Universitat Zu Koln Research Articles

Severe dyspnoea during late pregnancy in a woman with history of asthma

Sirs: Dyspnoea is a common complaint of about 75% of healthy women during late pregnancy [1] which in many cases is not clinically relevant. However, asthma is the most common medical condition to complicate pregnancy, with episodes of severe exacerbation reported in about 10% of the women with history of asthma [2]. Moreover, 0.5–2% of all pregnancies in Western countries are also complicated by cardiovascular disease and clinical differentiation might be challenging. Cardiomyopathies are rare diseases but are thought to be the main cardiac cause for maternal mortality during pregnancy [3]. A 31-year-old woman who was regularly attending our pneumology outpatient clinic for asthma underwent routine cardiac evaluation in summer 2010 with normal findings on echocardiography examination and a NT-pro-BNP concentration of 76 pg/ml. In February 2011, the now pregnant woman (34th week of pregnancy) was introduced for pneumological consultancy with suspected exacerbation of the known asthma. The asthma was well controlled during the pregnancy so far with rare application of the quickrelief inhaler. For the preceding 10 days the patient reported progressive dyspnoea and coughing during day and night times corresponding to NYHA functional class III–IV with severe trouble sleeping and no effect of the short-acting beta agonist inhaler. Additional application of a steroid inhaler for 3 days did not improve symptoms substantially. On physical examination there was no evidence of wheezing, but bilaterally decreased breathing sound throughout basilar lung fields consistent with high diaphragm due to advanced pregnancy. Spirometry showed reduced vital capacity (2.1 l, 54% of predicted) and normal FEV1/VC ratio of 80%. Laboratory tests showed a minor proteinuria (0.8 g/24 h), normal liver enzymes and platelet count, no signs of haemolysis, Troponin T \ 0.1 lg/l and a NT-pro-BNP concentration of 1,519 pg/ml. An exacerbation of a hypereosinophilic syndrome by pregnancy was unlikely given a peripheral-blood eosinophilia rate of 0.2%. On echocardiography, the left ventricle was dilated (end-diastolic diameter 61 mm) and left-ventricular systolic function was reduced (ejection fraction 40%) with a moderate mitral-valve regurgitation, increased systolic pulmonary-arterial pressure (55–60 mmHg) and large bilateral pleural effusion (Fig. 1). The pleural effusion was drained subsequently and heart failure treatment was started with furosemide (2 9 40 mg/ day) and metoprolol (1 9 23.75 mg/day). Due to refractory heart failure symptoms and increasing evidence of placenta insufficiency after 3 days of heart failure treatment, a Caesarean section was decided which was well tolerated by the patient and the baby. Six days post section echocardiography showed further decrease of the leftventricular function (EF 25%). Relapsing pleural effusion was drained again and heart failure medication was carefully up-titrated to bisoprolol (1 9 5 mg/day), ramipril (1 9 5 mg/day), torasemide (1 9 20 mg/day) which was paralleled by symptomatic improvement (NYHA II-III). In addition, bromocriptine (2 9 2.5 mg/day) was given to stop lactation. An echocardiography examination 2 months after delivery showed an improvement of left-ventricular function (EF 39%) with only mild mitral-valve regurgitation and no evidence for pulmonary hypertension. Peripartum cardiomyopathy is an idiopathic form of dilated cardiomyopathy characterized by depressed R. Pfister (&) K. F. Frank S. Rosenkranz G. Michels Medizinische Klinik III fur Innere Medizin, Herzzentrum der Universitat zu Koln, Kerpener Str. 62, 50924 Cologne, Germany e-mail: roman.pfister@uk-koeln.de

