@article{AlnemerKotliarNeuhausetal.2023, author = {Alnemer, Momin Sami Mohammad and Kotliar, Konstantin and Neuhaus, Valentin and Pape, Hans-Christoph and Ciritsis, Bernhard D.}, title = {Cost-effectiveness analysis of surgical proximal femur fracture prevention in elderly: a Markov cohort simulation model}, series = {Cost Effectiveness and Resource Allocation}, journal = {Cost Effectiveness and Resource Allocation}, number = {21, Article number: 77}, publisher = {Springer Nature}, issn = {1478-7547}, doi = {10.1186/s12962-023-00482-4}, pages = {12 Seiten}, year = {2023}, abstract = {Background Hip fractures are a common and costly health problem, resulting in significant morbidity and mortality, as well as high costs for healthcare systems, especially for the elderly. Implementing surgical preventive strategies has the potential to improve the quality of life and reduce the burden on healthcare resources, particularly in the long term. However, there are currently limited guidelines for standardizing hip fracture prophylaxis practices. Methods This study used a cost-effectiveness analysis with a finite-state Markov model and cohort simulation to evaluate the primary and secondary surgical prevention of hip fractures in the elderly. Patients aged 60 to 90 years were simulated in two different models (A and B) to assess prevention at different levels. Model A assumed prophylaxis was performed during the fracture operation on the contralateral side, while Model B included individuals with high fracture risk factors. Costs were obtained from the Centers for Medicare \& Medicaid Services, and transition probabilities and health state utilities were derived from available literature. The baseline assumption was a 10\% reduction in fracture risk after prophylaxis. A sensitivity analysis was also conducted to assess the reliability and variability of the results. Results With a 10\% fracture risk reduction, model A costs between \$8,850 and \$46,940 per quality-adjusted life-year (\$/QALY). Additionally, it proved most cost-effective in the age range between 61 and 81 years. The sensitivity analysis established that a reduction of ≥ 2.8\% is needed for prophylaxis to be definitely cost-effective. The cost-effectiveness at the secondary prevention level was most sensitive to the cost of the contralateral side's prophylaxis, the patient's age, and fracture treatment cost. For high-risk patients with no fracture history, the cost-effectiveness of a preventive strategy depends on their risk profile. In the baseline analysis, the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio at the primary prevention level varied between \$11,000/QALY and \$74,000/QALY, which is below the defined willingness to pay threshold. Conclusion Due to the high cost of hip fracture treatment and its increased morbidity, surgical prophylaxis strategies have demonstrated that they can significantly relieve the healthcare system. Various key assumptions facilitated the modeling, allowing for adequate room for uncertainty. Further research is needed to evaluate health-state-associated risks.}, language = {en} } @article{AyalaHarrisKleefeldetal.2023, author = {Ayala, Rafael Ceja and Harris, Isaac and Kleefeld, Andreas and Pallikarakis, Nikolaos}, title = {Analysis of the transmission eigenvalue problem with two conductivity parameters}, series = {Applicable Analysis}, journal = {Applicable Analysis}, publisher = {Taylor \& Francis}, issn = {0003-6811}, doi = {10.1080/00036811.2023.2181167}, pages = {37 Seiten}, year = {2023}, abstract = {In this paper, we provide an analytical study of the transmission eigenvalue problem with two conductivity parameters. We will assume that the underlying physical model is given by the scattering of a plane wave for an isotropic scatterer. In previous studies, this eigenvalue problem was analyzed with one conductive boundary parameter whereas we will consider the case of two parameters. We prove the existence and discreteness of the transmission eigenvalues as well as study the dependence on the physical parameters. We are able to prove monotonicity of the first transmission eigenvalue with respect to the parameters and consider the limiting procedure as the second boundary parameter vanishes. Lastly, we provide extensive numerical experiments to validate the theoretical work.