschlusskrankheit, Rauchern oder Patienten mit fehlender venöser Kompressionstherapie nicht erreicht.
Diskussion und Schlussfolgerungen: wIRA kann sowohl bei akuten Wunden als auch bei chronischen Wunden (in dieser Studie für chronische venöse Unterschenkelulzera gezeigt) und Problemwunden einschließlich infizierter Wunden Schmerzen deutlich mindern (mit eindrucksvoller Abnahme des Schmerzmittelverbrauchs) und die Wundheilung beschleunigen oder einen stagnierenden Wundheilungsprozess verbessern sowie eine erhöhte Wundsekretion und Entzündung mindern.
Bei chronischen therapierefraktären Wunden werden vollständige Abheilungen erreicht, die zuvor nicht erreicht wurden. Andere Studien haben sogar ohne Wundheilungsstörung eine Verbesserung (z.B. Schmerzreduktion) der akuten Wundheilung durch wIRA gezeigt.
wIRA ist ein kontaktfreies, verbrauchsmaterialfreies, leicht anzuwendendes, als angenehm empfundenes Verfahren mit guter Tiefenwirkung, das der Sonnenwärmestrahlung auf der Erdoberfläche in gemäßigten Klimazonen nachempfunden ist.
Wundheilung und Infektionsabwehr (z.B. Granulozytenfunktion einschließlich antibakterieller Sauerstoffradikalbildung der Granulozyten) hängen ganz entscheidend von einer ausreichenden Energieversorgung (und von ausreichend Sauerstoff) ab. Die gute klinische Wirkung von wIRA auf Wunden und auch auf Problemwunden und Wundinfektionen lässt sich über die Verbesserung sowohl der Energiebereitstellung als auch der Sauerstoffversorgung (z.B. für die Granulozytenfunktion) erklären. wIRA bewirkt als thermischen Effekt im Gewebe eine Verbesserung von drei entscheidenden Faktoren: Sauerstoffpartialdruck im Gewebe, Gewebetemperatur und Gewebedurchblutung. Daneben wurden auch nicht-thermische Effekte von Infrarot A durch direkte Reizsetzung auf Zellen und zelluläre Strukturen mit Reaktionen der Zellen beschrieben.
Es wird geschlossen, dass wIRA verwendet werden kann, um Wundheilung zu verbessern, Schmerzen, Sekretion und Entzündung zu reduzieren und die Lebensqualität zu steigern
Where Straus Meets Enactivism. Reflections on an Enactive Theory of Music Perception
No full textIn this paper, I will try to integrate Joel Krueger’s enactive theory of music perception with some of Erwin Straus’ reflections on different forms of experiencing spatiality and movement. Krueger (2009, 2011b) maintains that music perception is a form of active perception, in which our body and our ability to move with music act as vehicles to draw out certain features of the piece and to respond to the affordances it presents. However, the author does not specify what kind of movements are involved in the enactment of music perception. I will propose such a specification, using Straus’ distinction between goal-directed and expressive movements (Straus 1930)
“Honorable men”: Robert E. Lee, Erwin Rommel, and the Memory and Forgetting of Defeat and Guilt
No full textIn October 2017, White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly criticized those who wanted to bring down statues of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, defending him as “an honorable man.” Geraldo Rivera also took part in the heated debate about Confederate monuments: “#RobertELee is a lot like #ErwinRommel a glorious yet failed warrior, untarnished by the sins of his brothers.” With his tweet the Fox News commentator and former talk show host responded to a Twitter post by the economist and columnist Paul Krugman who had asked: “On statues of Robert E. Lee: what would we think if German towns put up statues of Erwin Rommel, also a good general serving a vile cause?” This article looks at the larger debate about the Lost Cause and the history and memory of slavery and the Civil War in a case study focusing on Robert E. Lee, trying to raise some larger questions of memory and forgetting through a comparison with Erwin Rommel. The article analyzes the special places Southern General Robert E. Lee and Feldmarschall Erwin Rommel have occupied in the memories of the American Civil War and World War II, respectively. It will argue that to find something honorable in all the evil of lost wars that were fought for the wrong ends can be regarded as an individual and collective way to deal with pain, guilt, and defeat. Part of this is honoring the soldiers and their sacrifices, focus on famous battles, and celebrate distinguished generals while ignoring and “forgetting” what the real goals of these wars had been. Today, both Rommel and Lee have been pushed off their pedestals, in the case of Lee statues even literally. But the fact that Lee and Rommel have been glorified as honorable, loyal, and patriotic military men also by those who were their opponents/enemies makes this comparison even more interesting, because it cannot be explained by a collective amnesia in order to suppress and forget guilt and crimes. In connection with remembering, the author argues, it is also important to take a closer look at the different functions of “forgetting” that have been described by Aleida Assmann and other scholars, especially at what Assmann calls “complicit” and “constructive” forms of forgetting. Both examples show that these types of forgetting protected perpetrators, helped shape a selective historical narrative, and were also important in new beginnings and reconstruction after a catastrophic defeat
