Christian Huemer

Bio: Christian Huemer is an academic researcher from Vienna University of Technology. The author has contributed to research in topics: Artifact-centric business process model & Business rule. The author has an hindex of 18, co-authored 130 publications receiving 1264 citations. Previous affiliations of Christian Huemer include Research Studios Austria & University of Vienna.

Patterns of joint involvement at onset differentiate oligoarticular juvenile psoriatic arthritis from pauciarticular juvenile rheumatoid arthritis.

Abstract: OBJECTIVE: To compare the patterns of joint involvement of patients with oligoarticular onset juvenile psoriatic arthritis (Oligo-JPsA) and pauciarticular onset juvenile rheumatoid arthritis (Pauci-JRA) in order to estimate the predictive performance of specific patterns for the diagnosis of Oligo-JPsA. METHODS: Twenty-three children who fulfilled the diagnostic criteria for JPsA (Vancouver criteria) and who had fewer than 5 joints involved in the first 6 months of disease (Oligo-JPsA), and 64 children with Pauci-JRA (ACR criteria) were enrolled. Patients were also classified with respect to the ILAR criteria for juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA). Patient characteristics and clinical features at onset and during followup were determined. Patterns of joint involvement at onset of disease and their ability to differentiate between Oligo-JPsA and Pauci-JRA/Oligo-JIA were evaluated. RESULTS: Small joint disease (defined as involvement of any of the metatarsophalangeal or proximal or distal interphalangeal joints of the foot, or metacarpophalangeal or proximal or distal interphalangeal joints of the hand) was significantly more frequent in Oligo-JPsA than in Pauci-JRA at disease onset. The odds of patients with Oligo-JPsA having small joint disease or wrist disease within 6 months of disease onset were much higher than those with Pauci-JRA or Oligo-JIA (p

Hyperhomocysteinemia in Children Treated with Antiepileptic Drugs Is Normalized by Folic Acid Supplementation

Abstract: Summary: Purpose: To assess the prevalence of hyperhomocysteinemia in pediatric patients treated with antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) and to evaluate the effect of folic acid supplementation on plasma total homocysteine (tHcy) concentrations in hyperhomocysteinemic patients. Methods: 123 patients from three regional hospitals participated in the study. Patients with hyperhomocysteinemia were included in a 3-month double-blind randomized trial testing oral folic acid supplementation (1 mg/day) versus placebo. Results: Hyperhomocysteinemia (tHcy >10.4 μmol/L) was present in 19 of 123 patients. Patients with hyperhomocysteinemia were older (13.7 ± 4 vs. 11.0 ± 3.9 years) and had significantly lower folate and cobalamin concentrations. Multidrug (two or more) AED treatment and duration of therapy correlated significantly with elevated total homocysteine (tHcy) and low folate. In contrast, polymorphisms in the methylene tetrahydrofolate reductase gene (MTHFR 677 CT, 1298 AC, 1793 GA) had no significant impact on tHcy. Nine of 19 patients with hyperhomocysteinemia were randomized to placebo, whereas the remaining 10 patients received folic acid supplementation. Folic acid supplementation resulted in a significant increase of folate and decrease of tHcy, whereas both parameters remained unchanged in the placebo group. Conclusions: Hyperhomocysteinemia is present in 15.5% of children receiving long-term AED treatment. Multidrug treatment and long duration of therapy enhance the risk for hyperhomocysteinemia. Folic acid supplementation significantly reduces tHcy. We recommend assessment of serum folate and plasma tHcy in children receiving AEDs.

Incidence of pediatric rheumatic diseases in a regional population in Austria.

Abstract: OBJECTIVE: To establish a population based disease registry for pediatric rheumatology in a defined population of Austria; to describe the demographic and diagnostic classification of children referred to pediatric rheumatology clinics; and to estimate the incidence of pediatric rheumatic diseases in Eastern Austria. METHODS: For 2 years (1997-98) all pediatric rheumatology centers in the area contributed data on all new cases to a prospective multicenter patient registry. Diagnostic criteria defined the rheumatic disease cases, determined by a pediatric rheumatologist, and record linkage was carried out to avoid duplication of subjects. RESULTS: Rheumatic conditions were diagnosed in 107 subjects. Juvenile rheumatoid arthritis (JRA) was the most frequently encountered rheumatic condition (49.5%), followed by spondyloarthropathy (SpA, 33.6%) and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE, 5.6%). The mean annual incidence of JRA, SpA, and SLE among children referred to pediatric rheumatology centers was 4.28, 2.9, and 0.48 per 100,000 children at risk, respectively. CONCLUSION: Establishment of a population based disease registry led to collection of descriptive epidemiologic data on a defined regional cohort of children with rare disorders. Our registry will provide data on pediatric rheumatic diseases in a European population and will allow more accurate comparisons between populations for future research. Our data also indicate that more resources should be designated for the care of pediatric rheumatic diseases in view of the relatively high incidences of these diseases.

ebXML: status, research issues, and obstacles

Abstract: Technologies and approaches in the field of electronic commerce are not mature enough in order to allow for their broad successful commercial application. Neither existing, successful approaches that are very much restricted to large companies, specific branches, and business domains, nor approaches just merging new technologies like Internet, WWW, and XML allow for scaling up electronic commerce by means of arbitrarily high numbers of partners. All these approaches lack substantial reflection and integration of business semantics as the basis of any electronic commerce partnership. ebXML is a world-wide initiative that tries to address the drawbacks of existing standards and approaches and has the potential to successfully deliver solutions to these problems. We address the status of ebXML and identify open research issues to be solved in order to meet some of the obstacles on the way to a commercial application of ebXML.

Transforming UMM Business Collaboration Models to BPEL

Abstract: UN/CEFACT’s Modeling Methodology (UMM) has been developed to analyze and design B2B business processes independent of the underlying exchange technology. It became the methodology of choice for developing ebXML business processes. Another technology for realizing B2B partnerships is Web Services. Currently, the business process execution languages (BPEL) seems to be the winner amongst the Web Services languages for orchestration and choreography. If Web Services is used as underlying exchange technology for B2B, the semantics of UMM business processes must be represented in BPEL. The goal of this paper is to verify whether BPEL is appropriate to capture UMM business collaborations or not. For this purpose we describe a transformation from UMM to BPEL.

Model Driven Engineering

Abstract: The Object Management Group's (OMG) Model Driven Architecture (MDA) strategy envisages a world where models play a more direct role in software production, being amenable to manipulation and transformation by machine. Model Driven Engineering (MDE) is wider in scope than MDA. MDE combines process and analysis with architecture. This article sets out a framework for model driven engineering, which can be used as a point of reference for activity in this area. It proposes an organisation of the modelling 'space' and how to locate models in that space. It discusses different kinds of mappings between models. It explains why process and architecture are tightly connected. It discusses the importance and nature of tools. It identifies the need for defining families of languages and transformations, and for developing techniques for generating/configuring tools from such definitions. It concludes with a call to align metamodelling with formal language engineering techniques.

Automated Planning: Theory and Practice.

Abstract: A translation apparatus is provided which comprises: an inputting section for inputting a source document in a natural language; a layout analyzing section for analyzing layout information including cascade information, itemization information, numbered itemization information, labeled itemization information and separator line information in the source document inputted by the inputting section and specifying a translation range on the basis of the layout information; a translation processing section for translating a source document text in the specified translation range into a second language; and an outputting section for outputting a translated text provided by the translation processing section.