}, language = {en} } @article{BertzMolinnusSchoeningetal.2023, author = {Bertz, Morten and Molinnus, Denise and Sch{\"o}ning, Michael Josef and Homma, Takayuki}, title = {Real-time monitoring of H₂O₂ sterilization on individual bacillus atrophaeus spores by optical sensing with trapping Raman spectroscopy}, series = {Chemosensors}, volume = {8}, journal = {Chemosensors}, number = {11}, publisher = {MDPI}, address = {Basel}, issn = {2227-9040}, doi = {10.3390/chemosensors11080445}, pages = {Artikel 445}, year = {2023}, abstract = {Hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂), a strong oxidizer, is a commonly used sterilization agent employed during aseptic food processing and medical applications. To assess the sterilization efficiency with H₂O₂, bacterial spores are common microbial systems due to their remarkable robustness against a wide variety of decontamination strategies. Despite their widespread use, there is, however, only little information about the detailed time-resolved mechanism underlying the oxidative spore death by H₂O₂. In this work, we investigate chemical and morphological changes of individual Bacillus atrophaeus spores undergoing oxidative damage using optical sensing with trapping Raman microscopy in real-time. The time-resolved experiments reveal that spore death involves two distinct phases: (i) an initial phase dominated by the fast release of dipicolinic acid (DPA), a major spore biomarker, which indicates the rupture of the spore's core; and (ii) the oxidation of the remaining spore material resulting in the subsequent fragmentation of the spores' coat. Simultaneous observation of the spore morphology by optical microscopy corroborates these mechanisms. The dependence of the onset of DPA release and the time constant of spore fragmentation on H₂O₂ shows that the formation of reactive oxygen species from H₂O₂ is the rate-limiting factor of oxidative spore death.}, language = {en} } @article{BialonskiGrieger2023, author = {Bialonski, Stephan and Grieger, Niklas}, title = {Der KI-Chatbot ChatGPT: Eine Herausforderung f{\"u}r die Hochschulen}, series = {Die neue Hochschule}, volume = {2023}, journal = {Die neue Hochschule}, number = {1}, publisher = {HLB}, address = {Bonn}, issn = {0340-448X}, doi = {10.5281/zenodo.7533758}, pages = {24 -- 27}, year = {2023}, abstract = {Essays, Gedichte, Programmcode: ChatGPT generiert automatisch Texte auf bisher unerreicht hohem Niveau. Dieses und nachfolgende Systeme werden nicht nur die akademische Welt nachhaltig ver{\"a}ndern.}, language = {de} } @unpublished{BornheimNiklasBlanecketal.2023, author = {Bornheim, Tobias and Niklas, Grieger and Blaneck, Patrick Gustav and Bialonski, Stephan}, title = {Preprint: Speaker attribution in German parliamentary debates with QLoRA-adapted large language models}, series = {Journal for Language Technology and Computational Linguistics}, journal = {Journal for Language Technology and Computational Linguistics}, doi = {10.48550/arXiv.2309.09902}, pages = {8 Seiten}, year = {2023}, abstract = {The growing body of political texts opens up new opportunities for rich insights into political dynamics and ideologies but also increases the workload for manual analysis. Automated speaker attribution, which detects who said what to whom in a speech event and is closely related to semantic role labeling, is an important processing step for computational text analysis. We study the potential of the large language model family Llama 2 to automate speaker attribution in German parliamentary debates from 2017-2021. We fine-tune Llama 2 with QLoRA, an efficient training strategy, and observe our approach to achieve competitive performance in the GermEval 2023 Shared Task On Speaker Attribution in German News Articles and Parliamentary Debates. Our results shed light on the capabilities of large language models in automating speaker attribution, revealing a promising avenue for computational analysis of political discourse and the development of semantic role labeling systems.