Ruhr-University Bochum Research Articles

Answering epidemiologic rheumatologic questions by cooperation with the large population-based SHIP cohort-findings with relevance for the diagnosis of axial spondyloarthritis (axSpA)

In diesem Artikel wird dargestellt, wie sich Fragestellungen hinsichtlich der rheumatischen Erkrankung axiale Spondyloarthritis (axSpA) in Zusammenhang mit der Verfügbarkeit neuer bildgebender Verfahren und neuer Medikamente über mehr als zwei Jahrzehnte in einer rheumatologischen Forschungsgruppe entwickelt haben. Insbesondere in den letzten Jahren ergaben sich durch die Kooperation mit der SHIP („Study of Health in Pomerania“)-Kohorte neue grundlegende Aspekte. Dabei bestand eine intensive Kooperation zwischen der Ruhr-Universität Bochum (Rheumazentrum Ruhrgebiet) und der Universitätsmedizin Greifswald (Forschungsverbund „Community Medicine“). Das Design der SHIP-Kohorte ist schon vor 10 Jahren veröffentlicht worden und der Kohortenansatz wurde im Bundesgesundheitsblatt dargestellt, wobei zentrale methodische Fragen ausführlich erörtert wurden. Im Jahr 2014 wurde ein Kooperationsprojekt des Rheumazentrums Ruhrgebiet/Ruhr-Universität Bochum mit der Abteilung Klinisch-Epidemiologische Forschung (KEF) von SHIP vereinbart, aus dem bereits interessante Ergebnisse hochrangig publiziert wurden. Um das Potenzial solcher Kooperationen zu betonen, werden wesentliche Inhalte mit Fokus auf die Magnetresonanztomographie (MRT) im Folgenden, auch unter historischen Aspekten, dargestellt.

Incidence Rate of SARS-CoV-2 Infection Among Students Living in Dormitories - A Prospective Cohort Study With RT-PCR and SARS-CoV-2 Antibody Surveillance in a German University City

Background: The role of educational facilities including schools and universities in the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is heavily debated. Specifically, the risk of infection in student dormitories has not been studied. Methods: This cohort study monitors students living in dormitories in Bochum, Germany, throughout the winter term 2020/2021. Over the course of 4 months, participants were tested repeatedly for SARS-CoV-2 infection using RT-PCR from gargle samples and serological testing. An online questionnaire identified individual COVID-19-related risk factors. Findings: In total, 810 (46·5% female) students participated. Of these, 590 (72·8%) students participated in the final visit with serological follow up. The cross-sectional antibody prevalence was n=23 (2·8%) in November 2020 and n=29 (4·9%) in February 2021. Of 2,513 gargle samples analysed, 19 (0·8%) tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, corresponding to a total of 14 (2·4%) infections detected within the study period. All gargle samples available of cases with present infection were positive. The person-time incidence rate was 112·7 (95% CI: 54·11 – 207·2) per 100,000 person weeks. The expected incidence was calculated at 2·74% (RKI). This results in a standardized incidence ratio of 0·9 (95% CI 0·51-1·46, p=0·69). One possible infection cluster was detected by phylogenetic analysis (viral genome sequencing). Interpretation: Based on the results of the present study, students living in student dormitories do not appear to be major drivers of SARS-CoV-2 infections when appropriate measures are used. RT-PCR from gargle samples is a patient-friendly and scalable surveillance tool for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 infections. Funding Information: German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). Declaration of Interests: The authors have no conflict of interest to disclose. Ethics Approval Statement: All participants provided written informed consent. The present study was approved by the Ethical Committee of the Medical Faculty, RuhrUniversity of Bochum (registration number: 20-7074).

Expression of Hedgehog signalling molecules inmicrocystic adnexal carcinoma.

