von Alf Ross., KČSN, and Akademische Abhandlung zur Erlangung der Doktorwürde mit Genehmigung der humanistischen Sektion der weitberühmten philosophischen Fakultät in Uppsala
Motivated by the fact that logicians and computer scientists working
in fuzzy logic hardly seem to take notice of the prolific and broad discourse on vagueness in analytic philosophy, we provide an overview of the most irnportant topics and trends in the ‘vagueness debate’. In particnlar we list a range of different phenornena of vagueness that should be addressed by any full-fledged theory of vagueness. Moreover we propose a classiíication of theories of vagueness and suggest various criteria for their evaluation.
The paper presents new methodology how to find and estimate the main features of time series to achieve the reduction of their components (dimensionality reduction) and so to provide the compression of information contained in it under keeping the selected features invariant. The presented compression algorithm is based on estimation of truncated time series components in such a way that the spectrum functions of both original and truncated time series are sufficiently close together. In the end, the set of examples is shown to demonstrate the algorithm performance and to indicate the applications of the presented methodology.
BACKGROUND: The current treatment of hereditary hemochromatosis (HH) consists of performing periodic whole blood phlebotomies. Erythrocytapheresis (EA) can remove up to three times more red blood cells per single procedure and could thus have a clinical benefit. A prospective study of 30 consecutive cases of HH were included in a periodic EA program. METHODS AND PATIENTS: EA were performed using a discontinuous flow cell separators. The protocol consisted of a bimonthly EA until normalization of the serum ferritin was reached. The aim was to reduce the total erythrocyte volume by 25-35%, eventually, to adjust the amount so that hematocrit would not drop below 0.25. RESULTS: 530 +/- 101 ml of erythrocytes were removed (median 517, range 116-761 ml). Iron depletion (ferritin < 20 microg/l) was achieved in all patients after a mean 6.9 +/- 7.6 months, median 5 months, range 1-36 months and a mean 14 EA sessions. The procedures were well tolerated and there were no severe side-effects. CONCLUSIONS: We conclude that HH patients treated with EA achieved iron depletion quickly under good conditions of tolerance. The efficacy, speed, tolerability, and more favorable schedule of an EA program facilitate treatment of HH. and V. Rehácek, M. Bláha, H. Jirousová, J. Cernohorská, P. Papousek