Laudatio for Professor Dr. Dr. h.c. Syed M. Qaim

Professor Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Syed Muhammad Qaim was brought up in Pakistan. He obtained both his B.Sc. (1958) and M.Sc. (1961) from the Government College and Punjab University in Lahore, Pakistan. He received his Ph.D. in Nuclear Chemistry in 1964 from Liverpool University and D.Sc. in Applied Nuclear Science in 1977 from Birmingham University in England. He then received his Habilitation in Nuclear Chemistry in 1993 from Universitat zu Koln, Germany. Upon graduation with Ph.D., Dr. Qaim joined Birmingham University as a Research Associate (1964–66). He then served as a Senior Scientific Officer, Atomic Energy Centre in Lahore, Pakistan during 1966–68. He was an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at Johannes Gutenberg-Universitat Mainz, Germany (1968–70). Dr. Qaim then joined the Nuclear Research Centre, Julich, Germany in 1970. He spent the next 36 years at the Centre in various capacities such as a Scientist (1970–75), a Group Leader (1975–85), and a Division Leader (1985–2006) in the Institute of Nuclear Chemistry. He also served as an Acting Director (1995–96), and as the Vice-Director (1996–2006) of the Institute of Nuclear Chemistry. Additionally, since 1997 he has been a Professor of Nuclear Chemistry at Universitat zu Koln and is still teaching there. Since 2006, after his retirement, he is a Guest/Advisor at his old Institute of Nuclear Chemistry, Research Centre Julich. Furthermore, he holds a UNESCO-funded Research Professorship at the Third World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) in Trieste, Italy. Professor Qaim has very broad research interests in fundamental as well as applied aspects of nuclear chemistry, from Mossbauer spectroscopy, nuclear spectroscopy, nuclear reactions, and nuclear data to cyclotron-produced radionuclides. His fundamental work in Mossbauer spectroscopy dealt with Co incorporated in 32 different metal lattices via electrolytic deposition and high temperature diffusion. He was the first one to show that the linebroadening of the source in certain metals is caused by quadrupole splitting. The four pioneering papers published on this topic in the late sixties have become classic. His fundamental work in nuclear spectroscopy and nuclear reactions dealt with decay properties of nuclei. In the sixties Prof. Qaim discovered five new radionuclides, namely Nb, Mo, Mo, Xe and Pb, and characterized several others such as I, I, Cs, Np. In the seventies he concentrated on low-yield complex particle emission reactions, e.g. (n,t), (n,He), (n,Be) and (p,Be), which could only be studied via a combination of activation techniques with very precise radiochemical separations and low-level counting techniques as well as statistical model calculations based on the Hauser-Feshbach formalism. Prof. Qaim was awarded the Eotvos Lorand Medal of the Hungarian Physical Society in 1988 for his pioneering work in this field. In recent years, Prof. Qaim has become more interested in the fundamental aspects of the formation of isomeric Prepared by Professor Dr. A. Chatt (Halifax, Canada), Chairman of the Hevesy Medal Award Selection Panel 2008, President of the International Committee on Activation Analysis (ICAA). Narrated by Professor Dr. L. Wojnarovits (Budapest, Hungary), Co-Chairman of the 7th International Conference on Nuclear and Radiochemistry (NRC-7), Budapest, 2008. Hevesy Medal and Scroll presented by Professor Dr. Dr. h.c. Tibor Braun (Budapest, Hungary), Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry.

The Sapientiale of Thomas of York, OFM: The Fortunes and Misfortunes of a Critical Edition

The absence of a critical edition of the Sapientiale by Thomas of York (composed in the mid-thirteenth century) yields a lacuna in our knowledge of the history of medieval philosophy. This article traces the history of scholarship concerning the text by specialists on the early Franciscan school at Oxford and by teachers and students at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies in Toronto, and presents the status quaestionis concerning the life, career and writings of Thomas of York. Finally, the article announces the plan for a forthcoming edition of the Sapientiale under the supervision of an International Advisory Board centered at the Thomas-Institut der Universitat zu Koln. An Appendix by Joseph Goering records the preliminary work on the text of the Sapientiale done at Toronto.

Ein kölner Fragment aus den Miracula des heiligen Georg

A fragment of the Coptic miracles of St George, housed in the small collection of Aegyptiaca at the Seminar fur Agyptologie, Universitat zu Koln, is edited here for the first time. A parchment folio of the 9th/10th century contains part of the ninth and the beginning of the tenth miracle of St George in a Coptic dialect with peculiarities that seem typical of the area around Hermopolis. The differences and similarities of this new Coptic witness with regard to Sahidic, Bohairic, and Ethiopic manuscripts are discussed in detail and the miracles of St George are viewed in their social and cultural context.