Microcystic adnexal carcinoma (MAC) is a rare skin neoplasm that has not been characterized on a molecular basis. To assess expression profiles of Hedgehog (HH) signalling molecules in MAC and control tumours. Immunohistochemistry was performed for Sonic Hedgehog (SHH), Indian Hedgehog (IHH), Patched 1 (PTCH1) and Smoothened (SMO) on patient MAC tissue (n=26) and control tumour tissue, including syringoma (SyG; n=11), trichoepithelioma (TE; n=11) and basal cell carcinoma (BCC; n=12) tissues. Patched 1 and SMO immunoreactivity was significantly higher in BCC than in SyG, TE or MAC (P<0.001 and P<0.03, respectively). The highest IHH expression was observed in BCC and TE compared with SyG and MAC (P<0.04). Notably, the highest SHH protein expression was observed in SyG compared with MAC, TE and even BCC (P<0.001). In patients with MAC, SMO immunoreactivity significantly (r=0.51; P<0.01) correlated with PTCH1 expression. Further correlation studies did not show significant associations between the HH expression markers assessed (P>0.05). Our results indicate that alterations of the HH signalling are unlikely to play a major role in the pathogenesis of MAC, which is in contrast to the morphologically similar BCC and TE. Our observation provides additional information to the limited molecular pathology knowledge on this rare tumour.

We can also do online - evaluation of the accompanying digital seminar of the elective subject "General Practice" during intership (PJ) at Ruhr-University Bochum.

Aim: Due to the lockdown caused by the Corona pandemic, the internship (PJ=practical year) seminars of the elective subject “General Practice” at Ruhr-University Bochum had to be transferred on short notice into online teaching formats via a digital platform. At the end of these new online course, the four students evaluated the comprising 16 teaching units.Methods: The seminars, each comprising four teaching units, took place in online blended-learning units and online events. After completing the seminar program, the four participants filled out a written questionnaire regarding the implementation of digital teaching, quality of teaching content, acceptance as well as advantages and disadvantages of the teaching format.Results: The acceptance of digital teaching was very high among students. Advantages and disadvantages of this teaching format compared to the previous face-to-face events became apparent; a positive assessment of the possibilities of the online format clearly prevailed, as competence-oriented, interactive aspects were very well implemented.Conclusion: Due to the need of switching to digital teachings formats, new, innovative perspectives have arisen for PJ teaching in Bochum as well as for the more distant second location Ostwestfalen-Lippe. This is particularly true with regard to centralised seminar offers despite decentralised training centres. When implementing “new” licensing regulations this creates an opportunity for general practice to include teaching practices in training throughout the country.

Spontaneous breathing for managing analgesia during balanced anesthesia with remifentanil and desflurane: a prospective, single center randomized controlled trial.

The main goal of anesthesiology is to achieve the best level of analgesia and a fast recovery of consciousness following anesthesia. The preservation of spontaneous breathing during general anesthesia with anesthetic gases is practiced by many anesthetists. However, very few studies have dealt with these positive properties of volatile anesthetics such as sevoflurane or desflurane. Remifentanil is a very short half-life opiate that combines sufficient intra-operative analgesia with a fast post-operative recovery time. We tested the hypothesis that spontaneous breathing can reduce overdosing with remifentanil during desflurane anesthesia. In this prospective, single center, multiple anesthetist study, 30 patients were randomized into two groups (volume-controlled ventilation mode and spontaneous breathing). The spontaneous breathing group showed a significantly lower post-operative pain level than the volume-controlled ventilation mode group. Furthermore, less remifentanil as well as less piritramide was needed in the spontaneous breathing group compared with volume-controlled ventilation mode. It was possible to achieve spontaneous breathing in all patients with 0.6 minimum alveolar concentration desflurane, in order to control the remifentanil rate and prevent an overdose. All spontaneous breathing patients had low intra- and post-operative pain levels and the need for analgesics was equal to or lower than that in the volume-controlled ventilation mode group. By reducing the intra-operative amount of opiates, both the post-operative pain and the amount of post-operative analgesia required can be reduced. A balanced anesthesia with spontaneous intra-operative breathing is needed to determine the required amount of opiates. This study was approved by the Ethic Committee of the Ruhr-University of Bochum (approval No. 2435) in September, 2004.