}, language = {en} } @inproceedings{BuesgenKloeserKohletal.2023, author = {B{\"u}sgen, Andr{\´e} and Kl{\"o}ser, Lars and Kohl, Philipp and Schmidts, Oliver and Kraft, Bodo and Z{\"u}ndorf, Albert}, title = {From cracked accounts to fake IDs: user profiling on German telegram black market channels}, series = {Data Management Technologies and Applications}, booktitle = {Data Management Technologies and Applications}, editor = {Cuzzocrea, Alfredo and Gusikhin, Oleg and Hammoudi, Slimane and Quix, Christoph}, publisher = {Springer}, address = {Cham}, isbn = {978-3-031-37889-8 (Print)}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-031-37890-4_9}, pages = {176 -- 202}, year = {2023}, abstract = {Messenger apps like WhatsApp and Telegram are frequently used for everyday communication, but they can also be utilized as a platform for illegal activity. Telegram allows public groups with up to 200.000 participants. Criminals use these public groups for trading illegal commodities and services, which becomes a concern for law enforcement agencies, who manually monitor suspicious activity in these chat rooms. This research demonstrates how natural language processing (NLP) can assist in analyzing these chat rooms, providing an explorative overview of the domain and facilitating purposeful analyses of user behavior. We provide a publicly available corpus of annotated text messages with entities and relations from four self-proclaimed black market chat rooms. Our pipeline approach aggregates the extracted product attributes from user messages to profiles and uses these with their sold products as features for clustering. The extracted structured information is the foundation for further data exploration, such as identifying the top vendors or fine-granular price analyses. Our evaluation shows that pretrained word vectors perform better for unsupervised clustering than state-of-the-art transformer models, while the latter is still superior for sequence labeling.}, language = {en} } @article{DigelAkimbekovRogachevetal.2023, author = {Digel, Ilya and Akimbekov, Nuraly and Rogachev, Evgeniy and Pogorelova, Natalia}, title = {Bacterial cellulose produced by Medusomyces gisevii on glucose and sucrose: biosynthesis and structural properties}, series = {Cellulose}, journal = {Cellulose}, publisher = {Springer Science + Business Media}, address = {Dordrecht}, issn = {1572-882X (Online)}, doi = {10.1007/s10570-023-05592-z}, pages = {15 Seiten}, year = {2023}, abstract = {In this work, the effects of carbon sources and culture media on the production and structural properties of bacterial cellulose (BC) synthesized by Medusomyces gisevii have been studied. The culture medium was composed of different initial concentrations of glucose or sucrose dissolved in 0.4\% extract of plain green tea. Parameters of the culture media (titratable acidity, substrate conversion degree etc.) were monitored daily for 20 days of cultivation. The BC pellicles produced on different carbon sources were characterized in terms of biomass yield, crystallinity and morphology by field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), atomic force microscopy and X-ray diffraction. Our results showed that Medusomyces gisevii had higher BC yields in media with sugar concentrations close to 10 g L-1 after a 18-20 days incubation period. Glucose in general lead to a higher BC yield (173 g L-1) compared to sucrose (163.5 g L-1). The BC crystallinity degree and surface roughness were higher in the samples synthetized from sucrose. Obtained FE-SEM micrographs show that the BC pellicles synthesized in the sucrose media contained densely packed tangles of cellulose fibrils whereas the BC produced in the glucose media displayed rather linear geometry of the BC fibrils without noticeable aggregates.}, language = {en} } @incollection{Engelmann2023, author = {Engelmann, Ulrich M.