,,Location-based Services“ – Personalisierung mobiler Dienste durch Verortung

Im Zeitalter der Informationsgesellschaft, so wurde postuliert, spielten r?umliche Distanzen keine Rolle mehr und unsere r?umliche Mobilit?t n?hme ab. Die Mobilit?t in den letzten Jahren, speziell die Freizeitmobilit?t, hat hingegen zugenommen. Die Bereitstellung ortsbezogener Dienste – ,,Location-based Services“ – unterstützt und f?rdert dieses Verhalten.     

Linear demosaicing inspired by the human visual system.

There is an analogy between single-chip color cameras and the human visual system in that these two systems acquire only one limited wavelength sensitivity band per spatial location. We have exploited this analogy, defining a model that characterizes a one-color per spatial position image as a coding into luminance and chrominance of the corresponding three colors per spatial position image. Luminance is defined with full spatial resolution while chrominance contains subsampled opponent colors. Moreover, luminance and chrominance follow a particular arrangement in the Fourier domain, allowing for demosaicing by spatial frequency filtering. This model shows that visual artifacts after demosaicing are due to aliasing between luminance and chrominance and could be solved using a preprocessing filter. This approach also gives new insights for the representation of single-color per spatial location images and enables formal and controllable procedures to design demosaicing algorithms that perform well compared to concurrent approaches, as demonstrated by experiments.     

The impact of roasting on the ochratoxin A content of coffee

Roasting coffee led to a drop in the ochratoxin A (OTA) concentration, as measured by the reference method, especially for dark type roasts. The way the beverage was prepared also affected the OTA content, which could paradoxically be higher than that of the initial roasted coffee. Assays on the thermal stability of pure OTA showed that it ought to be found in larger quantities in roasted coffee. This suggested that OTA was masked by reactions with the substrate during roasting. The absence of OTA in green coffee is therefore the best guarantee of safety.     

Telephone booster sessions for optimizing smoking cessation for patients in rehabilitation centers.

Smokers with smoking-related diseases who are hospitalized in rehabilitation centers should be offered smoking cessation. This is the first study evaluating whether telephone booster sessions after intensive inpatient treatment are an effective strategy. The present study was conducted in 13 rehabilitation centers for somatic disorders as a prospective multicenter study with a randomized treatment-control group design. We compared abstinence rates after hospital discharge from treatment that included a group smoking cessation program with (treatment group) and without telephone booster sessions (control group). Data from 290 smokers were analyzed. After 6 and 12 months the treatment group achieved abstinence rates twice as high as those of the control group. Men profited more from telephone booster sessions than did women. Results indicated that telephone booster sessions were highly effective (even) after an inherently intensive group program during a hospital stay. Further research should focus on the special needs of women receiving telephone counseling.     

Kommentar I

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Works of adhesion at the carbon fiber-liquid interface determined using a modified wetting technique

Works of adhesion W_SL between aqueous solutions with pH values in the range from 1 to 14 and carbon fibers from different sources, which were additionally treated in an inert atmosphere or in oxygen, were measured by use of a microbalance. These works of adhesion W_SL were found to show distinct stepwise dependencies on the pH value. The works of adhesion W_SL are attributed to dispersion interactions W_SL¹ and various acid-base interactions w_sl^ab—in the latter case between the acidic and basic surface groups of carbon and the various basic and acidic aqueous solutions.     

Investigation of the nucleation and growth mechanisms of nanocrystalline diamond/amorphous carbon nanocomposite films

Nucleation and growth, but especially the development of the morphology of nanocrystalline diamond/amorphous carbon (NCD/a-C) nanocomposite films have been investigated by systematic variation of three important parameters, namely the deposition time, the growth rate, and the substrate pre-treatment used to enhance the nucleation density. The films have been characterized, among others, by scanning electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. It is shown that, by successive addition of ultradispersive diamond powder to the suspension of nanocrystalline diamond powder in n-pentane used for the ultrasonic pre-treatment, the nucleation density can be enhanced by two orders of magnitude from 1 · 10⁸ cm^− 2 to > 1 · 10¹⁰ cm^− 2. This reduces the thickness required to achieve closed films from 1 µm to 100 nm. However, once coalescence of the individual nodules emerging from the nucleation sites has taken place the films loose “memory” of the nucleation step and start to develop the typical NCD morphology consisting of larger features with diameters of some hundreds of nm which are in turn composed of much smaller features. Irrespective of the feature size and of the parameters used, the films of this investigation possess AFM rms roughnesses of 9–13 nm, indicating that rms values are not sufficient to characterize NCD surfaces.     

Disturbance of continuous, pump administration of cardiovascular drugs by hydrostatic pressure

Administration of highly concentrated, highly potent, and therefore highly dangerous drugs with syringe pumps is common in modern anaesthesia as well as in intensive care and emergency medicine. Because of their exact flow rates down to < 1 ml/h, these pumps are predestined for delivery of drugs with short half-lives, such as catecholamines and vasodilators. But intravenous application of drugs with syringe pumps is not without problems. While it is well known that syringes not fixed correctly into the pump can empty themselves by the influence of gravity, it seems not to be known that hydrostatic pressure can influence the flow rate of a correctly connected system even during continuous infusion. In this situation a change of height of the syringe pump in relation to the patient's position can have tremendous effects on hemodynamics due to unintended acceleration or deceleration of the flow rate. This case report demonstrates that the elevation of a connected epinephrine pump while moving a cardiac surgery patient after ACB operation from the operation table into his bed led to critical increases of heart rate, blood pressure and left atrial pressure. In order to quantify the problem we repeated the situation experimentally. It could be demonstrated that the elevation of the syringe pump by 80-100 cm delivers an additional bolus of 4-5 drops as the central venous catheter outlet. Lowering the pump consecutively leads to the opposite effect. In the case reported, the accidentally administered bolus of epinephrine was 12-15 micrograms (we use a concentration of 60 micrograms/ml epinephrine for continuous infusion with syringe pumps). From this accidental observation the following conclusion can be drawn: The change of height, in relation to the patient's position, of a running syringe pump during continuous infusion of highly concentrated cardiovascular drugs may cause considerable, even life-threatening hemodynamic disorders. Even in a closed infusion system (syringe-extension-central venous catheter), hydrostatic pressure influences infusion rate. Elevation of the pump leads to unintended bolus administration, and lowering of the pump is followed by an interruption of the infusion. In the knowledge of this phenomenon, unexpected hemodynamic reactions during transport of critically ill patients cannot always be interpreted as a result of inadequate anesthesia or volume load, but may be a consequence of incorrect handling of the syringe pumps as described in this report.