SpikeDeep-classifier: a deep-learning based fully automatic offline spike sorting algorithm

Objective. Advancements in electrode design have resulted in micro-electrode arrays with hundreds of channels for single cell recordings. In the resulting electrophysiological recordings, each implanted electrode can record spike activity (SA) of one or more neurons along with background activity (BA). The aim of this study is to isolate SA of each neural source. This process is called spike sorting or spike classification. Advanced spike sorting algorithms are time consuming because of the human intervention at various stages of the pipeline. Current approaches lack generalization because the values of hyperparameters are not fixed, even for multiple recording sessions of the same subject. In this study, a fully automatic spike sorting algorithm called ‘SpikeDeep-Classifier’ is proposed. The values of hyperparameters remain fixed for all the evaluation data. Approach. The proposed approach is based on our previous study (SpikeDeeptector) and a novel background activity rejector (BAR), which are both supervised learning algorithms and an unsupervised learning algorithm (K-means). SpikeDeeptector and BAR are used to extract meaningful channels and remove BA from the extracted meaningful channels, respectively. The process of clustering becomes straight-forward once the BA is completely removed from the data. Then, K-means with a predefined maximum number of clusters is applied on the remaining data originating from neural sources only. Lastly, a similarity-based criterion and a threshold are used to keep distinct clusters and merge similar looking clusters. The proposed approach is called cluster accept or merge (CAOM) and it has only two hyperparameters (maximum number of clusters and similarity threshold) which are kept fixed for all the evaluation data after tuning. Main results. We compared the results of our algorithm with ground-truth labels. The algorithm is evaluated on data of human patients and publicly available labeled non-human primates (NHPs) datasets. The average accuracy of BAR on datasets of human patients is 92.3% which is further reduced to 88.03% after (K-means + CAOM). In addition, the average accuracy of BAR on a publicly available labeled dataset of NHPs is 95.40% which reduces to 86.95% after (K-mean + CAOM). Lastly, we compared the performance of the SpikeDeep-Classifier with two human experts, where SpikeDeep-Classifier has produced comparable results. Significance. The SpikeDeep-Classifier is evaluated on the datasets of multiple recording sessions of different species, different brain areas and different electrode types without further retraining. The results demonstrate that ‘SpikeDeep-Classifier’ possesses the ability to generalize well on a versatile dataset and henceforth provides a generalized and fully automated solution to offline spike sorting. Clinical trial registration number The clinical trial registration number for patients implanted with the Utah array is NCT 01849822. For the epilepsy patients, approval from the local ethics committee at the Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany, was obtained prior to implantation. The Clinical trial registration number for the epilepsy patients implanted with microwires is 16–5670.

Umicore acquires phosphine-bearing ylide ligands from Ruhr University Bochum

Sound transmission characteristics of panels have been extensively examined which is often quantified by transmission loss. Although acoustic materials are usually applied to passive noise solutions. In the present paper, the influence of sound-absorbing materials on the transmission loss of double-walled panels has been studied theoretically. An analytical method based on statistical energy analysis technique (SEA) is employed for predicting the transmission loss of double-wall steel and aluminum panels. Three commercially available acoustic materials, ie., polyurethane, glass wool, and melamine foam are chosen for investigation.

A Randomized Trial: The Blankenstein Healthcare Plan Improves Sustainability of Lifestyle Change After Inpatient Naturopathic Therapy for Chronic Back Pain

Karl Rüdiger Wiebelitz*, Christa Golücke and André Michael Beer Author Affiliations Department of Naturopathy at Blankenstein Hospital, Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany Received: November 16, 2020 | Published: January 07, 2021 Corresponding author: Karl Rüdiger Wiebelitz, Department of Naturopathy at Blankenstein Hospital, Ruhr-University Bochum, Im Vogelsang 5, D-45527, Hattingen, Germany DOI: 10.26717/BJSTR.2021.33.005337

Pasteurization Inactivates SARS-CoV-2-Spiked Breast Milk.

* Abbreviations: Caco-2 — : human epithelial colorectal adenocarcinoma SARS-CoV-2 — : severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 TCID50 — : tissue culture infectious dose 50 Vero E6 — : Cercopithecus aethiops –derived epithelial kidney The current coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), raises unprecedented questions regarding virus transmission and risks for pregnant or breastfeeding women. We and others described that SARS-CoV-2 RNA is detectable in the breast milk of infected mothers.1–3 In two cases in which the mother continued breastfeeding, the newborns also tested positive for SARS-CoV-2.1,2 However, the origin of the infections of the newborns remained unclear and raised concerns of possible virus transmission via breast milk. The safety and feasibility of breastfeeding is of high importance because breast milk contains nutrients, hormones, and immunoprotective entities that are essential for the development, health, and protection of the neonate. So far, the World Health Organization recommends continued breastfeeding after maternal SARS-CoV-2 infection while taking measures to maintain strict hygiene.4 We here explored the inactivation of SARS-CoV-2 spiked into human milk … Address correspondence to Janis A. Muller or Stephanie Pfaender, Abteilung fur Molekulare und Medizinische Virologie, Ruhr-Universitat Bochum, Universitatsstrasse 150, 44801 Bochum, Germany. E-mail: janis.mueller{at}uni-ulm.de or stephanie.pfaender{at}ruhr-uni-bochum.de

