Johannes Kepler University of Linz

About: Johannes Kepler University of Linz is a education organization based out in Linz, Oberösterreich, Austria. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Computer science & Thin film. The organization has 6605 authors who have published 19243 publications receiving 385667 citations.

Estimations of Tariff Equivalents for the Services Sectors

Abstract: Services is the largest sector in the global economy, representing 70% of world added value and over half of total employment. However its share in total international trade is only 21%, in part due to the high level of regulatory protection in domestic markets for services. Simulations relying on Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) modeling point to large gains associated with the partial liberalization of services in the rich economies, but also in some developing countries. Since these estimations rely on tariff equivalents of protection on services, accurate measure of the level of protection on services are a crucial issue for policy makers. One problem lies in the specific nature of services compared to goods. Proximity between producer and consumer and the intangible characteristics intrinsic to services produce different impediments to trade in services from those that apply to goods. They include limitations such as quotas, licences, interdictions of some activities to foreigners, and government regulations designed to reduce market access to foreign services and/or discriminate in favor of domestic firms. Hence, liberalizing national trade in services essentially requires a change in national regulation. Identifying the actual tariff equivalents of these regulations is not straightforward. Data on actual policies are scarce and transforming qualitative information into a quantitative measure of protection is difficult. Therefore, we depart from the inventory approach used to build indexes of the restrictiveness of policies in the service sector, and also from the so-called two-stage method, in which information on barriers faced by exporters of services on their destination markets is used to explain international differences in price-cost margins within the services sectors. The context is appropriate for an indirect approach consisting of computing tariff equivalents and revealing protection by comparing ...

Automated verification of model transformations based on visual contracts

Abstract: Model-Driven Engineering promotes the use of models to conduct the different phases of the software development. In this way, models are transformed between different languages and notations until code is generated for the final application. Hence, the construction of correct Model-to-Model (M2M) transformations becomes a crucial aspect in this approach. Even though many languages and tools have been proposed to build and execute M2M transformations, there is scarce support to specify correctness requirements for such transformations in an implementation-independent way, i.e., irrespective of the actual transformation language used. In this paper we fill this gap by proposing a declarative language for the specification of visual contracts, enabling the verification of transformations defined with any transformation language. The verification is performed by compiling the contracts into QVT to detect disconformities of transformation results with respect to the contracts. As a proof of concept, we also report on a graphical modeling environment for the specification of contracts, and on its use for the verification of transformations in several case studies.

Feasibility, Safety, and Outcome of Endovascular Recanalization in Childhood Stroke: The Save ChildS Study.

Abstract: Importance Randomized clinical trials have shown the efficacy of thrombectomy of large intracranial vessel occlusions in adults; however, any association of therapy with clinical outcomes in children is unknown. Objective To evaluate the use of endovascular recanalization in pediatric patients with arterial ischemic stroke. Design, Setting, and Participants This retrospective, multicenter cohort study, conducted from January 1, 2000, to December 31, 2018, analyzed the databases from 27 stroke centers in Europe and the United States. Included were all pediatric patients ( Exposures Endovascular recanalization. Main Outcomes and Measures The decrease of the Pediatric National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (PedNIHSS) score from admission to day 7 was the primary outcome (score range: 0 [no deficit] to 34 [maximum deficit]). Secondary clinical outcomes included the modified Rankin scale (mRS) (score range: 0 [no deficit] to 6 [death]) at 6 and 24 months and rate of complications. Results Seventy-three children from 27 participating stroke centers were included. Median age was 11.3 years (interquartile range [IQR], 7.0-15.0); 37 patients (51%) were boys, and 36 patients (49%) were girls. Sixty-three children (86%) received treatment for anterior circulation occlusion and 10 patients (14%) received treatment for posterior circulation occlusion; 16 patients (22%) received concomitant intravenous thrombolysis. Neurologic outcome improved from a median PedNIHSS score of 14.0 (IQR, 9.2-20.0) at admission to 4.0 (IQR, 2.0-7.3) at day 7. Median mRS score was 1.0 (IQR, 0-1.6) at 6 months and 1.0 (IQR, 0-1.0) at 24 months. One patient (1%) developed a postinterventional bleeding complication and 4 patients (5%) developed transient peri-interventional vasospasm. The proportion of symptomatic intracerebral hemorrhage events in the HERMES meta-analysis of trials with adults was 2.79 (95% CI, 0.42-6.66) and in Save ChildS was 1.37 (95% CI, 0.03-7.40). Conclusions and Relevance The results of this study suggest that the safety profile of thrombectomy in childhood stroke does not differ from the safety profile in randomized clinical trials for adults; most of the treated children had favorable neurologic outcomes. This study may support clinicians’ practice of off-label thrombectomy in childhood stroke in the absence of high-level evidence.

An Efficient Methodology for Mapping Quantum Circuits to the IBM QX Architectures

Abstract: In the past years, quantum computers more and more have evolved from an academic idea to an upcoming reality IBM's project IBM Q can be seen as evidence of this progress Launched in March 2017 with the goal to provide access to quantum computers for a broad audience, this allowed users to conduct quantum experiments on a 5-qubit and, since June 2017, also on a 16-qubit quantum computer (called IBM QX2 and IBM QX3, respectively) Revised versions of these 5-qubit and 16-qubit quantum computers (named IBM QX4 and IBM QX5, respectively) are available since September 2017 In order to use these, the desired quantum functionality (eg provided in terms of a quantum circuit) has to be properly mapped so that the underlying physical constraints are satisfied - a complex task This demands solutions to automatically and efficiently conduct this mapping process In this paper, we propose a methodology which addresses this problem, ie maps the given quantum functionality to a realization which satisfies all constraints given by the architecture and, at the same time, keeps the overhead in terms of additionally required quantum gates minimal The proposed methodology is generic, can easily be configured for similar future architectures, and is fully integrated into IBM's SDK Experimental evaluations show that the proposed approach clearly outperforms IBM's own mapping solution In fact, for many quantum circuits, the proposed approach determines a mapping to the IBM architecture within minutes, while IBM's solution suffers from long runtimes and runs into a timeout of 1 hour in several cases As an additional benefit, the proposed approach yields mapped circuits with smaller costs (ie fewer additional gates are required) All implementations of the proposed methodology is publicly available at this http URL

Understanding place-based entrepreneurship in rural Central Europe: A comparative institutional analysis

Abstract: This article provides new insight into the local institutional embeddedness of entrepreneurial behaviour. By introducing a sociological institutional framework for place-based entrepreneurship, it ...