The physical activity (PA) intention-behaviour gap is a topic of considerable contemporary research, given that most of our models used to understand physical activity suggest that intention is the proximal antecedent of behavioural enactment. The purpose of this study was to quantify the intention-PA gap at public health guidelines with ...

My greatest achievement has been finishing a marathon run in reasonable time. Guaranteed to make me laugh is Loriot (German humorist).

In the field of radiotherapy, Monte Carlo (MC) particle transport calculations are recognized for their superior accuracy in predicting dose and fluence distributions in patient geometries compared to analytical algorithms which are generally used for treatment planning due to their shorter execution times. In this work, a newly developed MC-based ...

The critical closing pressure (PCRIT), a quantitative assessment of upper airway collapsibility, is derived from pressure flow relationship during sleep. The analytic generation of the pressure flow relationships are non-standardized due to various regression models (linear, spline, median), breath characteristics (flow limited, non-flow limited) or known covariates (sleep stage, body ...

OBJECTIVE: Radiation can be delivered via four-field box (BOX-RT) or intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT). We sought to evaluate the cost-effectiveness (C/E) of IMRT relative to BOX-RT for the treatment of locally advanced cervical cancer. METHODS: A three-year Markov model with eight-week cycles was developed to compare IMRT to BOX-RT. ...

We investigated ultrasound-enhanced thrombolysis in two whole-blood clot models using a Food and Drug Administration-approved contrast agent (Definity, Lantheus Medical Imaging; Billerica, MA USA) and thrombolytic drug (recombinant tissue-type plasminogen activator [rt-PA]) (Genentech; South San Francisco, CA USA). Porcine venous blood was collected from donor hogs and coagulated in vials ...

PURPOSE: This study developed and tested an algorithm to classify accelerometer data as walking or non-walking using either GPS or travel diary data within a large sample of adults under free-living conditions. METHODS: Participants wore an accelerometer and a GPS unit, and concurrently completed a travel diary for 7 consecutive ...

Modified constraint induced movement therapy (mCIT) increases paretic upper extremity use and movement in all phases of stroke. Although fundamental to its appropriate implementation, specific details on day to day implementation on this promising family of therapies have not heretofore been published. Consequently, some integral behavioral facets of mCIT may ...

The goal of radiotherapy is to achieve uniform target coverage while sparing normal tissue. In proton therapy, the same sources of geometric uncertainty are present as in conventional radiotherapy. However, an important and fundamental difference in proton therapy is that protons have a finite range, highly dependent on the electron ...

As a first step toward the development of adapted physical activity (PA) programs for adults with visual impairment (VI), the purpose of this study was to determine the time frame needed to reliably estimate weekly PA in adults with VI. Thirty-three adults with VI completed 7 days of pedometer-based PA ...

Obesity and other chronic conditions linked with low levels of physical activity (PA) are associated with deprivation. One reason for this could be that it is more difficult for low-income groups to access recreational PA facilities such as swimming pools and sports centres than high-income groups. In this paper, we ...

Fibrinolysis, the proteolytic degradation of the fibrin fibres that stabilize blood clots, is initiated when tissue-type plasminogen activator (tPA) activates plasminogen to plasmin, the main fibrinolytic enzyme. Many experiments have shown that coarse clots made of thick fibres lyse more quickly than fine clots made of thin fibres, despite the ...

BACKGROUND: The Youth Physical Activity Promotion (YPAP) model provides an integrated approach to understanding the predisposing, enabling, and reinforcing factors influencing physical activity (PA) behavior. The purpose of this study was to evaluate an adapted version of the YPAP model for explaining PA among Portuguese schoolchildren. METHODS: A random cross-sectional ...

The International Commission on Radiation Units and Measurements (ICRU) Report Committee on "Bioeffect Modeling and Biologically Equivalent Dose Concepts in Radiation Therapy" is currently developing a comprehensive and consistent framework for radiobiological effect modeling based on the equieffective dose, EQDX(α)(/)(β), a concept encompassing BED and EQD2 as special cases.

BACKGROUND. Accelerometers have become one of the most common methods of measuring physical activity (PA). Thus, validity of accelerometer data reduction approaches remains an important research area. Yet, few studies directly compare data reduction approaches and other PA measures in free-living samples. OBJECTIVE. To compare PA estimates provided by three ...

BACKGROUND. Physical activity (PA) and related energy expenditure (EE) is often assessed by means of a single technique. Because of inherent limitations, single techniques may not allow for an accurate assessment both PA and related EE. The aim of this study was to develop a model to accurately assess common ...