Long-term survival after pancreaticoduodenectomy in patients with ductal adenocarcinoma of the pancreatic head

BackgroundPancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) has the worst prognosis of all malignant tumors due to unavailable screening methods, late diagnosis with a low proportion of resectable tumors and resistance to systemic treatment. Complete tumor resection remains the cornerstone of modern multimodal strategies aiming at long-term survival. This study was performed to investigate the overall rate of long-term survival (LTS) and its contributing factors. MethodsThis was a retrospective single-center analysis of consecutive patients undergoing pancreaticoduodenectomy (PD) for PDAC between 2007 and 2014 at the St. Josef Hospital, Ruhr University Bochum, Germany. Clinical and laboratory parameters were assessed and evaluated for prediction of LTS with Cox regression analysis. ResultsThe overall rate of LTS after PD for PDAC was 20.4% (34/167). Median survival was 24 months regardless of adjuvant treatment. Carbohydrate antigen 19-9 levels, tumor grade, lymph vessel invasion, perineural invasion and reduced general condition were significantly associated with LTS in univariate analysis (P < 0.05). Serum levels of carbohydrate antigen 19-9, American Joint Committee on Cancer stage, tumor grade, abdominal pain, male, exocrine pancreatic insufficiency and duration of postoperative hospital stay were independent predictors of cancer survival in multivariable analysis. ConclusionsCancer related characteristics are associated with LTS in multimodally treated patients after curative PDAC surgery.

Building an Elliptic Curve Cryptography to Encode and Decode Vietnamese Texts

This article presents building an Elliptic curve cryptography and using it to encode and decode Vietnamese text. Here we have illustrated the prime number p = 151 in the future, which will use a large prime number. We consider an elliptic curve with a total score of 172 points. Encode and decode with standard Vietnamese text and combine with the special characters in ASCII code. The program is designed and installed and on the C# environment to give the correct result of the encryption algorithm.&#x0D; KeywordsData sequence, Decryption, Discrete logarithm, Elliptic curve, Elliptic curve cryptosystem, Encryption, Public key&#x0D; References[1] Koblitz, “Elliptic curve cryptosystems”, Mathematics of Computation”, 203 - 209, 1987.[2] Miller, “Uses of elliptic curves in cryptography, Advances in Cryptology - Crypto”, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, SpringerVerlag, 1986, pp. 417-426.[3] Sugantha Priya, Dr.M. Mohanraj, “A Review on Secure Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) and Dynamic Secure Routing Link Path Detection Algorithm (DSRLP) Under Jamming Attack”, ISSN 68(30) (2020) 0474-9030.[4] Negin Dinarvand, Hamid Barati, “An efficient and secure RFID authentication protocol using ellipticcurvecryptography”,SpringerfScience+Business Media, LLC, 2017[5] Utku Gulen, Selcuk Baktir, “Elliptic Curve Cryptography for Wireless Sensor Networks Using the Number Theoretic Transform”, journal-sensors, Published: 9 March, 2020.[6] Sravana Kumar, C.H. Suneetha, A.R. Chandrasekh, “Encryption of Data Using Elliptic Curve Over Finite Fields”, International Journal of Distributed and Parallel Systems (IJDPS). 3(1) (2012) 301-308.[7] Amounas, E.H. El Kinani, ECC Encryption and Decryption with a Data Sequence, Applied Mathematical Sciences 6(101) (2012) 5039-5047.[8] Vu Thi Hai Ha, Dinh Thi Hang, Bui Dang Binh, “The influence of volume on the formant of vowels and the identification of Vietnamese speakers”, Vietnam Institute of Linguistics, 2015.[9] Enge, “Elliptic curves and their applications to cryptography”, Norwell, MA: Kulwer Academic publishers, 1999.[10] Neil Koblitz, “An Elliptic Curve implementation of the finite field digital signature algorithm”, in Advances in cryptology,(CRYPTO 1998), SpringerLecture Notes in computer science, 1462 (1998) 327-337.[11] S. Sandeep, Kumar, “Elliptic curve cryptography for constrained devices”, PhD thesis, Ruhr-University Bochum, June, 2006.

