[ECMO and ARDS-therapy - an update]. / Die ECMO in der ARDS-Therapie - Ein Update.

The "Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome" (ARDS) is a life threatening disease and is associated with a high mortality, mainly due to multi-organ failure. Invasive mechanical ventilation can worsen multi-organ failure which must be avoided. A tidal volume of 6 ml/kg bodyweight should be the aim. Extracorporeal lung assist devices like ECMO or iLA can contribute to lung-protective mechanical ventilation.

Next-generation applications in healthcare digital libraries using semantic service composition and coordination.

Healthcare digital libraries (DLs) increasingly make use of dedicated services to access functionality and/or data. Semantic (web) services enhance single services and facilitate compound services, thereby supporting advanced applications on top of a DL. The traditional process management approach tends to focus on process definition at build time rather than on actual service events in run time, and to anticipate failures in order to define appropriate strategies. This paper presents a novel approach where service coordination is distributed among a set of agents. A dedicated component plans compound semantic services on demand for a particular application. In failure, the planner is reinvoked to define contin- gency strategies. Finally, matchmaking is effected at runtime by choosing the appropriate service provider. These combined technologies will provide key support for highly flexible next-generation DL applications. Such technologies are under development within CASCOM.

Polar bear Ursus maritimus hearing measured with auditory evoked potentials.

While there has been recent concern about the effects of sound on marine mammals, including polar bears, there are no data available measuring the hearing of any bear. The in-air hearing of three polar bears was measured using evoked auditory potentials obtained while tone pips were played to three individually anaesthetized bears at the Kolmården Djurpark. Hearing was tested in half-octave steps from 1 to 22.5 kHz. Measurements were not obtainable at 1 kHz and best sensitivity was found in the range from 11.2-22.5 kHz. Considering the tone pips were short and background noise measurements were available, absolute measurements were estimated based on an assumed mammalian integration time of 300 ms. These data show sensitive hearing in the polar bear over a wide frequency range and should cause those concerned with the introduction of anthropogenic noise into the polar bear's environment to operate with caution.