Richard Strauss: Autographen, Portrats, Buhnenbilder. Ausstellung zum 50. Todestag (review)

Richard Strauss: Autographen, Portrats, Buhnenbilder. Ausstellung zum 50. Todestag. Edited by Hartmut Schaefer. In Zusammenarbeit mit: Richard-Strauss-Archiv, Garmisch; Theaterwissenschaftliche Sammlung, Universitat zu Koln; Deutsches Theatermuseum, Munchen. Munich: Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, 1999. [336 p. ISBN 3-9802700-4-1. euro34.] Illustrations, color plates, bibliography, index. In the five years that it has taken for this marvelous catalog prepared for the fiftieth anniversary of Richard Strauss's death to reach North American shores, we have arrived at the 140th anniversary of his birth. The exhibition of Strauss holographs (manuscripts, letters), portraits, production materials, and other primary sources documented in this catalog opened at the Bayerisches Staatsbibliothek on 8 September 1999, fifty years to the day after his death. The Bayerisches Staatsbibliothek has long been a collector of Straussiana and currently holds sixty-four music autographs, around two thousand autograph letters and other documents, and many first-edition prints of Strauss's works. For this exhibition, its own collection was augmented by materials loaned by the Richard-Strauss-Archiv in Garmisch. Understandably, there is a certain Munich-centeredness to the catalog, with an essay on the premieres and first performances of Strauss's operas in Munich and documentation of Strauss's concerts in the city between 1894 and 1932, not to mention that section of the exhibition itself devoted to his two periods as a conductor at the Munich Court Opera (1886-89 and 1894-98). The catalog is in two parts: the catalog proper and an introduction consisting of six scholarly essays on aspects of the exhibition. Color facsimiles and halftones are lavishly spread throughout the entire work. In general, the former are reseived for sketch or other autograph material, portraits, and stage or costume designs, with photographs of people and productions reproduced in halftone. Two appendices (a discography of Strauss as a conductor of his own works and a list of Munich premieres and performances during Strauss's lifetime), a bibliography, and an index of proper names conclude the work. There were 642 items in the exhibition. In the catalog, each item is given a detailed description (physical description, library sigla, provenance, etc.), written by Schaefer with the assistance of Sigrid von Moisy, Monika Holl, Roswitha Schlotterer-Traimer, and Reinhold Schlotterer (the latter two also helped choose the items to be displayed). The catalog, and one assumes the exhibition itself, is divided into ten principal sections: biography; original portraits; operas; early works; apprentice works; choral works and melodramas; lieder; tone poems; late works; and Strauss's activity as a conductor at the Munich Court Opera. Each is prefaced by a longer introduction to the general topic. The largest sections, logically, are those devoted to the operas, Strauss's biography, and the tone poems. The biographical section is particularly interesting, as it includes some excurses on areas such as Strauss's relationship with Bayreuth and the Wagner family, his service to the profession through his work to ensure copyright protections for composers, and his leadership in the Allgemeine Deutsche Musikverein. Each of Strauss's operas is discussed, but those works for which the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek owns considerable material (e.g., Guntram, Elektra, Der Rosenhavalier, Arabella, Daphne, and Die liebe der Danae) are treated more exhaustively than those for which it does not (e.g. Feuersnot). In fact, the only noticeable gap in the exhibition's coverage of Strauss's works in general is a lack of discussion of the Alpensinjonie. and the Sinfonia domestica. Throughout the catalog, the annotation is exemplary. Many of the item descriptions are supplemented by excerpts from primary source material such as letters or memoirs, often published for the first lime. …

Uberleben schreiben: Zur Autobiographik der Shoah

Gunter, Manuela, ed. Uberleben schreiben: Zur Autobiographik der Shoah. Wurzburg: Konigshausen und Neumann, 2002. 218 pp. euro25.00 paperback. In keeping with current trends in Holocaust history and historiography, Manuela Gunter, academic advisor at the Institut fur deutsche Sprache und Literatur der Universitat zu Koln, has edited a series of essays on the issue of survivor autobiography. In recent years, many scholars of the Shoah have moved into the arena of memory and trauma studies, using as conceptual guides such pathbreaking works as Lawrence Langer's Holocaust Testimonies and Dominick LaCapra's History and Memory after Auschwitz. This new direction has accompanied research on gender and the impact of the Holocaust on women as women and men as men. Gunter's collection contributes to this growing body of scholarship by offering numerous analyses of Holocaust texts-both written and oral. The essays fall mainly into two categories: (1) assessments of language and representation; and (2) literary criticisms of written works (most notably Imre Kertesz's Fateless and Benjamin Wilkomirski'siVagTnewis). The essays on discourse are predictably dense and jargon-heavy, replete with post-structuralist favorites like tropes, mimesis, auctorial, and signification. While the use of high academic prose is not in and of itself problematic, the resulting lack of clarity, or more accurately, the choice of complicated language in putting forward otherwise intelligible theses, is jarring. There are numerous issues that could be ventilated in such a way as to reach a wider audience. Langer, for instance, has been able to address, in both an elegant and accessible fashion, the extent to which survivors, their editors, and in the case of oral histories, interviewers, create order from chaos. He has been equally adept at addressing the degree to which reality and truth are possible in light of fragile memories and the use of second or third or invented languages to describe these memories. Erich Kleindschmidt, in his essay on the problem of Holocaust authorship, uses reasonable precision in his assertions that survivors often use suffocated words in their recreations and that burrowing under all attempts at ordering is a persistent loss of time and meaning (80). Some of the more problematic aspects of the collection can be found in the literary analyses. The decision to have three essays on Kertesz's work is curious. Kertesz, a Hungarian Jew, won the Nobel Prize for literature in 2002 for his body of work that included his1975 novel about the concentration camp experiences of a fifteen year old boy-a pseudo-autobiographical account of his own incarceration in Auschwitz. His book was translated into English in 1992 as Fateless, and then in 1999 in German as Roman eines Schicksallosen. …