An open, modular, and flexible micro X-ray computed tomography system for research.

In this paper, a modular and open micro X-ray Computed Tomography (μXRCT) system is presented, which was set up during the last years at the Institute of Applied Mechanics (CE) of the University of Stuttgart and earlier at the Institute of Computational Engineering of Ruhr-University Bochum. The system is characterized by its intrinsic flexibility resulting from the modular and open design on each level and the opportunity to implement advanced experimental in situ setups. On the one hand, the presented work is intended to support researchers interested in setting up an experimental XRCT system for the microstructural characterization of materials. On the other hand, it aims to support scientists confronted with the decision to set up a system on their own or to buy a commercial scanner. In addition to the presentation of the various hardware components and the applied modular software concept, the technical opportunities of the open and modular hard- and software design are demonstrated by implementing a simple and reliable method for the compensation of bad detector pixels to enhance the raw data quality of the projections. A detailed investigation of the performance of the presented system with regard to the achievable spatial resolution is presented. XRCT datasets of three different applications are finally shown and discussed, demonstrating the wide scope of options of the presented system.

Journal-related Activities and Other Special Activities at the 2020 American Society of Anesthesiologists Meeting.

Journal-related Activities and Other Special Activities at the 2020 American Society of Anesthesiologists Meeting.

Comparison of Experimentally Determined Two-Dimensional Strain Fields and Mapped Ultrasonic Data Processed by Coda Wave Interferometry.

Due to the high sensitivity of coda waves to the smallest structural alterations such as strain, humidity or temperature changes, ultrasonic waves are a valid means to examine entire structures employing networks of ultrasonic transducers. In order to substantiate this ex ante assessment, the viability of measuring ultrasonic waves as a valid point of reference and inference for structural changes is to be further scrutinized in this work. In order to investigate the influence of mechanical strain on ultrasonic signals, a four-point bending test was carried out on a reinforced concrete beam at Ruhr University Bochum. Thus, measurements collected from a network of selected transducer pairings arranged across the central, shear-free segment of the test specimen, were correlated to their respective strain fields. Detected ultrasonic signals were evaluated employing Coda Wave Interferometry. Such analysis comprised the initial non-cracked state as well as later stages with incremental crack depth and quantity. It was to ascertain that the test specimen can in fact be qualitatively compartmentalized into areas of compression and tension identified via Relative Velocity Changes presented in Attribute Maps. However, since results did not entail a zero crossing, i.e., neither positive nor negative values were to be calculated, only relative changes in this work displayed staggered over the height of the object under test, are discussed. Under the given methodological premises, additional information is currently required to make quantitative assertions regarding this correlation of ultrasonic and strain results. This holds true for the comparability of the ultrasonic and strain results for both non-cracked and even the cracked state.

Social History as Commitment: On the Occasion of Klaus Tenfelde’s 75th Birthday

This is the translation of a laudation to Klaus Tenfelde that was presented by Jurgen Kocka at the Institute for Social Movements of Ruhr University Bochum on 20 November 2019, on the occasion of the annual celebration of the foundation of the Society for the History of the Ruhr.

Impact of carbohydrate-reduced nutrition in septic patients on ICU: study protocol for a prospective randomised controlled trial

IntroductionSepsis is defined as detrimental immune response to an infection. This overwhelming reaction often abolishes a normal reconstitution of the immune cell homeostasis that in turn increases the risk for...

Speeds of Sound in n-Pentane at Temperatures from 233.50 to 473.15 K at Pressures up to 390 MPa

We report speeds of sound in n-pentane measured using two similar apparatus, located at Ruhr University Bochum (RUB) and Imperial College London (ICL), covering different ranges of temperature and ...