}, title = {Moderationsexpertise - Onlinemoderation}, series = {IT-Servicemanagement}, booktitle = {IT-Servicemanagement}, editor = {Lindinger, Markus and Bartsch, Oliver}, publisher = {T{\"U}V-Verlag}, address = {K{\"o}ln}, isbn = {978-3-8249-1154-7}, pages = {Kapitel 05532}, year = {2023}, abstract = {Damit Sie auch in den immer h{\"a}ufiger werdenden Onlineveranstaltungen als Moderator gut bestehen, sollten Sie wissen, was bei der Onlinemoderation im Besonderen zu beachten ist. In diesem dritten Teil der Beitragsserie erfahren Sie, warum online anders als offline ist. Die technischen M{\"o}glichkeiten werden vorgestellt und auch wie diese zu nutzen sind. Schließlich erhalten Sie Tipps, die Sie beim Sprechen online beachten sollten.}, language = {de} } @incollection{EngelmannBaumann2023, author = {Engelmann, Ulrich M. and Baumann, Martin}, title = {Moderationsexpertise f{\"u}r QMBs - die Methoden}, series = {Qualit{\"a}tsmanagement im Gesundheitswesen}, booktitle = {Qualit{\"a}tsmanagement im Gesundheitswesen}, editor = {Herbig, Nicola and Poppelreuter, Stefan}, edition = {60. Update}, publisher = {T{\"U}V-Verlag}, address = {K{\"o}ln}, isbn = {978-3-8249-0714-4}, pages = {Kapitel 10815}, year = {2023}, abstract = {Damit Sie als Moderator effektiv und professionell moderieren k{\"o}nnen, sollten Sie die entsprechenden Methoden kennen. Mit den richtigen Methoden k{\"o}nnen Sie Diskussionen leiten, Konflikte l{\"o}sen, die Teilnehmer motivieren und daf{\"u}r sorgen, dass die Ziele der Veranstaltung erreicht werden. Außerdem helfen sie Ihnen, eine positive Atmosph{\"a}re zu schaffen und das Interesse der Teilnehmer zu halten. In diesem zweiten Beitrag der mehrteiligen Serie lernen Sie die grunds{\"a}tzlichen Methoden kennen, um erfolgreiche Teamsitzungen, Arbeitsgruppentreffen, Kick-offs und Meetings durchzuf{\"u}hren.}, language = {de} } @incollection{EngelmannBaumann2023, author = {Engelmann, Ulrich M. and Baumann, Martin}, title = {Moderationsexpertise f{\"u}r QMBs - das Mindset}, series = {Qualit{\"a}tsmanagement in Dienstleistungsunternehmen}, booktitle = {Qualit{\"a}tsmanagement in Dienstleistungsunternehmen}, editor = {Thomann, Hermann and Tr{\"a}ger, Thomas}, publisher = {T{\"U}V-Verlag}, address = {K{\"o}ln}, isbn = {978-3-8249-0473-0}, pages = {Kapitel 08630}, year = {2023}, abstract = {Teamsitzungen, Arbeitsgruppentreffen, Kickoffs und Meetings - sie alle werden mit dem Ziel durchgef{\"u}hrt, innerhalb einer vorgegebenen Zeitspanne ein gemeinsames Arbeitsziel zu erreichen. Damit die Zielerreichung auch bei komplexeren Arbeitsauftr{\"a}gen nicht vom Zufall abh{\"a}ngt, empfiehlt es sich, die Leitung des Ablaufs einem Moderator zu {\"u}bertragen. In diesem Beitrag einer mehrteiligen Serie wird beschrieben, {\"u}ber welches Mindset der Moderator verf{\"u}gen sollte, welche grunds{\"a}tzlichen Methoden hilfreich sind und was bei der Onlinemoderation im Besonderen zu beachten ist.}, language = {de} } @incollection{EngelmannBaumann2023, author = {Engelmann, Ulrich M. and Baumann, Martin}, title = {Moderationsexpertise - das Mindset}, series = {IT-Servicemanagement}, booktitle = {IT-Servicemanagement}, editor = {Lindinger, Markus and Bartsch, Oliver}, edition = {54. Update}, publisher = {T{\"U}V-Verlag}, address = {K{\"o}ln}, isbn = {978-3-8249-1154-7}, pages = {Kapitel 05530}, year = {2023}, abstract = {Teamsitzungen, Arbeitsgruppentreffen, Kickoffs und Meetings - sie alle werden mit dem Ziel durchgef{\"u}hrt, innerhalb einer vorgegebenen Zeitspanne ein gemeinsames Arbeitsziel zu erreichen. Damit die Zielerreichung auch bei komplexeren Arbeitsauftr{\"a}gen nicht vom Zufall abh{\"a}ngt, empfiehlt es sich, die Leitung des Ablaufs einem Moderator zu {\"u}bertragen. In diesem Beitrag einer dreiteiligen Serie wird beschrieben, {\"u}ber welches Mindset der Moderator verf{\"u}gen sollte, welche grunds{\"a}tzlichen Methoden hilfreich sind und was bei der Onlinemoderation im Besonderen zu beachten ist.