Musikstädte as real and imaginary soundscapes: urban musical images as literary motifs in twentieth-century German modernism
No full textPhDThis study examines German literary images of musical life as part of the wider sound identity of the modern German city at the turn of the twentieth century. Focussing on a forty-year period from 1890 to 1930, synonymous with the emergence of the modern German metropolis as an aesthetic object, the project assesses, compares and contrasts how musical life in the Musikstädte was perceived and portrayed by writers in an increasingly noisy urban environment. How does urban musical life influence and condition city writings? What are the differences and similarities between the writings on various musical cities? Can an urban textual sound identity be derived from these differences and similarities? The approach employed to answer these questions is a new, cross-disciplinary one to urban sound in literature, moving beyond reading the key sounds of the urban soundscape using urban musicology, sensorial anthropology and cultural poetics towards a literary contextualisation of the urban aural experience.
The literary motifs of the symphony, the gramophone and urban noise are put under the spotlight through the analysis of a wide range of modernist works by authors who have a special relationship with music. At the centre of this analysis are the Kaffeehausliteratur authors Hermann Bahr, Alfred Polgar and Peter Altenberg, the then Munich-based author Thomas Mann and the lesser known René Schickele. The analysis of these particular works is framed in the music-geographical context of the Musikstadt and literary underpinnings of this topos, ranging from Ingeborg Bachmann to Hans Mayer and, once again, Thomas Mann. In analysing these texts, the methodological approach devised by Strohm, who identifies the blending of a range of urban sounds as a definition of urban space and identity, is applied. His ideas combine historical literary
analysis, musical history and urban sociology. They are rarely used in the analysis of the auditory environment.Arts and Humanities Research Council
Westfield TrustWestfield Trust Studentship
Arts and Humanities Reseach Council (AHRC
The Modern Construction of Myth [Review]
No full textThe Modern Construction of Myth, by Andrew yon Hendy, is an interdisciplinary survey of the construction of myth in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The author\u27s thesis is that modern theories of myth can be divided into three broad groups, folkloristic, ideological, and constitutive, and that they all derive from an original, romantic, construct. The survey is organized diachronically, with some attention to taxonomy and axiology. I find the author\u27s thesis entirely persuasive: what follows is meant to serve as a guide to the overall argument and additionally to highlight various important threads that remain somewhat diffuse in a book of this scope
Structural consolidation of historic monuments by interlocking cast glass components: A computational analysis of interlocking cast glass brickwork
No full textThe search for a transparent, reversible, and reusable consolidation system for monuments led to the ambition to test possible cast glass interlocking brick designs using numerical calculations. The focus of this research is hence the design, simulation and evaluation of a possible cast glass interlocking geometry using Finite Element Analysis (FEA). For this purpose, design criteria are formulated from literature; considering glass, polyurethane (used as interlayer) and interlocking systems. As interlocking systems are determined by their boundary conditions, a case study of a monument is chosen to provide additional design criteria. The goal of the case study is to provide a reversible and reusable restoration and consolidation alternative for the current invalid restorations. The design criteria obtained then are combined into an initial geometry, whose parameters are varied to test their sensitivity to its shear capacity, using FEA. Christensen’s failure criterion is used to locate prone areas in the geometry, and to evaluate the theoretical moment of failure. This output value combines the three principal stresses into a failure envelope, hence can generate contour plots to envision peak-stress-prone areas. This is important especially for glass structures, as they are prone to peak tensile stresses. From the results design diagrams are created and applied on a conceptual cast glass interlocking consolidation design for the monument chosen as case study: The