BACKGROUND: The validity of common pedometer steps/min guidelines for 1st through 12th grade physical education physical activity (PA) recommendations (i.e., 33% and 50% PA) was investigated. METHODS: Data sets from previous research, where physical education PA was quantified via pedometry, were combined. Participants (1st-12th grade, N=1,152) with concurrent steps/min and ...

Background: In its simplest definition, percutaneous absorption (PA) is the amount of substance that passes through the stratum corneum compared with the amount applied. The study of the PA of substances is relevant to the fields of dermatopharmacology and occupational medicine. The quantity and rate in which a given chemical ...

Reviews the book, Beyond the Crisis of Masculinity: A Transtheoretical Model for Male-Friendly Therapy (see record 2009-10636-000). The foci of this book is to review the history of psychotherapy with men, to identify the conflicts men experience when confronted with mental health concerns across multicultural identities, to integrate men's issues ...

BACKGROUND: The purpose of this study was to compare the 2006 and 2010 Crouter algorithms, for the ActiGraph accelerometer, and the NHANES and Matthews cut-points, to indirect calorimetry during a 6-hr free-living measurement period. METHODS: Twenty-nine participants (mean±SD; age, 38±11.7 yrs; BMI, 25.0±4.6 kg.m-2) were monitored for 6-hrs while at ...

Utilizing the recently developed ONIOM-ccCA methodology, the proton affinities (PAs) of small biomolecules (∼15 nonhydrogen atoms) were determined. The ONIOM-ccCA method was used to predict the PAs of eight amine-containing molecules and these predictions were then compared with experiment. In these comparisons, a protocol for the determination of the model ...

Unlike able-bodied ambulatory population, wheelchair users do not have adequate access to technologies that monitor and motivate physical activity (PA). We developed a physical activity monitoring and sharing platform (PAMS) especially suited for capturing PA that are part of the lifestyle in wheelchair users and motivating them to be physically ...

The neurovascular unit is a coordinated and interactional system of neurons, astrocytes, and microvessels in the brain. A central autoregulation mechanism observed in this unit is functional hyperemia, in which the microvasculature dilates in response to local neural activity in order to meet the increased demand for blood flow and ...

The biological hypothesis that the astrocyte-secreted cytokine, interleukin-6 (IL6), stimulates differentiation of adult rat hippocampal progenitor cells (AHPCs) is considered from a mathematical perspective. The proposed mathematical model includes two different mechanisms for stimulation and is based on mass-action kinetics. Both biological mechanisms involve sequential binding, with one pathway solely ...

Narrative therapy (White & Epston, 1990) was developed as an approach to counselling, as a response to the power relations that influence people's lives. Its use with people who stutter has been documented. A basic tenet of narrative therapy is that the dominant problem-saturated narrative is challenged by externalizing the ...

In South Africa, vervet monkeys (Chlorocebus aethiops) are frequently persecuted, resulting in large numbers of injured and/or orphaned animals. Rehabilitation centres aim to care for these monkeys and ultimately return them to the wild whenever possible. However, it is unknown whether rehabilitation is successful in its goal of creating wild-living, ...

Upper limb robotic rehabilitation devices can collect quantitative data about the user's movements. Identifying relationships between robotic sensor data and manual clinical assessment scores would enable more precise tracking of the time course of recovery after injury and reduce the need for time-consuming manual assessments by skilled personnel. This study ...

Background: Payment for treatment in healthcare systems around the world is increasingly based on fixed tariff models to drive up efficiency and contain costs. Casemix classifications, however, must account adequately for the resource implications of varying case complexity. Rehabilitation poses some particular challenges for casemix development. Objective: The objectives of ...

Collaboration between welfare organizations is an important strategy for integrating different health and welfare services. This article reports a review of the international literature on vocational rehabilitation, focusing on different organizational models of collaboration as well as different barriers and facilitating factors. The review was based on an extensive search ...

Patients report a wide variety of emotional responses following stroke. Some individuals find the process of adjusting to their changed circumstances extremely difficult, while others cope well. Predicting and understanding patients' adjustment to stroke therefore poses challenges within rehabilitation settings. While research has revealed some of the variables associated with ...

To be considered for release, raptors undergoing rehabilitation must have recovered from their initial injury in addition to being clinically healthy. For that purpose, a good understanding of reference hematologic values is important in determining release criteria for raptors in a rehabilitation setting. In this study, retrospective data were tabulated ...

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: Although principles based in motor learning, rehabilitation, and human-computer interfaces can guide the design of effective interactive systems for rehabilitation, a unified approach that connects these key principles into an integrated design, and can form a methodology that can be generalized to interactive stroke rehabilitation, is presently unavailable. ...