}, language = {de} } @incollection{EngelmannBaumann2023, author = {Engelmann, Ulrich M. and Baumann, Martin}, title = {Moderationsexpertise f{\"u}r QMBs - die Methoden}, series = {Qualit{\"a}tsmanagement in Dienstleistungsunternehmen}, booktitle = {Qualit{\"a}tsmanagement in Dienstleistungsunternehmen}, editor = {Thomann, Hermann and Tr{\"a}ger, Thomas}, publisher = {T{\"U}V-Verlag}, address = {K{\"o}ln}, isbn = {978-3-8249-0473-0}, pages = {Kapitel 08631}, year = {2023}, abstract = {Damit Sie als Moderator effektiv und professionell moderieren k{\"o}nnen, sollten Sie die entsprechenden Methoden kennen. Mit den richtigen Methoden k{\"o}nnen Sie Diskussionen leiten, Konflikte l{\"o}sen, die Teilnehmer motivieren und daf{\"u}r sorgen, dass die Ziele der Veranstaltung erreicht werden. Außerdem helfen sie Ihnen, eine positive Atmosph{\"a}re zu schaffen und das Interesse der Teilnehmer zu halten. In diesem zweiten Beitrag der mehrteiligen Serie lernen Sie die grunds{\"a}tzlichen Methoden kennen, um erfolgreiche Teamsitzungen, Arbeitsgruppentreffen, Kick-offs und Meetings durchzuf{\"u}hren.}, language = {de} } @incollection{EngelmannBaumann2023, author = {Engelmann, Ulrich M. and Baumann, Martin}, title = {Moderationsexpertise - die Methoden}, series = {IT-Servicemanagement}, booktitle = {IT-Servicemanagement}, editor = {Lindinger, Markus and Bartsch, Oliver}, edition = {54. Update}, publisher = {T{\"U}V-Verlag}, address = {K{\"o}ln}, isbn = {978-3-8249-1154-7}, pages = {Kapitel 05531}, year = {2023}, abstract = {Damit Sie als Moderator effektiv und professionell moderieren k{\"o}nnen, sollten Sie die entsprechenden Methoden kennen. Mit den richtigen Methoden k{\"o}nnen Sie Diskussionen leiten, Konflikte l{\"o}sen, die Teilnehmer motivieren und daf{\"u}r sorgen, dass die Ziele der Veranstaltung erreicht werden. Außerdem helfen sie Ihnen, eine positive Atmosph{\"a}re zu schaffen und das Interesse der Teilnehmer zu halten. In diesem zweiten Beitrag der mehrteiligen Serie lernen Sie die grunds{\"a}tzlichen Methoden kennen, um erfolgreiche Teamsitzungen, Arbeitsgruppentreffen, Kick-offs und Meetings durchzuf{\"u}hren.}, language = {de} } @incollection{EngelmannBaumann2023, author = {Engelmann, Ulrich M. and Baumann, Martin}, title = {Moderationsexpertise f{\"u}r QMBs - Onlinemoderation}, series = {Qualit{\"a}tsmanagement im Gesundheitswesen}, booktitle = {Qualit{\"a}tsmanagement im Gesundheitswesen}, editor = {Herbig, Nicola and Poppelreuter, Stefan}, publisher = {T{\"U}V-Verlag}, address = {K{\"o}ln}, isbn = {978-3-8249-0714-4}, pages = {Kapitel 10816}, year = {2023}, abstract = {Damit Sie auch in den immer h{\"a}ufiger werdenden Onlineveranstaltungen als Moderator gut bestehen, sollten Sie wissen, was bei der Onlinemoderation im Besonderen zu beachten ist. In diesem dritten Teil der Beitragsserie erfahren Sie, warum online anders als offline ist. Die technischen M{\"o}glichkeiten werden vorgestellt und auch wie diese zu nutzen sind. Schließlich erhalten Sie Tipps, die Sie beim Sprechen online beachten sollten.}, language = {de} } @article{Gaigall2023, author = {Gaigall, Daniel}, title = {Allocating and forecasting changes in risk}, series = {Journal of risk}, volume = {25}, journal = {Journal of risk}, number = {3}, editor = {AitSahlia, Farid}, publisher = {Infopro Digital Risk}, address = {London}, issn = {1755-2842}, doi = {10.21314/JOR.2022.048}, pages = {1 -- 24}, year = {2023}, abstract = {We consider time-dependent portfolios and discuss the allocation of changes in the risk of a portfolio to changes in the portfolio's components. For this purpose we adopt established allocation principles. We also use our approach to obtain forecasts for changes in the risk of the portfolio's components. To put the approach into practice we present an implementation based on the output of a simulation. Allocation is illustrated with an example portfolio in the context of Solvency II. The quality of the forecasts is investigated with an empirical study.