Lichtenberg Castle ruin. The initial design is moreover prototyped to check its interlocking capabilities, residual stresses and deviations introduced by shrinkage. Being able to evaluate possible geometries using FEA can decrease costs and time when searching for a new interlocking geometry. Prone areas are easily highlighted using the Christensen’s failure criterion output. Hence peak stress sensitive or invalid geometries can be discarded before reaching the prototyping stage, which is time consuming and costly. The creation of a methodology to predict this behaviour is hence valuable for further research on other cast glass geometries and can moreover be applied in any other field when analysing solid complex geometries. Another goal is to find a cast glass brick design which not only can consolidate the monument of the case study, but is moreover applicable in other projects or configurations. The brick then is not a one-solution design, but can be reused in other projects. The geometry hence is varied using Grasshopper plug-in for Rhinoceros. By exporting the geometry using a STEP-file, a solid can be loaded into DIANA FEA, where it can be analysed using their newly implemented output value of the Christensen’s failure criterion. The geometry of the monument is gained through a 3D laser scan, resulting in a point cloud. The point cloud is adapted using Autodesk Recap, then further processed in Rhinoceros. The Christensen’s failure criterion output is a proper and fast way to evaluate possible cast glass brick designs. Any compressive stresses on the interlocking brick geometry are beneficial for its shear capacity, as is an increase in interlocking amplitude or brick height. Increasing the amplitude however affects the allowable tolerance negatively, which is also the case for a decrease in brick height. Decreasing the brick height hence results in both negative effects. The conceptual design for consolidation of the Lichtenberg Castle tower can replace the current interventions with equal or higher capacity, even for all conservative assumptions and simplifications. The design can still be altered less conservative after more experimental results and simulations come available. The methodology applied can now be further developed and performed on other complex geometry designs. The presented multifunctional cast glass interlocking brick design, and its variations can be further investigated and applied in other projects.4TU BouwCivil Engineering | Building Engineering - Structural Desig
Fill Probabilities in a Limit Order Book with Applications to Foreign Exchange Spot Markets
No full textFinancial markets continue to see an increase in the share of trades executed by algorithmic trading systems. A key component of an efficient algorithmic trading system is its ability to accurately estimate the probability an order will be executed: the fill probability. This thesis aims to determine whether the dynamics of the order book can be captured accurately by a stochastic model, which subsequently leads to the following research question: Can we accurately compute fill probabilities of limit orders, conditional on the state of the order book? Our research builds upon the stochastic model proposed by Cont, Stoikov and Talreja, which assumes orders and cancellations have unit size and arrive according to independent Poisson processes [12]. There are two main advantages of the model proposed by Cont et al., which include: • Straightforward parameter estimation based on observable order book data, • The possibility to compute various probabilities of interest semi-analytically. These probabilities include the fill probability of limit orders and the direction of the next mid-price move. In this model, the number of orders at each price level in the order book is modelled as a birth-death process, in which births represent an increase in the number of orders and conversely, deaths represent a decrease. The first-passage time is the time it takes for such a process to reach a certain state for the first time. Since the order arrivals follow Poisson processes, we can find an expression for the Laplace transforms of the density functions of the first-passage times. By numerically inverting these Laplace transforms we can calculate the probabilities of interest. The parameters of the Poisson processes that determine the arrivals of orders are calibrated using observable order book data of the Euro-US Dollar currency pair of the foreign exchange (FX) spot market. We extend the model of Cont et al. by integrating spread-dependent arrival rates of orders and cancellations, meaning that the arrival rates change for different sizes of the spread. This extension is based on the order book data, which clearly shows a difference in arrival rates for various spread sizes. Additionally, we provide an expression to compute fill probabilities of orders posted not only at the best bid price, but also for one price level