Power-to-Protein: Carbon Fixation with Renewable Electric Power to Feed the World

Akanksha Mishra is currently a PhD student at the University of Tubingen in Germany. She is working in the field of gas fermentation under the supervision of Prof. Angenent. For her thesis, she is developing the power-to-protein system by operating a two-stage bioprocessing system. She is originally from India and moved to Germany after the completion of her undergraduate studies in biotechnology. She obtained a master’s degree in applied environmental geosciences also at the University of Tubingen. Dr. Jean Nepomuscene Ntihuga is a post-doctoral research associate at University of Tubingen, Germany in the Environmental Biotechnology Group at the Center of Applied Geosciences. He conducts research on chain elongation, especially in downstream process optimization. He worked on designing bioreactors during his doctoral research at the University of Hohenheim. With a background in chemical engineering, his research focused on application of engineering principles in the conversion of wastes to useful products and its impact on the environment. His goal is to help alleviate poverty and climate change mitigation through scale-up of developed processes and its application in decentralized systems. Dr. Bastian Molitor studied biology at the Ruhr University Bochum, Germany, where he also obtained his PhD. Afterward, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the RWTH Aachen University, before he moved on to a two-year research stay at Cornell University. Since 2017, Dr. Molitor has been a group leader at the University of Tubingen. His research focuses on the utilization of anaerobic gas-fermenting microbes for biotechnology. He studies the potential to genetically engineer acetogenic bacteria and methanogenic archaea, as well as the integration of bioprocesses with non-genetically engineered microbes to extend the product spectrum of gas fermentation. Prof. Dr. Ir. Largus Angenent leads the Environmental Biotechnology Group at the Center of Applied Geosciences at the University of Tubingen (Germany), where he holds a Humboldt Professorship. His group studies the recovery of carbon from wastewaters and industrial off gases with bioprocessing. The microbial catalysts can be pure cultures (including genetic modification), defined mixed cultures, or open cultures (microbiomes). His group also studies extracellular electron transfer, and he was one of the founding members of ISMET. Angenent is an expert on gas fermentation and chain elongation, and he started companies in these areas (Electrochaea, GmbH and Capro-X, Inc.).

5G and AI Technology Application in the AMTC Learning Factory

5G and AI (Artificial Intelligence) are changing industrial production and offer great potential for manufacturing enterprises. One of the effects resulting from the increasing quantity of production data is the increasing demands of transmission of large amounts of data, fast transmission speed, and rapid data analysis. However, merely relying on traditional communication technology and manual data processing does not lead to high transmission performance and low analysis time. It is essential to integrate 5G and AI technology to flexibly transmit large amounts of data and real-time data. To demonstrate the feasibility and potential of these two technologies, a concept was developed at the Advanced Manufacturing Technology Center (AMTC) at the Tongji University (Shanghai, China) and further implemented in the AMTC learning factory in cooperation with wbk of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (Karlsruhe, Germany) and Ruhr-University Bochum (Bochum, Germany). This paper presents the learning factory design in detail, describing the concept design, training environment and training phases in the AMTC learning factory. It is followed by a case study consisting of specific examples of 5G and AI, implemented in the AMTC learning factory. The importance of integrated 5G and AI applications is pointed out and discussed.

Learning factory for decent work – an interdisciplinary workshop on MES for worker representatives

This paper gives an insight into a learning factory concept on a rather abstract topic: Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) as the basic IT-infrastructure for industrial internet application. The addressed target groups are trade union representatives and works councils. The concept was developed by IG Metall (“Industrial Union of metalworkers”) and Ruhr-University Bochum (“LPS, Chair of Production Systems” and “Office of Cooperation RUB/IGM”) considering the technical as well as the sociological and didactical perspective. MES are an integral part of the operational implementation of Industry 4.0 technologies. Their implementation changes workplaces and work organization, affects issues of employment, remuneration, data privacy protection, working tasks, qualification requirements, working time, as well as safety and health protection. IG Metall and Ruhr-University Bochum developed an interdisciplinary workshop concept for works councils taking place in a close-to-reality setting of the LPS learning factory. The concept aims at showing the benefits of MES from an engineering point of view as well as enabling works councils to survey implementation processes of MES in the sense of participatory ergonomics. The workshop provides hands-on experiences and allows participants to get a holistic view on technology. Thus, they can take both chances and challenges into account. The paper sums up first experiences and conclusions.