}, language = {en} } @article{Gaigall2023, author = {Gaigall, Daniel}, title = {On the applicability of several tests to models with not identically distributed random effects}, series = {Statistics : A Journal of Theoretical and Applied Statistics}, volume = {57}, journal = {Statistics : A Journal of Theoretical and Applied Statistics}, publisher = {Taylor \& Francis}, address = {London}, isbn = {0323-3944}, issn = {1029-4910}, doi = {10.1080/02331888.2023.2193748}, pages = {14 Seiten}, year = {2023}, abstract = {We consider Kolmogorov-Smirnov and Cram{\´e}r-von-Mises type tests for testing central symmetry, exchangeability, and independence. In the standard case, the tests are intended for the application to independent and identically distributed data with unknown distribution. The tests are available for multivariate data and bootstrap procedures are suitable to obtain critical values. We discuss the applicability of the tests to random effects models, where the random effects are independent but not necessarily identically distributed and with possibly unknown distributions. Theoretical results show the adequacy of the tests in this situation. The quality of the tests in models with random effects is investigated by simulations. Empirical results obtained confirm the theoretical findings. A real data example illustrates the application.}, language = {en} } @phdthesis{Gaigall2023, author = {Gaigall, Daniel}, title = {On selected problems in multivariate analysis}, doi = {10.15488/14304}, pages = {17 Seiten}, year = {2023}, abstract = {Selected problems in the field of multivariate statistical analysis are treated. Thereby, one focus is on the paired sample case. Among other things, statistical testing problems of marginal homogeneity are under consideration. In detail, properties of Hotelling's T² test in a special parametric situation are obtained. Moreover, the nonparametric problem of marginal homogeneity is discussed on the basis of possibly incomplete data. In the bivariate data case, properties of the Hoeffding-Blum-Kiefer-Rosenblatt independence test statistic on the basis of partly not identically distributed data are investigated. Similar testing problems are treated within the scope of the application of a result for the empirical process of the concomitants for partly categorial data. Furthermore, testing changes in the modeled solvency capital requirement of an insurance company by means of a paired sample from an internal risk model is discussed. Beyond the paired sample case, a new asymptotic relative efficiency concept based on the expected volumes of multidimensional confidence regions is introduced. Besides, a new approach for the treatment of the multi-sample goodness-of-fit problem is presented. Finally, a consistent test for the treatment of the goodness-of-fit problem is developed for the background of huge or infinite dimensional data.}, language = {en} } @article{GaigallGerstenberg2023, author = {Gaigall, Daniel and Gerstenberg, Julian}, title = {Cram{\´e}r-von-Mises tests for the distribution of the excess over a confidence level}, series = {Journal of Nonparametric Statistics}, journal = {Journal of Nonparametric Statistics}, publisher = {Taylor \& Francis}, issn = {1048-5252 (Print)}, doi = {10.1080/10485252.2023.2173958}, year = {2023}, abstract = {The Cram{\´e}r-von-Mises distance is applied to the distribution of the excess over a confidence level. Asymptotics of related statistics are investigated, and it is seen that the obtained limit distributions differ from the classical ones. For that reason, quantiles of the new limit distributions are given and new bootstrap techniques for approximation purposes are introduced and justified. The results motivate new one-sample goodness-of-fit tests for the distribution of the excess over a confidence level and a new confidence interval for the related fitting error. Simulation studies investigate size and power of the tests as well as coverage probabilities of the confidence interval in the finite sample case. A practice-oriented application of the Cram{\´e}r-von-Mises tests is the determination of an appropriate confidence level for the fitting approach. The adoption of the idea to the well-known problem of threshold detection in the context of peaks over threshold modelling is sketched and illustrated by data examples.