Danube University Krems

About: Danube University Krems is a education organization based out in Krems, Niederösterreich, Austria. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Stroke & Population. The organization has 498 authors who have published 1572 publications receiving 68797 citations.

Prevention of seasonal affective disorder in daily clinical practice: results of a survey in German-speaking countries.

Abstract: Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is a seasonally recurrent type of major depression. This predictable aspect makes it promising for preventive treatment. However, evidence for the efficacy and harm of preventive treatment of SAD is scarce, as are recommendations from clinical practice guidelines. The aim of this study was to assess the current use of preventive treatment of SAD in clinical practice in German-speaking countries for the first time. We conducted a postal and web-based survey sent to the heads of all psychiatric institutions listed in the inventory “Deutsches Krankenhaus Adressbuch, 2015” that contains all psychiatric hospitals in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. One hundred institutions (out of 533 institutions, 19%), which treated in total more than 3100 SAD patients in the years 2014/2015, responded. Of those, 81 reported recommending preventive treatment to patients with a history of SAD. There was no consensus on the optimal starting point for preventive treatment. Most of the institutions that implemented prevention of SAD, recommended lifestyle changes (85%), antidepressants (84%), psychotherapy (73%), and light therapy (72%) to their patients. The situation was similar in northern and southern regions. Most hospitals recommended the use of preventive treatment to SAD patients, although evidence on efficacy and harm is limited. A wide variety of interventions were recommended, although guidelines only include recommendations for acute treatment. To assist psychiatrists and patients in future decision making, controlled studies on preventive treatment for SAD that compare different interventions with one another are needed.

Openlaws.eu: Open Justice in Europe through Open Access to Legal Information

Abstract: Legal texts represent a fundamental building block in all democratic states. As such, legal information must be accessible to all members of society to the widest possible extent, to aid inclusiveness and to enable participation in public decision-making. In recognition of this, the EU and its Member States work to make laws, court decisions, etc. publicly available online. The sheer mass of legal norms, instruments, and interpretations in court decisions, commentaries and other sources, makes it increasingly difficult for citizens, civil society, businesses, and all involved stakeholders in legal practices to locate the relevant law. The challenge is to interlink local legal information and to have structures in place to enrich this information through aggregation and mass customization. The technological possibilities to achieve this goal do exist. The European project openlaws.eu aims for initiating a platform and to develop a vision for Big Open Legal Data (BOLD): an open framework for legislation, case law, and legal literature from across Europe.

Chondrogenic Gene Expression Differences between Chondrocytes from Osteoarthritic and Non-OA Trauma Joints in a 3D Collagen Type I Hydrogel.

Abstract: Objective The purpose of the current study was to compare the donor age variation of chondrocytes from non-OA (osteoarthritic) trauma joints in patients of young to middle age (20.5 ± 3.7, 31.8 ± 1.9, 41.9 ± 4.1 years) embedded in matrix-associated autologous chondrocyte transplantation (MACT) grafts (CaReS). The chondrocyte-specific gene expression of CaReS grafts were then compared to chondrocytes from OA joints (in patients aged 63.8 ± 10 years) embedded in a collagen type I hydrogel. Design OA chondrocytes and articular chondrocyte-laden grafts were cultured over 14 days in chondrogenic growth medium. We performed reverse transcriptase quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) to evaluate the mRNA expression levels of chondrocyte-specific and hypertrophic markers. Results Gene expression analysis with RT-qPCR revealed no significant difference in chondrocyte-specific genes ( COL2A1, ACAN, SOX9, SOX5, SOX6) among 3 different age group of patients with CaReS grafts. In a comparative analysis of OA chondrocytes to articular chondrocytes, chondrogenic markers ( COL2A1, SOX6) exhibited higher expression in OA chondrocytes ( P < 0.05). Hypertrophic or OA cartilage pathogenesis marker ( MMP3, MMP13) expression was higher and COL1A1 had significantly lower expression ( P < 0.05) in OA chondrocytes than articular chondrocytes when cultivated in collagen type I hydrogels. Conclusion In summary, we identify that donor age variation does not influence the chondrogenic gene expression of the CaReS system. We also identified that freshly isolated OA chondrocytes embedded in collagen type I hydrogels can exhibit chondrogenic gene expression as observed in articular chondrocytes on the CaReS grafts. Transforming OA chondrocytes to articular chondrocytes can be regarded as an alternative option in the MACT technique.

Orchestrating Overviews: A Synoptic Approach to the Visualization of Cultural Collections

Abstract: In addition to providing pleasant and stimulating experiences, complex cultural collections can require significant amounts of cognitive work on the part of visitors. Whether collections are situated in physical spaces or presented via web-based interfaces, the sheer richness and diversity of artefacts and their associated information can frequently lead to cognitive overload and fatigue. In this article we explore visualization methods that can be used to fend off fatigue and to support cognitive tasks such as collection exploration and conceptual comprehension. We discuss a variety of options to generate collection representations with multiple views and focus on the rarely heeded challenge of how to integrate information from these views into a bigger picture. By utilizing multiple space-time cube representations (through the PolyCube framework), we discuss an effective approach to integrating and mediating multiple perspectives on cultural collection data. We illustrate its potential by the means of a case study on the work of Charles W. Cushman and outline first insights drawn from a heuristic evaluation. Finally, we situate our approach within the larger epistemic and methodological environment of humanities approaches to visualization design.