Current rehabilitation technology and techniques have proven effective at modifying and correcting gait abnormalities. They are however limited to laboratory and clinical settings, under the supervision of a specialist. Conventional techniques for quantifying gait asymmetries can be combined with sensory feedback methods to provide an intuitive and inexpensive feedback system ...

This paper argues that basing cybertherapy approaches on a theoretical understanding of the brain has advantages. On one hand it provides for a rational approach towards therapy design while on the other allowing for a direct validation of brain theory in the clinic. As an example this paper discusses how ...

In this paper, we explore the combined use of inertial sensors and the Kinect for applications on rehabilitation robotics and assistive devices. In view of the deficiencies of each individual system, a new method based on Kalman filtering was developed in order to perform online calibration of sensor errors automatically ...

In this paper, we discuss a strategy for the adaptation of the "difficulty level" in games intended to include motor planning during robotic rehabilitation. We consider concurrently the motivation of the user and his/her performance in a Pong game. User motivation is classified in three levels (not motivated, well motivated ...

Modeling of human movements became very important as modern methods in informatics and engeniering are available to discern human movement characteristics that were hidden before. The construction of models of neural control and mechanical execution of human movements helps the diagnosis of movement disorders and predicts the outcome of clinical ...

This study introduces the concept design and analysis of a robotic system for the assistance and rehabilitation of disabled people. Based on the statistical data of the most common types of disabilities in Spain and other industrialized countries, the different tasks that the device must be able to perform have ...

Purpose. Despite widespread educational and promotional efforts, paediatric rehabilitation therapists still do not systematically or routinely use outcome measures. Method. A review of contextual and psychosocial factors affecting therapists' use of outcome measures was performed, incorporating information from past studies of barriers to therapists' use of measures and more recent information about ...

BACKGROUND: Currently international literature describes physiotherapy in cerebral palsy (CP) children only in generic terms (traditional / standard / background / routine). AIM: The aim of this study is to create a checklist capable of describing the different modalities employed in physiotherapeutic treatment by means of a non-bias, common, universal, ...

Here, we show for one of the Dutch Rhine River branches that large-scale riverine ecosystem rehabilitation and related vegetation succession may lead to up to 0.6 m higher river flood levels, because of increased hydraulic roughness. We hydraulically modeled future succession stages of embanked floodplain vegetation, following from present ecosystem ...

The partial rupture of ligament fibres leads to an injury known as grade 2 sprain. Wound healing after injury consists of four general stages: swelling, release of platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF), fibroblast migration and proliferation and collagen production. The aim of this paper is to present a mathematical model based ...

As rehabilitation of previously channelized rivers becomes more common worldwide, flexible integrative modelling tools are needed to help predict the morphological, hydraulic, economic, and ecological consequences of the rehabilitation activities. Such predictions can provide the basis for planning and long-term management efforts that attempt to balance the diverse interests of ...

A growing body of evidence suggests that in addition to hypoxia, ischemia-reperfusion injury, and intrinsic host factors, bacterial biofilms represent a fourth major pillar in chronic wound pathogenesis. Given that most studies to date rely on in vitro or observational clinical data, our aim was to develop a novel, quantitative ...

OBJECTIVE: Due to the complications arising from gunshot wounds to the maxillofacial region, traditional models of gunshot wounds cannot meet our research needs. In this study, we established a finite element model and conducted preliminary simulation and analysis to determine the injury mechanism and degree of damage for gunshot wounds ...

Radiation and wound combined injury represents a major clinical challenge because of the synergistic interactions that lead to higher morbidity and mortality than either insult would produce singly. The purpose of this study was to develop a mouse ear punch model to study the physiological mechanisms underlying radiation effects on ...

Being human implies a particular moral status: having moral value, agency, and responsibility. However, people are not seen as equally human. Across two studies, we examine the consequences that subtle variations in the perceived humanness of actors or groups have for their perceived moral status. Drawing on Haslam's two-dimensional model ...

Summary The standard estimator for the cause-specific cumulative incidence function in a competing risks setting with left truncated and/or right censored data can be written in two alternative forms. One is a weighted empirical cumulative distribution function and the other a product-limit estimator. This equivalence suggests an alternative view of ...

In medical studies of time-to-event data, nonproportional hazards and dependent censoring are very common issues when estimating the treatment effect. A traditional method for dealing with time-dependent treatment effects is to model the time-dependence parametrically. Limitations of this approach include the difficulty to verify the correctness of the specified functional ...

Case-cohort sampling is a commonly used and efficient method for studying large cohorts. Most existing methods of analysis for case-cohort data have concerned the analysis of univariate failure time data. However, clustered failure time data are commonly encountered in public health studies. For example, patients treated at the same center ...