Fuzzy classification of geophysical well logs for the purpose of lithological determination using an example from the Upper Carboniferous: A. Toumani, Mitteilungen — Institut fur Geophysik und Meteorologie, Universitat zu Koln, 102, 1995, 132 pp

Fuzzy classification of geophysical well logs for the purpose of lithological determination using an example from the Upper Carboniferous: A. Toumani, Mitteilungen — Institut fur Geophysik und Meteorologie, Universitat zu Koln, 102, 1995, 132 pp

Congenital Lactic Acidosis: PET and MRS Studies

Positron emission tomography (PET) and proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) identified an increase in rate of cerebral glycolysis (PET) and cerebral lactate (MRS) in 2 children with defective mitochondrial respiration and congenital lactic acidosis studied at the Universitat zu Koln, Germany, and the University Hospital, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.

Predictive value of exercise of testing in the evaluation of high risk patients prior to lung resection: Pothoff G, Wassermann K, Winter UJ, Hilger HH. Klinik III fur Innere Medizin, Universitat zu Koln, Joseph-Stelzmann-Strasse 9, D-50931 Koln. Z Kardiol 1994;83:Suppl 3: 169–172

Predictive value of exercise of testing in the evaluation of high risk patients prior to lung resection: Pothoff G, Wassermann K, Winter UJ, Hilger HH. Klinik III fur Innere Medizin, Universitat zu Koln, Joseph-Stelzmann-Strasse 9, D-50931 Koln. Z Kardiol 1994;83:Suppl 3: 169–172

MR imaging of the adrenal glands. Diagnosis and differentiation using fast gradient echo sequences and contrast-enhanced dynamic studies (In German) : Krestin GP, Lorenz R, Steinbrich W. (Institut und Poliklinic fur Radiologische Diagnostik der Universitat zu Koln Joseph-Stelzmann-Strasse 9 D-5000 Koln 41, FRG). Radiologe 1990;30:228–234

MR imaging of the adrenal glands. Diagnosis and differentiation using fast gradient echo sequences and contrast-enhanced dynamic studies (In German) : Krestin GP, Lorenz R, Steinbrich W. (Institut und Poliklinic fur Radiologische Diagnostik der Universitat zu Koln Joseph-Stelzmann-Strasse 9 D-5000 Koln 41, FRG). Radiologe 1990;30:228–234

Algebraic Linear Programming

The algebraic approach to network-flow problems discussed by Burkard and Zimmermann (Burkard, R. E., U. Zimmermann. 1977. Weakly admissible transformations for solving algebraic assignment and transportation problems. Balinski and Padperg, eds. Report 1977-8, Mathematische Institut der Universitat Zu Koln (1977). To appear in Math. Prog. Stud.) is generalized to linearly-constrained problems. The aim is to choose a real nonnegative n-vector N that minimizes c(x) subject to finitely many linear equations with positive right-hand sides where the range S of c(·) is totally ordered and c satisfies other algebraic assumptions. This structure includes lexicographic linear programs in which c(x) = Cx where C is a matrix with n lenieographically-nonnegative columns and S is totally ordered by the lexicographic order. This problem in turn includes ordinary and bottleneck linear programs. A primal-dual method is given for solving these “algebraic” linear programs.