}, language = {en} } @article{GrajewskiKleefeld2023, author = {Grajewski, Matthias and Kleefeld, Andreas}, title = {Detecting and approximating decision boundaries in low-dimensional spaces}, series = {Numerical Algorithms}, volume = {93}, journal = {Numerical Algorithms}, number = {4}, publisher = {Springer Science+Business Media}, address = {Dordrecht}, issn = {1572-9265}, pages = {35 Seiten}, year = {2023}, abstract = {A method for detecting and approximating fault lines or surfaces, respectively, or decision curves in two and three dimensions with guaranteed accuracy is presented. Reformulated as a classification problem, our method starts from a set of scattered points along with the corresponding classification algorithm to construct a representation of a decision curve by points with prescribed maximal distance to the true decision curve. Hereby, our algorithm ensures that the representing point set covers the decision curve in its entire extent and features local refinement based on the geometric properties of the decision curve. We demonstrate applications of our method to problems related to the detection of faults, to multi-criteria decision aid and, in combination with Kirsch's factorization method, to solving an inverse acoustic scattering problem. In all applications we considered in this work, our method requires significantly less pointwise classifications than previously employed algorithms.}, language = {en} } @article{HeieisBoeckerD'Angeloetal.2023, author = {Heieis, Jule and B{\"o}cker, Jonas and D'Angelo, Olfa and Mittag, Uwe and Albracht, Kirsten and Sch{\"o}nau, Eckhard and Meyer, Andreas and Voigtmann, Thomas and Rittweger, J{\"o}rn}, title = {Curvature of gastrocnemius muscle fascicles as function of muscle-tendon complex length and contraction in humans}, series = {Physiological Reports}, volume = {11}, journal = {Physiological Reports}, number = {11}, publisher = {Wiley}, issn = {2051-817X}, doi = {10.14814/phy2.15739}, pages = {e15739, Seite 1-11}, year = {2023}, abstract = {It has been shown that muscle fascicle curvature increases with increasing contraction level and decreasing muscle-tendon complex length. The analyses were done with limited examination windows concerning contraction level, muscle-tendon complex length, and/or intramuscular position of ultrasound imaging. With this study we aimed to investigate the correlation between fascicle arching and contraction, muscle-tendon complex length and their associated architectural parameters in gastrocnemius muscles to develop hypotheses concerning the fundamental mechanism of fascicle curving. Twelve participants were tested in five different positions (90°/105°*, 90°/90°*, 135°/90°*, 170°/90°*, and 170°/75°*; *knee/ankle angle). They performed isometric contractions at four different contraction levels (5\%, 25\%, 50\%, and 75\% of maximum voluntary contraction) in each position. Panoramic ultrasound images of gastrocnemius muscles were collected at rest and during constant contraction. Aponeuroses and fascicles were tracked in all ultrasound images and the parameters fascicle curvature, muscle-tendon complex strain, contraction level, pennation angle, fascicle length, fascicle strain, intramuscular position, sex and age group were analyzed by linear mixed effect models. Mean fascicle curvature of the medial gastrocnemius increased with contraction level (+5 m-1 from 0\% to 100\%; p = 0.006). Muscle-tendon complex length had no significant impact on mean fascicle curvature. Mean pennation angle (2.2 m-1 per 10°; p < 0.001), inverse mean fascicle length (20 m-1 per cm-1; p = 0.003), and mean fascicle strain (-0.07 m-1 per +10\%; p = 0.004) correlated with mean fascicle curvature. Evidence has also been found for intermuscular, intramuscular, and sex-specific intramuscular differences of fascicle curving. Pennation angle and the inverse fascicle length show the highest predictive capacities for fascicle curving. Due to the strong correlations between pennation angle and fascicle curvature and the intramuscular pattern of curving we suggest for future studies to examine correlations between fascicle curvature and intramuscular fluid pressure.}, language = {en} }