University of Erlangen-Nuremberg

About: University of Erlangen-Nuremberg is a education organization based out in Erlangen, Bayern, Germany. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Immune system. The organization has 42405 authors who have published 85600 publications receiving 2663922 citations.

Analysis of shared heritability in common disorders of the brain

Abstract: Disorders of the brain can exhibit considerable epidemiological comorbidity and often share symptoms, provoking debate about their etiologic overlap. We quantified the genetic sharing of 25 brain disorders from genome-wide association studies of 265,218 patients and 784,643 control participants and assessed their relationship to 17 phenotypes from 1,191,588 individuals. Psychiatric disorders share common variant risk, whereas neurological disorders appear more distinct from one another and from the psychiatric disorders. We also identified significant sharing between disorders and a number of brain phenotypes, including cognitive measures. Further, we conducted simulations to explore how statistical power, diagnostic misclassification, and phenotypic heterogeneity affect genetic correlations. These results highlight the importance of common genetic variation as a risk factor for brain disorders and the value of heritability-based methods in understanding their etiology.

Bidirectionally Coupled Network and Road Traffic Simulation for Improved IVC Analysis

Abstract: Recently, many efforts have been made to develop more efficient Inter-Vehicle Communication (IVC) protocols for on-demand route planning according to observed traffic congestion or incidents, as well as for safety applications. Because practical experiments are often not feasible, simulation of network protocol behavior in Vehicular Ad Hoc Network (VANET) scenarios is strongly demanded for evaluating the applicability of developed network protocols. In this work, we discuss the need for bidirectional coupling of network simulation and road traffic microsimulation for evaluating IVC protocols. As the selection of a mobility model influences the outcome of simulations to a great extent, the use of a representative model is necessary for producing meaningful evaluation results. Based on these observations, we developed the hybrid simulation framework Veins (Vehicles in Network Simulation), composed of the network simulator OMNeT++ and the road traffic simulator SUMO. In a proof-of-concept study, we demonstrate its advantages and the need for bidirectionally coupled simulation based on the evaluation of two protocols for incident warning over VANETs. With our developed methodology, we can advance the state-of-the-art in performance evaluation of IVC and provide means to evaluate developed protocols more accurately.

Validation of the Mini Nutritional Assessment short-form (MNA-SF): a practical tool for identification of nutritional status

Abstract: Objective: To validate a revision of the Mini Nutritional Assessment short-form (MNA®-SF) against the full MNA, a standard tool for nutritional evaluation. Methods: A literature search identified studies that used the MNA for nutritional screening in geriatric patients. The contacted authors submitted original datasets that were merged into a single database. Various combinations of the questions on the current MNA-SF were tested using this database through combination analysis and ROC based derivation of classification thresholds. Results: Twenty-seven datasets (n=6257 participants) were initially processed from which twelve were used in the current analysis on a sample of 2032 study participants (mean age 82.3y) with complete information on all MNA items. The original MNA-SF was a combination of six questions from the full MNA. A revised MNA-SF included calf circumference (CC) substituted for BMI performed equally well. A revised three-category scoring classification for this revised MNA-SF, using BMI and/or CC, had good sensitivity compared to the full MNA. Conclusion: The newly revised MNA-SF is a valid nutritional screening tool applicable to geriatric health care professionals with the option of using CC when BMI cannot be calculated. This revised MNA-SF increases the applicability of this rapid screening tool in clinical practice through the inclusion of a "malnourished" category.

The Virtual Family—development of surface-based anatomical models of two adults and two children for dosimetric simulations

Abstract: The objective of this study was to develop anatomically correct whole body human models of an adult male (34 years old), an adult female (26 years old) and two children (an 11-year-old girl and a six-year-old boy) for the optimized evaluation of electromagnetic exposure. These four models are referred to as the Virtual Family. They are based on high resolution magnetic resonance (MR) images of healthy volunteers. More than 80 different tissue types were distinguished during the segmentation. To improve the accuracy and the effectiveness of the segmentation, a novel semi-automated tool was used to analyze and segment the data. All tissues and organs were reconstructed as three-dimensional (3D) unstructured triangulated surface objects, yielding high precision images of individual features of the body. This greatly enhances the meshing flexibility and the accuracy with respect to thin tissue layers and small organs in comparison with the traditional voxel-based representation of anatomical models. Conformal computational techniques were also applied. The techniques and tools developed in this study can be used to more effectively develop future models and further improve the accuracy of the models for various applications. For research purposes, the four models are provided for free to the scientific community.