below. This expression can be generalised to obtain an expression for the fill probabilities of orders posted even deeper in the order book. Finally, by employing this stochastic model, we also show that this model has the potential to be applied to asset classes other than equities, which in our case is the FX market. To evaluate this model, we compare the computed probabilities with the empirical probabilities based on the FX data. Our findings indicate that the model has the ability to effectively capture the dynamics at each price level and the short-term movements of the mid-price. We are able to show that the fill probability for orders posted at the best quote can be estimated with reasonable accuracy when the order has the highest priority of execution. For orders with lower priority, the model is not able to capture all the dynamics, resulting in most cases in an overestimation of the fill probability. Additionally, we evaluate the method for computing the fill probability at one price level lower than the best quote. We also compare the results of this method to empirical probabilities. However, it is challenging to evaluate the performance of the model due to limited data availability and the small magnitude of the computed probabilities, which are typically less than 1.0%, resulting in large relative errors. Overall, this research contributes to better understanding order book dynamics and provides insights on the precision of the computation of fill probabilities via an extension of [12]. Further improvements and refinement of the model, such as a more realistic order flow or allowing multiple order sizes, could lead to more accurate estimations and a better comprehension of the market dynamics and fill probabilities.Applied Mathematics | Financial Engineerin
Erratum: “Setup for meV-resolution inelastic X-ray scattering measurements and X-ray diffraction at the Matter in Extreme Conditions endstation at the Linac Coherent Light Source” (Review Of Scientific Instruments (2018) 89 (10F104) DOI: 10.1063/1.5039329)
No full textIn the original paper1 the co-author E. J. Gamboa was erroneously omitted. The corrected author list is identical to that of this erratum, and repeated below for clarity: E. E. McBride,1,2,a) T. G. White,3 A. Descamps,1,4 L. B. Fletcher,1 K. Appel,2 F. Condamine,5,6 C. B. Curry,1,7 F. Dallari,8 S. Funk,9 E. Galtier,1 E. J. Gamboa,1 M. Gauthier,1 S. Goede,2 J. B. Kim,1 H. J. Lee,1 B. K. Ofori-Okai,1,10 M. Oliver,11 A. Rigby,11 C. Schoenwaelder,1,9, P. Sun,1 Th. Tschentscher,2 B. B. L. Witte,1,12 U. Zastrau,2 G. Gregori,11 B. Nagler,1 J. Hastings,1 S. H. Glenzer,1 and G. Monaco8 1 SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, 2575 Sand Hill Road, Menlo Park, California 94025, USA 2 European XFEL GmbH, Holzkoppel 4, D-22869 Schenefeld, Germany 3 University of Nevada at Reno, Reno, Nevada 89506, USA 4 Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA 5 Sorbonne Universits, UPMC, LULI, UMR 7605, Case 128, 4 Place Jussieu, 75252 Paris Cedex 05, France 6 LULI, Ecole Polytechnique, CEA-CNRS-UPS, 91228 Palaiseau, France 7 Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta T6G 1H9, Canada 8 Dipartimento di Fisica, Universit`a di Trento, via Sommarive 14, 38123 Povo, TN, Italy 9 Friedrich-Alexander-Universitat Erlangen-N ̈urnberg, Erlangen Centre for Astroparticle Physics, Erwin-Rommel-Str. 1, D-91058 Erlangen, Germany 10 Department of Chemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA 11 Department of Physics, Clarendon Laboratory, University of Oxford, Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PU, United Kingdom 12 Universit ̈at Rostock, Institut f ̈ur Physik, D-18051 Rostock, Germany
The Dolgopyat inequality in bounded variation for non-Markov maps
No full textThis is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from World Scientific via the DOI in this record.Let F be a (non-Markov) countably piecewise expanding interval map satisfying certain regularity conditions, and Ł˜Ł̃ the corresponding transfer operator. We prove the Dolgopyat inequality for the twisted operator Ł˜s(v)=Ł˜s(esφv)Ł̃s(v)=Ł̃s(esφv) acting on the space BV of functions of bounded variation, where φφ is a piecewise C1C1 roof function.We are also grateful for the support the Erwin
Schrodinger Institute in Vienna, where this paper was completed
Homer, His Art and His World [Review]
No full textFirst let me say what this book is not. Although the dust-jacket claims that the book includes sections on the relevance of Homer to modern issues in literary criticism , it cannot be said to offer anything approaching a representative, let alone a comprehensive, survey of modern criticism, even as it is currently applied to Homer (H.). It does, in 34 pages, outline the historical background to Homer and his poetry , but only for those who share the author\u27s assumptions on the time, place, and circumstances of composition
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