University of Konstanz

About: University of Konstanz is a education organization based out in Konstanz, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Visualization. The organization has 12115 authors who have published 27401 publications receiving 951162 citations. The organization is also known as: University of Constance & Universität Konstanz.

Are People Conditionally Cooperative? Evidence from a Public Goods Experiment

Abstract: We study the importance of conditional cooperation in a one-shot public goods game by using a variant of the strategy-method. We find that a third of the subjects can be classified as free riders, whereas 50 percent are conditional cooperators.

KNIME: The Konstanz Information Miner

Abstract: The Konstanz Information Miner is a modular environment, which enables easy visual assembly and interactive execution of a data pipeline. It is designed as a teaching, research and collaboration platform, which enables simple integration of new algorithms and tools as well as data manipulation or visualization methods in the form of new modules or nodes. In this paper we describe some of the design aspects of the underlying architecture and briefly sketch how new nodes can be incorporated.

Long-term health benefits of physical activity – a systematic review of longitudinal studies

Abstract: The treatment of noncommunicable diseases (NCD), like coronary heart disease or type 2 diabetes mellitus, causes rising costs for the health system. Physical activity is supposed to reduce the risk for these diseases. Results of cross-sectional studies showed that physical activity is associated with better health, and that physical activity could prevent the development of these diseases. The purpose of this review is to summarize existing evidence for the long-term (>5 years) relationship between physical activity and weight gain, obesity, coronary heart disease, type 2 diabetes mellitus, Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. Fifteen longitudinal studies with at least 5-year follow up times and a total of 288,724 subjects (>500 participants in each study), aged between 18 and 85 years, were identified using digital databases. Only studies published in English, about healthy adults at baseline, intentional physical activity and the listed NCDs were included. The results of these studies show that physical activity appears to have a positive long-term influence on all selected diseases. This review revealed a paucity of long-term studies on the relationship between physical activity and the incidence of NCD.

A T cell-dependent experimental liver injury in mice inducible by concanavalin A.

Abstract: Male NMRI or BALB/c mice developed severe liver injury as assessed by transaminase release within 8 h when an intravenous dose greater than 1.5 mg/kg concanavalin A (Con A) was given. Histopathologically, only the liver was affected. Electron micrographs revealed leukocyte sticking to endothelial cells and bleb formation of hepatocytes. The hepatotoxicity of the lectin correlated neither with its agglutination activity nor with its sugar specificity. Administration of 0.5 mg/kg dexamethasone or 50 mg/kg cyclosporine A or 50 mg/kg FK 506 (Fujimycin) resulted in protection of the animals whereas indomethacin pretreatment failed to protect. Con A hepatitis was accompanied by the release of IL-2 into the serum of the animals. Mice with severe combined immunodeficiency syndrome lacking B as well as T lymphocytes were resistant against Con A. Athymic nude mice with immature T lymphocytes were also resistant. Pretreatment of mice with an antibody against T lymphocytes fully protected against Con A as did monoclonal anti-mouse CD4. Monoclonal anti-mouse CD8 failed to protect. Pretreatment of mice with silica particles, i.e., deletion of macrophages, prevented the induction of hepatitis. These findings provide evidence that Con A-induced liver injury depends on the activation of T lymphocytes by macrophages in the presence of Con A. The model might allow the study of the pathophysiology of immunologically mediated hepatic disorders such as autoimmune chronic active hepatitis.

Words in the brain's language.

Abstract: If the cortex is an associative memory, strongly connected cell assemblies will form when neurons in different cortical areas are frequently active at the same time. The cortical distributions of these assemblies must be a consequence of where in the cortex correlated neuronal activity occurred during learning. An assembly can be considered a functional unit exhibiting activity states such as full activation ("ignition") after appropriate sensory stimulation (possibly related to perception) and continuous reverberation of excitation within the assembly (a putative memory process). This has implications for cortical topographies and activity dynamics of cell assemblies forming during language acquisition, in particular for those representing words. Cortical topographies of assemblies should be related to aspects of the meaning of the words they represent, and physiological signs of cell assembly ignition should be followed by possible indicators of reverberation. The following postulates are discussed in detail: (1) assemblies representing phonological word forms are strongly lateralized and distributed over perisylvian cortices; (2) assemblies representing highly abstract words such as grammatical function words are also strongly lateralized and restricted to these perisylvian regions; (3) assemblies representing concrete content words include additional neurons in both hemispheres; (4) assemblies representing words referring to visual stimuli include neurons in visual cortices; and (5) assemblies representing words referring to actions include neurons in motor cortices. Two main sources of evidence are used to evaluate these proposals: (a) imaging studies focusing on localizing word processing in the brain, based on stimulus-triggered event-related potentials (ERPs), positron emission tomography (PET), and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), and (b) studies of the temporal dynamics of fast activity changes in the brain, as revealed by high-frequency responses recorded in the electroencephalogram (EEG) and magnetoencephalogram (MEG). These data provide evidence for processing differences between words and matched meaningless pseudowords, and between word classes, such as concrete content and abstract function words, and words evoking visual or motor associations. There is evidence for early word class-specific spreading of neuronal activity and for equally specific high-frequency responses occurring later. These results support a neurobiological model of language in the Hebbian tradition. Competing large-scale neuronal theories of language are discussed in light of the data summarized. Neurobiological perspectives on the problem of serial order of words in syntactic strings are considered in closing.